The love of good friends

I spent a week with friends, and it was so refreshing. These are the kind of friends with whom you can be real. You can say what you think and feel. You can be honest about who you are, and they will still love you…I think. That’s the problem with unconditional love, it seems so untrustworthy. Who gives unconditional love? Who gets unconditional love? In our world, that honestly doesn’t totally happen. Even with family. There’s a part of us that says, “I’ll love him/her no matter what.” But we all have limits. In the back of our minds there’s always a condition. For me, my conditions aren’t based on what a person does morally, but who a person is, personality-wise. This group is funny. They’ve been together for almost 30 years, so they are sure of their love for the other old-timers. But what about us newer members? And what about the fact that there are certain people in the group who annoy the hell out of me? I haven’t known them long enough or liked them enough to love them unconditionally. You know, I’ve always believed I could love people unconditionally, but there are certain conditions that have to be there for me to care enough about a person to love them unconditionally. For instance, there’s a person in this group who annoys me to death. He dominates every conversation and you can’t get a word in. He doesn’t ever listen to anybody else, just talks incessantly every time I’ve been in an unstructured conversation. I can’t love him unconditionally. And so when they tell me that the group loves unconditionally, I have to question that. For one thing there are only certain people that are allowed in the group. So what happens if I do something that would be on the elimination list of behaviors? Do I not get invited back? Is my position secure once I’ve been in the group a few years? How many years? Where’s the line?

I guess I write about this, not because I fear for my ability to belong to the group, but to recognize that if there is a god who loves unconditionally, humans aren’t really capable of that broadness of character. We can’t love absolutely unconditionally. Or maybe it’s just that I can’t. And so there’s always a question. “What’s the condition of my acceptance? Does God really love unconditionally?” And of course I have to say that if God’s answering prayer is a sign of that love, then it doesn’t exist for me. After all these hours of prayer, still I get nothing.