Full disclosure: I do not believe in unconditional love. Between humans there is no such thing, not even between a mother and child. Human love, such as it is, is flawed, imperfect because humans are, well, flawed, imperfect. I do believe in God and I believe in a God of love, but the smarmy, sappy, unconditional slop that was getting shilled from encounter group, to therapy group, to recovery group in the eighties has been nothing but a bill of goods. We have been scammed.
I know a Christian pastor who once told me that he loved me unconditionally. I should have run out of the coffee shop screaming. Fast. Like everyone who uses these words he likely meant it at the time but he was still lying through his teeth. Within months, after I told him I didn't like it when he was talking on his phone when we were out for dinner together and he walked out in a huff, then, after I emailed him pleading for reconciliation and he replied that our friendship was over and would not be revived and he still had the gall to tell me that I was always welcome in his church.
I have known others like him. Never use those words "unconditional love" because in doing so you are making yourself a liar while defrauding the other person of a friendship that is honest and real. None of our mutual transactions are going to be one hundred per cent altruistic. We are too selfish, too flawed and too cynical for this.
We can only try. It is not license to give up. We are always going to fail but if we do not at least make an effort of love without conditions we run the risk of further dehumanizing ourselves and each other. Each one of us is born with this obligation: that we are going to somehow improve what we already are. We are also all going to fail at this and fail miserably. That's okay. The very effort towards love itself will make us grow.
We may never see heaven on earth but we can always celebrate small victories.
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