Monday, November 14, 2005

Unconditional Love


Can we do it? Be it? What is it? What does it really mean?!

A friend of mine is struggling with this concept. She reminds me that I have struggled with this idea for a long time, but never written about it.

I wonder if it is a state to which we humans can aspire. It is certainly a worthy goal. And I believe that many of us can practice unconditional love in the general sense. You know, we ‘hold the people of the world in our hearts and wish them only love’. That’s good.
And that’s a piece of unconditional love.

But what about that in-your-face Aunt Fanny, who belongs to the other political party, hates your live-in girlfriend (and the fact that you have one), smokes like the diesel truck you can’t pass in traffic, eats with her mouth open – and lives next door?

Tough one, huh?
So, how do we get hold of, practice, and model unconditional love toward Aunt Fanny?

And what about your MOM? Not many will say they hate her.
But Moms are really BIG. Talk about in-your-face!

Add to that how vulnerable we are to them. Even the best moms can leave scars.
And there aren’t many ‘best’ moms.

I know one I consider to be a best mom. I could see it through all those years she was rearing her daughter. It shows in her child. Audrey is amazing on many levels, and as a young woman now, she is adding value to the lives of many through the work she has chosen and because of her high ethical standards.
Did her Mom rear her the very best way she knew? Yes.
Does she have any scars? Yes.
Will she, does she deal with them? Yes, because her mom worked on her own scars.

But these two are unique in my 58 years. I’ve never seen another Mother and Daughter who live like these two. Do they love unconditionally? I have no idea.

So what about the tougher cases?
What about the moms who didn’t want any kids in the first place?
What about the moms who wanted their daughter to be a son?
What about…..one could go on forever in this vein, but I think you get the point.

Unconditional love.

Can we do it?
Do you do it?
What does it mean?

Does it come with a cost?
Is it something you do, or something you are?
Can we love unconditionally someone we see every day, with whom we get periodically angry, or sad, or…anything?

Does unconditional love exist outside of all other emotions? Can we love unconditionally that mom who is killing herself by ignoring medical advice?
Does she have a reason? Does a reason matter?

I don’t know.

I’ve wondered many times if I know anything about love at all – any kind of love – for anyone.
I think I do. I think I love several people. Is it unconditional?
I can’t tell. When I’m angry or hurt, do I still love? I think so. Is it unconditional?

I don’t know.

Now and then I've thougth that I love very well. I can usually see another's side. I can put myself in anothers' shoes most of the time. (And more so, and more easily as I grow spiritually.)
But is that love, or just a broad view?

I don't know.

So talk to me of love.
Talk to me of unconditional love.
What does it mean to you? Are you adept?

Let’s talk.

4 Comments:

At 4:36 PM, Blogger Erin said...

OK, I´ll give it a go. I´ve been trying to get over here to comment all day, and now it´s late here, and you give really tough assignments, but I have no clue if anybody shares my view of this, which I have spent a lot of years thinking about, so here goes...

First, I am in a unique situation because I don´t see anybody every day. I live alone, always have, far from family, never married, never really have "shared" my daily life with anybody since I was a kid.
And I have no annoying Aunt Fanny. Blessed with sage Irish aunts and a tight, noncombatant, noncontrolling if Irish and terminally reserved extended family.

Unconditional love in a general sense, seeing the humanity in everybody and the Divine in everything, yep, I agree, it´s there. Perfect? No, but we try, and slip and readjust and try again, or we CAN anyway, if we are open to it.

But the only place I have experience with particular unconditional love (or not) is my parents. And I believe that I have gotten (finally :)) to a place where I love them both (one living, one gone) for who they are, not for what they do or did, or how they fulfilled my vision of the obligations of parenthood. going to another box to be safe, bear with me..

 
At 4:51 PM, Blogger Erin said...

Whew, you´re kidding with this in a comment box, right, Kate?

So, my dad - I loved blindly, then froze our cruelly when he disappointed me by cheating on my mother. But after working through my resentment for a long while,I found the closest I can say I ever have gotten to unconditional love for him, cases and cases of it, just behind the disappointment. I love my dad for who he was and who he was never came through more clearly than in who he was as the marriage ended and his beloved daughter iced him. His betrayal of my mom and me (more to story) was human, and was part of the fabric of his life. He died of lung cancer after smoking all his life, but no, I wasn't angry, because for me he was his own, free to make his choices and not obligated to stick around for me.
My mom is a more difficult relationship for me, when we are in the same continent but its better than it has ever been and I've come to a similar place - Do I have the mother daughter relationship of teen novels and movies and my Jewish and Spanish close-family friends? NO, But clearly I click more with some souls than other, the love grows stronger or we just let ourselves know each other better. Why do we assume we have to find that with our parents? And does her bugging me one day mean I don't love her? I say no. I love my mother for who she is, which is a wonderful, giving, spiritual alive woman, named Claire, who also had 2 children, by the way. I guess I see her as who she is, not in some preordained mother role. That said, as I mentioned at Laura's, I bask in the luxury of distance, and may soon have to face how she and I see my obligations as a daughter if she is suddenly left without a child within 3000 miles when (if) my brother moves after years of being the local one.

More than you bargained for? Weird independent single chick view?

good night......

 
At 11:41 AM, Blogger Erin said...

HEY WINNER!!
I´m out here naked all alone..


and the musings have continued, by the way.
Does unconditional love exist? I think yes, and we aspire to it (and correct and recorrect) but can prove it? Hmm well, what if it is actually God......I can name manisfestations, endless manifestations, but can I prove either God or unconditional love exists? Of course not. Is there some reason why I should? or need to?

 
At 7:55 PM, Blogger Kate Winner said...

No need at all to prove anything to me. Except that I want proof of both, really - God and love.

But 'wanting' is a thing in itself and can be enough...

More soon....

 

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