December 6,
2006
Love For
All, No Strings Attached
“What the
world needs now is love, sweet love.”
These words
are just as true today as they were when legendary composer Burt
Bacharach penned them in the 1960s and Dionne Warwick sang them.
But what
kind of love do we really need? Is it the take-a-number partnering
splashed all over the tabloids? Is it the explicit lust portrayed on
late-night cable? Is it the romantic daydream depicted in best-selling
bodice-rippers?
“No, not
just for some, but for everyone.”
For
everyone? Hold the phone here. What kind of love embraces those who use
airplanes to kill thousands of people who have done them no wrong?
What kind
of loves includes those who send a deadly substance like anthrax through
the mail?
What kind
of love accepts those who put profits before the environment? Who hunt
animals purely for sport and a wall trophy?
What kind
of love embraces those who, fearing for their own safety, invade a
country that had nothing to do with harming their countrymen? Or who
hold captives for years without charges, violating international and
even their own country’s legal standards?
What kind
of love acknowledges gays and lesbians, or those who have had abortions
or have performed them?
The
unconditional kind of love, that’s what.
Unconditional love (what some call agape) is a great enduring mystery
for most of us because the love we have experienced is so conditional.
This only too familiar love has strings attached along with
expectations.
Conditional
love (with all those strings) is limited love. This love sets boundaries
(conditions/limitations) on those who are worthy to receive it.
Conditions like being a certain race, religion, gender or sexual
orientation, or being affiliated with a certain political party.
Conditional love demands that we believe certain things, do certain
acts, speak in certain ways – or we do not deserve to be loved.
Conditional
love is not only limited, it is painful and divisive. Conditional love
divides us from ourselves, from our families, from our neighbors, from
the world. Conditional love sets some apart as “chosen” or “saved” or
otherwise “special,” and demonizes anyone who doesn’t belong to the
elect group.
Conditional
love inspires jihadists and crusaders alike to a murderous and
oppressive mockery of spirituality that gives God a bad name in many
people’s eyes.
Unconditional love, however, is the genuine, ultimately profound
spiritual quest. Those who doubt this might consult the Bible (Matthew
22, 34-40). When asked which is the greatest commandment, Jesus first
admonished his listeners to love God. He then added a second and equally
important directive: “…love thy neighbor as thyself.”
Note the
construction of the latter part of that sentence. “As thyself.”
Jesus was trying to highlight an equivalence that is as fundamental as
that of matter and energy. We have the ability to love each other only
to the extent that we first love ourselves.
This makes
a great deal of sense. We cannot give to another that which we have not
already claimed for ourselves precisely because we do not own it. If we
do not own unconditional self-love, we cannot give unconditional love to
our Creator or anyone else.
Conditional
love is painful to receive. It’s equally as painful to give, too, since
it flows straight from our own limited self-love.
We are
certainly free to continue loving self and others under the same old
painful conditions and expectations. We have free will that is
unconditionally free, ironically granting us the right to be as limited
as our fears tell us we should be.
Conditional
love doesn’t seem to be working too well for most of us, however. In
fact, it seems almost un-American, if we truly are the land of the brave
and the home of the free.
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