Tolstoy and God's Love

I was reading Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina on the way back to school today (listening to it on CD, actually), and (oh, it's amazing, btw) as Tolstoy was elaborating on some of the character's intricate feelings for each other (think of A K as Pride & Prejudice with better insights and a more complex plot, for Russians), I started thinking about God's love for us. I agree that God loves us. Yes. Good. Now that we all agree on that -- what does God's love for us look like? Clearly, it can not be direectly compared to any kind of love that we experience from each other, since we are imperfect and God is perfect. From the one side I hear that God did not need to make man. He was self-sufficient without man. . . and yet he did make us. . . out of love. God's overabundance poured out into the outlet of creation and made something as an expression of that love. But still, God doesn't need us, is fine without us. Does it even affect him if he doesn't have us? If so, how does that follow his not needing us?
On the other side, the church is the New Testament's bride of Christ. A metaphor, but one with some striking implications (to me). If God loves us like a man loves his bride, that's a passionate, (can I say) dependent love. Much of the happiness of the groom depends on the happiness of the bride. Is God's happiness contingent on ours? On the church as a whole's?
If God's love is perfect (vs any we know as men), then how do these two sides reconcile? Thoughts? Criticisms? Answers?

a first blog

Whoa, I have a new blog.

The name is kinda postmodern in that it makes me think of Beowulf, fish, and the "ish" suffix that our generation is so fond of . . . since I can't be Beowulf, I'll be Beowulfish. This is Grendel's Lair, home of random, philosophical, and linguistic ADD posts. Hrothgars beware! . . .this is no mead hall.