Unconditional Love

Here's a controversial thought, for you...

Actually, before I launch into that, I read an interesting thought about controversy that I want to share. I'll be exploring this idea further in a future blog. The gist of it is this: controversial ideas are ones that people are afraid might be true. Basically, if I say "the moon is made of green cheese", that's not particularly controversial, because nobody really believes it and nobody really cares -- it's "whacky", but not "controversial." On the other hand, if I say "there is [an/no -- choose one] all-powerful God who created the heavens and Earth", folks will get all crazy and line up on either side, ignoring each other, shouting their positions and sometimes even going to war over their fear that somebody might believe the other side of the argument. That's controversial!

Tangent: We all knew that guy in high school whose idea of a "gorgeous girl" was one with two eyes and a nose (and, really, both eyes were optional), right? Most of us would chide him for his constant claim of "oh, my god -- I think I love that girl..." with some variation on "but you love every girl -- and some of ambiguous girl-ness...!" and, of course, he'd always claim "oh, that was yesterday -- this one's different!" I think it's fair to characterize this guy as fairly-universally scorned for his lack of discernment, yes? Even folks who weren't in close contact with this guy know of him and, even if they have some level of forgiveness (probably related to his other redeeming potential) for him, can understand the idea, here. In other words, not a whole lot of controversy around the idea that this guy -- swell pal though he may have been -- was a bit of a wanker when it comes to relationship-building.

I was reminded about this reading a few of my favorite blogs (luckily, most of them didn't do this) when they announced to the entire internet (and these are blogs with REAL readerships!) (I'm paraphrasing wildly, here): "Today [Thanksgiving day] I am thankful for each and every one of you, my readers. You are each my very bestest friend in the entire world and I love you more than any of the others."

But that's not really very controversial. A bit thick on the saccharine, maybe, but hardly a hanging offense.

Ok, anyway... here's my controversial thought for the day (the weekend, actually): "Unconditional love is meaningless."

This insight came up -- at all times -- during grace over Thanksgiving dinner. Of course we're all thankful for all of the wonderful things that we have: a warm home, plenty of food, a nice job, luxuries up the wahzoo, the best family and friends of anyone, ever, etc. But it was either during grace or shortly after that someone said something about giving unconditional love (I keep thinking it was during the prayer -- as one most-often hears that phrase in the context of something coming from God -- but it might have actually been in conversation, immediately following), and I got to thinking that descriptive words that cover everything just aren't very useful.

I mean, if I tell you that something is "blodjot" and you say "what the heck is 'blodjot'?!" and I explain that it's this sort of ineffable quality that everything has, and you ask how you can tell if something is blodjot and I explain that everything is blodjot well, then saying "look at that blodjot thing over there" just doesn't really give you any information, right?

And it gets even weirder with vague notions like "love." If I say I love you and you, knowing that I sometimes use words in non-standard ways, ask what I mean by that, and I explain that I love everybody -- ok, I haven't really told you anything. But then, if I go on to tell you that, not only do I love everybody, but that my love for all of mankind is without bounds, and unconditional -- there is nothing you or anyone else can do to either procure my love (since you already have it) or to lose it -- well, then it sort of becomes a no-op, right? I mean, your most logical reaction might be "<shrug>, ok, whatever..." And, in fact, you might think it rather odd if I were to suggest that you should get really excited and happy about the fact that I have this loving feeling for you -- the same one I have for your mom, my mom, our dog and Sadaam Hussein -- and that there's really nothing you can do about it, it's neither earned nor losable, well, you might think I'm being a bit crazy.

And yet this is exactly what we're (us Americans, raised on some Christian variation -- "my people") have drilled into us from the time we were little kids: some invisible, unknowable, unresponsive "being" has great love for you, and it's unconditional -- you can neither earn it (it's just yours, like it or not) nor lose it -- and it's the same for everyone (mom, dad, sis, bro, G.W. Bush, Sadaam and Oprah), and you should just be about as excited as a kitten with a new ball of string to know about it.

I don't get it.

I mean, the fact that I should be over-the-top excited about it sort of implies that, were this big-deal-thing not-true -- or if the opposite were true -- I should likely feel a big loss or be sad. And, yet, it seems that everything about this whole situation is unknowable and, really, has very little impact on my day to day life and, for all I know, it reverses itself when the sun rises and sets.

I'm assured by folks who claim to be in the know that it does not, in fact, reverse itself, ever -- and that's the big deal! -- but that's not the point...

The point is: yeah ...so? I mean, ok -- The Almighty God, himself loves me without bounds and unconditionally -- I suppose there's a bit of feel-good, there. But it just doesn't really impact my life, does it? I mean, as far as I can understand, he felt pretty much the same way about Hitler (oop, did my blog just get Goodwinized?!) -- so it's not like I'm super special or anything -- and he's not going to stop loving me if I become an axe murderer or drown a few babies, so it's not like I have any pride in having earned this uber-gift.

So I'm stuck in a sort of "yeah <shrug>, ok ...whatever" kind of mode about it.

Ok, no big. But the weird part, to me, is that this line of thinking is somehow controversial. I mean, I realize that my blog isn't exactly the NY Times, but I can imagine that a good half or more of the people who learn that I think this way would find it at least mildly offensive, and that anyone with whom I talk about it would probably tend to polarize on one end of the spectrum or the other, with the majority almost immediately jumping to the conclusion that I was some sort of heartless monster with no romance in my soul at all.

(For whatever it's worth, this would make the people who know me laugh out loud. Not so much that I'm such a syrupy sweet guy, but I do tend to love many things, and am a bit of a hopeless romantic...)

Anyhow... this is a time of year (and, in particular, this weekend) when it's traditional to reflect on all of the things for which one is thankful and certainly up toward the top of my list has to be all of the wonderful people in my life (yes, even the ones who abandoned us to move to Oregon! ;) I'm always amazed to learn how many people would happily consider some sort of "upgrade" for their spouse (mine is perfect, in every way! :), or who do not have several friends who they can count on in times of need, or to whom they would willingly lend $5000 without worry about whether or not it would ever come back to them or whatever. My daughter -- though I tease her about being a bit of a slacker -- is pretty much about as wonderful as anyone's kid I know, and has been since the day she was born (I can only assume that genetics played a large role, here :)) I've been pretty lucky in my career, thanks in large part to the support of family and friends, and I regularly get together with between a dozen and 40 of them for some of the best times of my life. I am extremely thankful for each and every one of them and love them all, dearly.

But my love is conditional: if any of you turn axe-murder-y or drown babies, I'm going to have to review your file...!

And even though I'm sure you're all very nice people, I don't really know the rest of the folks who surf the internet well enough to pass along any particularly strong sentiment. I do, of course, wish you a very happy holiday season, continuing through the next year and all the rest of your days. You get that one for free, just for being human. Heck, I even hope Sadaam has a nice Christmas, whatever that means for him...

[P.S. Isn't there some game people play where they try to enter something into Google and get exactly one hit? Anyway, in looking for images for this entry, I went to images.google.com and put in (no quotes) "the.creation adam god finger" and got exactly the picture I wanted as the one and only hit. Hardly cosmic, or anything, but I don't think I've ever had a 1-perfect-hit on the 1st try, before...]