Love Is Unconditional

But relationships are conditional

Back in 1970, the film, Love Story, starring Ali McGraw and Ryan O’Neal, told the soft-focus story of a young couple, very much in love, devastated by death. My mother, a life-long romantic, adored this film (and once told me she almost married Erich Segal, the author of the book upon which it was based). Her favorite line, which she repeated to me often and which eventually spread through the culture, was “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”

That quote always made me uncomfortable, even as a kid. After all, my parents always demanded apologies when I did something wrong and didn’t often apologize when they did. Did that mean that they could hurt me because they loved me, but I didn’t love them since I had to say, “I’m sorry?”

I was reminded of this recently in a conversation in which someone told me that they loved someone and but didn’t feel the need to apologize for having done something that hurt them. Standing on the shaky righteous moral pedestal of “unconditional love,” they felt that their love alone made up for any wrong they might have done.

Really? Not only is that psychologically wrong, but theologically, too.

Though Love Story may have cemented the idea that love gives us free rein to do whatever we want, it actually has much deeper roots in the Biblical ideal of an unconditionally loving God who never once says, “I’m sorry,” even after destroying the world, sending plagues, waging war and even making our individual lives miserable at times. In Christian doctrine, this became the God that loved us so much, He allowed/ordered his son (Jesus) to die for us, and…He expects us to love Him back?

Many of us, rightly, have real theological issues with this version of “God;” who wants to worship or obey a deity that acts like a narcissistic boyfriend or a megalomaniac tyrant? If this is “God’s Love,” then I think I’ll pass, thank you.

But, I think we misinterpret this entire idea. We have come to believe that if someone (or God) loves us, they will do everything right by us: they will give us everything we need and want (and they should read our minds about it). And, if that love is unconditional, then it doesn’t matter what we do - no matter how egregious -, we are still loved. Moreover, if we love someone else, then everything we do is justified, and we allow and forgive everything they do, even if it hurts us.

Though some aspects of that belief are partly accurate, it’s a rather infantile interpretation. It makes love into an ego-driven, zero-sum game where one side gets everything they want at someone else’s expense. But love - both human and divine - is a lot more complex than that.

While scriptures tell us that God loves us unconditionally just for who we are (which is why He created us and gave us Life and all the yummy stuff), God also lays down some guidelines for our relationship. It’s called a Covenant, a relational contract: you do this and I do that. You follow my laws and I will protect, provide and care for you. This is the Biblical basis of relationship. Call it karma or the laws of cause and effect, but it’s the same idea. It’s not exactly tit-for-tat, and no one is keeping a scorecard (unless you believe that there is some ultimate judgement), but there’s a mutually beneficial arrangement calling for specific actions from both parties.

In other words, love may be unconditional, but relationships carry conditions. This applies to both God-to-Human and Human-to-Human relationships. Love must act, and one of those acts is saying, “I’m sorry.”

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In his recent book, God is Love, Shai Held points out that Love and Law are not contradictory: they are two sides of the same coin. The Judeo-Christian God repeatedly says that there are things we have to do to make the loving relationship between God and Human (and Human-to-Human) work, and if we don’t do them, there are consequences. Held explains that because God loves us, He gives us the rules, and we (should) follow the rules out of love, too. That’s the deal.

One could argue that such an arrangement sounds pretty unfair, requires us to be submissive sheep, and even has the potential for abuse, but that’s a misinterpretation, as well. The rules aren’t there to punish us, but to help us get along with each other in our world and thrive; they help us to be good partners in this thing called Life. Moreover, docile, slave-like acquiescence to “tyrannical” rules is not a scriptural requirement. In fact, that’s the whole point of the Exodus: to release us from that oppressive relationship and teach us how to actively be in a loving relationship with God and his creation.

In other words, it’s not enough to say “I love you,” whether to God or to another person, and not do our best to meet the conditions of that love. That makes love into nothing more than a hollow platitude, and all too often, we hide behind that sentiment without meeting its demands. We can - and often do - profess our love, but turn around and do things that are anything but loving. Real love, not in the abstract but in relationship, requires action of a particular sort: it means doing our best to meet the conditions of that relationship, whatever they might be.

All of our relationships have conditions. Though it is expected that parents and children will love each other, parents are also obligated to provide shelter, food, protection and care (at minimum), and children (depending upon their age) should behave in ways that don’t make the parents’ jobs harder. In marriages, partners are required to “love and honor” as well as stick to whatever other arrangements (sexual, financial, etc.) are needed to make the relationship work. If we love our environment, we are expected not to do things that harm it, and it will keep nourishing us. If we claim to love humanity, we don’t pick and choose which humanity to give our love to; we care for everyone. And in our Sacred relationships, it is assumed that God/Source of Life loves us unconditionally and provides for us and, if we love God/Life, we should behave in accordance with His rules (don’t kill, don’t steal, etc.) to keep that good stuff coming.

But the movie blurs the line between unconditional and conditional love. That famous line has also been misinterpreted to mean that you should never have to say you are sorry because if you really love someone, you don’t break the conditions of relationship: you don’t do anything that would require an apology. The problem with that interpretation is that it doesn’t take human beings into account.

The line is actually spoken twice in the film, but the most memorable is when Ali McGraw’s character, Jenny, is dying and O’Neal (Oliver) says he is sorry for a recent outburst of anger. Jenny stops him from apologizing and speaks the line through her almost saintly tears. In so doing, she exemplifies the divine ideal of unconditional love. She is the angel who loves Oliver unconditionally, knows he loves her, sees his frustration, and acknowledges he is doing his best, but sometimes he fails. She knows he’s not intentionally trying to hurt her: his frustration and anger are because he can’t stop death. In other words, he’s human.

While McGraw’s Jenny might be that godly ideal of unconditional love that sees and accepts us in all our messiness, Oliver is the one who actually gets the point of conditional, relational love: he is trying to live up to his end of the bargain, but, because he’s human, he sometimes fails. He recognizes that he hurt her, that he broke the conditions of relationship, and apologizes.

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To take this back to theology, God doesn’t have to apologize because, well, He’s God: He makes the rules. We may not like or understand them, but expecting a divine apology for things going God’s way - not ours - is pretty presumptuous. But we humans are another story. That’s why all our traditions emphasize the need to exercise our self-awareness, see where we might not be living up to our end of the deal, apologize (confess, repent, t’shuvah), and try again to do better, whether we are talking about wronging God or other humans.

We can aspire to God (and Jenny’s) unconditional love, but we also have to hold ourselves and others accountable when we -inevitably - fall short. Love is not an excuse for bad behavior. Part of a conditional relationship is that we get to hold each other to the task. In fact, we’re required to. We must call out our own failings, and we are obligated to use our voices to point out someone else’s if it hurts us. This includes God.

Again, Shai Held illustrates the numerous times in the Hebrew Bible when humans protest to God about not upholding his end of the relationship. Abraham bargains for leniency for the people of Sodom, Moses pleads with God not destroy the Israelites for their Golden Calf and continued whining, and Lot and the Psalmists lament their misfortunes, and ask God for answers (and help), just to name a few. Remarkably, often God listens and says, “You have a point. I’ll do differently” (That’s as close to an apology as God gets).

In other words, the assumption is that the Almighty One can actually be held to task, and as human beings in relationship with God, we need to speak up! Sometimes, we need to be the ones to model for God: our efforts to correct human injustice here on earth is one of the conditions of our relationship. And, when we wrong others, we should also expect to be held to account, by other humans, if not by God.

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So, does love really mean never having to say you’re sorry? Only if you’re God. God never has to apologize (that’s the benefit of being the all-powerful), and if we were all paragons of that kind of unconditional love, maybe we wouldn’t either. But since none of us can honestly profess to be as godly as God (or Jenny), we have a lot of “I’m sorry” to say.

For us humans, love requires being exceedingly willing - and able - to say you’re sorry. Apologizing means you value your relationship with that person (or God) more than you value your own ego. For those of us receiving the apologies, we get to practice our God-skills: when we see each other in our human failings, we let go of our egos, forgive, and offer another chance.

Going back to my childhood cinematic misunderstanding, saying “I’m sorry” was, in fact, the real sign of my love (even if I had to be shown where I did wrong), and when my parents accepted my apology and gave me another chance, that was theirs, too.

Because, in the end, the relationship is what matters.

No, I do not want to be loved unconditionally. I want to be shown when I am treating you less than you deserve. I want you to leave if I ever start making you promises I do not see through. Love me for my flaws, yes, but don’t you dare ever allow them to hurt you. - Beau Taplin