I used to think that unconditional love meant a sort of blissful unawareness of the faults of the one you’re loving. Meaning, we just don’t see the problems. Now, I would define unconditional love as: continuing to love a person even when they are driving you nutterz.
The only way I can do that at all is by knowing what Love is.
The question becomes, ‘How do we love when people are being decidedly unlovable’?
For me, it helps to remember that Love is divine, wholly perfect and omnipresent, and that Love is indeed the Creator of the universe, including each one of us.
When I’m thinking along these lines, it becomes clearer that those whom I would love are, in fact, emanations of that Love. This means that whatever unlovable traits the person is showing externally aren’t the final word on who they truly are as an expression of Love.
Sometimes I’ll come face to face with a moment when I realize I should be loving unconditionally right then. It’s like time stands still, and I have a choice to make and no matter what’s happening, I can choose to love with understanding rather than react with anger or impatience.
Just this morning, my 6 year old son did this for me. I was upset at him and being pretty verbal about it. He told me later, though, that he’d realized there was nothing else he could do but love me. He said that no matter what I said, he was thinking, “I love you, Dad.”
I love this passage from “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” by Mary Baker Eddy:
“Human affection is not poured forth vainly, even though it meet no return. Love enriches the nature, enlarging, purifying, and elevating it. The wintry blasts of earth may uproot the flowers of affection, and scatter them to the winds; but this severance of fleshly ties serves to unite thought more closely to the divine, for Love supports the struggling heart until it ceases to sigh over the world and begins to unfold its wings for heaven”.
It seems as if I’ve been learning about Love my whole life, but there’s always more to learn and explore and demonstrate. My mission now? To put unconditional love into practice every day.
