Sacred Love

I know I am not perfect and I have regrets. I have treated people poorly in my past and failed to make it right. I feel terribly about it today. I believe I have learned from these mistakes and always look to treat people with kindness and respect going forward.

I also have struggles. I struggle to find enough time for my partner and children amongst all my other obligations. I struggle to find the right path through the intractable issues of my life. But it is in these struggles that I hope to set a good example for my own children. To pass along the experience and wisdom I have learned through much error and heartache in the hopes that I can spare them some of it in their own lives. I feel this is the most important work I have left for my future.

So when my god said that my love is sacred I immediately tried to find a hidden meaning or implied words. I felt that the “error and heartache” from my past disqualified my love from any Divine declaration of sacred. “Surely They are not talking about me”, I told myself. “By ‘your love’ They must mean ‘humanity’s love'”, I argued with myself. But the more I followed those lines of thinking the less they made sense. I believe now the words mean exactly as they appear: The Greatest Love is asserting that my love is sacred.

The word “sacred” in this context I believe means “blessed”. I believe The Greatest Love blesses how and who I love and that allows me to move closer to Them.

The question then becomes “What specifically about how and who I love causes my god to bless that love?”. And after much time struggling with this question I have formed some beliefs with the full acknowledgement that this fifth message has proven the most difficult for me.

Some points to start.

The first point is that whatever it is about my love that makes it sacred I cannot be alone. My love, as mentioned above, is far from perfect and I certainly believe there are a great many other individuals in this World that are more selfless, more caring, more compassionate than I. Regardless of whatever I conclude “sacred love” to be there must be a great many others that more accurately reflect that conclusion.

My second point concerns hate. Hate is a very powerful emotion that can be employed to destroy. This can serve a useful purpose when the target of our hatred requires destruction. For example cancer, terrorism, or racism. But when we direct our hatred toward a person or persons The Greatest Love becomes concerned.

It is one thing to hate racism, it is another to hate racists.

It is not that hating racists is wrong. I believe we are allowed to feel any emotion towards any person or thing without judgement from The Greatest Love. But hatred is an extreme emotion that requires special care. If it were a physical object it would come in a box labeled “CAUTION: Highly Explosive!“. High explosives have their uses. But when used against something of value the results can be catastrophic, and I believe all human life, no matter how evil, has value.

When we hate a person, any person, we risk losing sight of their humanity. It can lead to dehumanization which then gives us license to treat people inhumanely. And it is our acts of inhumanity that angers The Greatest Love.

In a later post I discuss how hate directed at someone who has done us great harm can understandably well up within us. I believe The Greatest Love knows we may need to hate in order for us to deal with extreme pain and trauma. But, I believe, we must never dehumanize. We must always strive to see the humanity in all persons even when the target of our hatred refuses to see the humanity in us.

I believe that in striving to find the humanity in all persons we keep a window open to our heart. A window which we must never close. This, I believe, is what The Greatest Love asks of us. Not that we never hate. Nor even that we always forgive. But that we never stop looking for the good in people, even the most evil. Even when we or our closest loved ones are the victims of their vitriol.

And I realize that previous paragraph is contentious. Some of us have been taught from an early age that hatred for people is “wrong” and that forgiving others is “right”. But I believe that hatred and forgiveness are inextricably linked to our love, and love is not nearly as simple as this. All of our sentiments and emotions serve a purpose in The Greatest Love’s grand design.

For me, I remember only a single person I have ever felt hatred towards in my life. I was a childhood victim of their physical abuse. In those moments of anguish my hatred allowed me to rationalize the abuse. I hated them because they were a “monster” which is why they were hitting me. The hatred had led me to dehumanize them.

But as I grew up and entered adulthood that person went through a very rough patch in their own life. And in that moment something happened to me. My hatred dissipated. I saw them no longer as a monster. I saw them as a flawed human being which, I believe, allowed my window to open just slightly.

I felt sympathy. I felt compassion. And then forgiveness came. Today I know that I love that person with all my heart and they love me in return.

But I also recognize that is a uniquely personal journey of love and forgiveness that not everyone can make. The trauma can be too great. The abuses, too cruel. The abuser, too broken. I believe The Greatest Love understands this. They have allowed us to hate. To not forgive. They ask only that we never close the window to our heart, to anyone, at anytime. And if we find some goodness there, I hope it acts as a gentle breeze waffling through that open window, allowing us to release some of the hatred and perhaps, eventually, letting forgiveness through.

I also believe there is at least one being in our Universe who will never hate: The Greatest Love. They not only do not hate, I believe They instead have infinite love for all of us. Even the most murderous of dictators. The most evil of humankind. I believe Their Divine Love, along with Their perfect knowledge of how such individuals came to be allows Them an understanding that informs Their infinite Love, Grace and Mercy for all Their children.

None of these divine attributes apply to us. We are not Them. And although I pray that you never need to hate another human being to maintain your own mental-health, I understand if you do. I understand because I did too. And, I believe, They understand as well.

My third point concerns the love for our children. I believe The Greatest Love loves all of us, all of Their children, infinitely and equally. Now we are only human and we cannot have infinite love for any person. But can we love all of our children equally? The answer must be yes, because I do. I have three young boys and I know my own heart. I know I love them deeply and equally for who they are as individuals. I have no “favorites” and when we can achieve this, I believe we more closely reflect Their nature. We move closer to Them.

But for the purposes of this discussion there is a more difficult question to answer. The question is whether loving our children equally is a requirement for The Greatest Love to declare our love sacred? Is modeling the equal love The Greatest Love has for each of us, towards our own children, required in order for our love to be declared sacred?

I do not believe so.

And for similar reasons to the previous discussion on hatred above. Because we are only human and not Divine. And there are extreme situations where as human beings we must be permitted to love one child more or less than another, in order to deal with extreme pain and trauma.

Consider an example. You have two children. Your first child grows up to become a great humanitarian. The second? An abuser and killer of the most innocent. Despite your very best efforts to understand how this could have happened, answers do not come. Reasons remain elusive. Given these circumstances can you still love both your children equally?

It is a question that can be very difficult to answer. We may need to live through such a scenario to know with certainty how we would respond. But I believe I understand how The Greatest Love would respond. Their love would not diminish for either.

It is here where I believe the Divine parts ways with us again, the merely mortal. I believe it is Their infinite love and knowledge which allows it to be absolutely unconditional. And to have absolutely unconditional love is an aspect of Divine Love which we cannot possibly possess. It is love regardless of how the object of affection acts. No conditions. And a love that is impossible for any of us to achieve. Because in order to maintain our own well-being I believe we need to have boundaries in all our relationships. Such boundaries create conditions. Necessary conditions for our own mental health and survival.

I believe all human love, including sacred love, is conditional at some level. The conditions may sound reasonable: “My love for my child will only lessen if they commit grievous criminal acts”. But it is a condition nonetheless, albeit a necessary one, that would be placed on our love.

This discussion introduces a spectrum: times when we cannot possibly love our children equally, and other times when we absolutely can. Where the boundary should lie between these two extremes I cannot answer. Stated differently, I have no proposals for when the lack of equal love for all our children is warranted. I have no simple prescriptions. There are no universal rules to follow here. It is your own heart, mind, and soul that must decide.

For me, I know I would fight hard to maintain all my love for both my children. In the example cited above I would start by trying to understand how my child succumbed to such depravity. How I missed the signs. How I could have prevented it. Because anything that allowed my love to weaken for any of my children would be extremely difficult for me. By being able to make sense of the situation, to understand how it happened, or even just to form a reasonable belief for how such evil took root in my child would hopefully allow me to salvage all of my love for them.

But if I could not, because no such answers were forthcoming, and if allowing the love for my child to weaken, just slightly, allowed me to get through the night, then so be it.

For my own well-being I would allow the love for one of my children to weaken.

The fourth point concerns the love for my partner. It is a reciprocated love between equals. One that requires constant, concerted, and at times difficult effort and compromise. It involves letting down my guard and exposing my vulnerabilities. In return I have been blessed with a selfless, and sacrificial love.

A love worth dying for.

She is my greatest love and by saying so I believe I am contradicting one of Jesus’ core messages:

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind”. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Matthew 22:36-39

I believe Christ is asking us to love God before all others in this passage. But I also believe it was a message for Christ’s time and place, and time has moved on. It has moved on as we became more secular while also progressing our love greatly since Jesus’ time. Love has been enshrined in many of the highest laws of our lands. Respected and beloved charters and constitutions instilling love into law are now a part of many nations founding documents and supreme laws. And I believe this is the way it was meant to be.

Love has leapt from ancient scriptures into secular laws. But those secular laws have continued to be refined and progressed over time while only some of the various interpretations of scripture have kept pace. I believe all of these changes are a reflection of The Greatest Love’s Divine Plan to progress our love. And in order to progress our love into the distant future I believe They now need to guide us to love whomever we wish and at whatever depth our heart decides.

It is this freedom to love as we desire as endorsed by The Greatest Love that is now paramount. And if we are fortunate enough to find a deep love on this Earth that is selfless, and sacrificial then who is to say that we cannot love that person more than The Greatest Love Themselves? Who is to say that what our heart is telling us is in fact wrong? I believe The Greatest Love no longer dictates where our affections must lie. Our greatest love need not be reserved for Them alone.

Nor do I believe that this changes in the heavens in the arms of The Greatest Love. I do not believe that the formation of love formed from a single embrace of a god with one of Their creations will ever eclipse the love of a couple who has shared a lifetime of loving experiences. Such a love would represent a fabrication. A mirage. It is not how love works. And it is not, I believe, how The Greatest Love would have it be. Nor is it how I would want it to be.

We must be capable of experiencing our greatest love here, in this World, regardless of our beliefs. And if that love is found in the arms of another human being, instead of one’s god, then The Greatest Love is not offended by this. It is the exact opposite. They rejoice in this intimate marriage of two minds, two bodies, and two souls.

However finding such a reciprocal, selfless, and sacrificial love is not the reason I believe The Greatest Love declared my love sacred. Instead I believe it is the trend of all these previous points, and for me that trend is now clear:

I know that I hate with extreme caution.

But I love freely.

And I believe I am far from alone – a great many others have such sacred love.