Unconditional love

We live in a culture of conditional love.

The attitude is, "as long as you do what I say, and never hurt or offend me," I will love you.

As long as, as long as, as long as.

Yet Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7:

"Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."

Jean Vanier, founder of the L'Arche communities, told the following story about persevering in our practice of unconditional love:

"I know a man who lives in Paris. His wife has Alzheimer's. He was an important businessman—his life filled with busyness. But he said that when his wife fell sick, "I just couldn't put her into an institution, so I kept her. I fed her. I bathed her." I went to Paris to visit them, and this businessman who had been very busy all his life said, "I have changed. I have become more human."

I got a letter from him recently. He said that in the middle of the night his wife woke him up. She came out of the fog for a moment, and she said, "Darling, I just want to say thank you for all you've doing for me." Then she fell back into the fog. He told me, "I wept and I wept."

Sometimes Christ calls us to love people who cannot love us in return.

They live in the fog of mental illness, disabilities, poverty, or spiritual blindness. As we serve them, we may only receive fleeting glimpses of gratitude.

But just as Jesus has loved us in the midst of our spiritual confusion, so we continue to love others as they walk through a deep fog.

May we all love one another - unconditionally.  Just a thought for a Tuesday.