Father Richard considers how a balance of unconditional and conditional love serves growth in the first half of life:
The only happy people I’ve met are those who have found some way to serve. Such folks are not preoccupied with self-image, success, and power. Many of us began with traditional rules, discipline, and structure that created a kind of compression chamber, often based on exclusion. As we grow, the chamber becomes tight and oppressive, so we begin to practice what we call “the sacred no” against self-serving laws, traditions, and cultural practices that pose as the will of God. We’re no longer willing to prop up the status quo and believe that is all there is to life.
It seems many people raised in our culture in the last few decades grew up backwards by beginning “liberal.” This leaves the unconverted ego in the position of decider. I don’t think we do our children any favors by raising them without boundaries or rules and largely letting them decide for themselves what is right for them. Basically, we’re asking them to start from zero. In an overreaction to the generation before them, parents and the church have been trying hard to love unconditionally. I know this from doing it myself with the young people in the New Jerusalem Community in my early years as a priest. I endlessly preached about God’s unconditional love. To be honest, although we drew thousands of young people, most did not take this very far in terms of deep and lasting transformation or service to the world.
To borrow an idea from Erich Fromm’s classic book The Art of Loving, I believe that the healthiest people are those who received from their two parents and early authority figures a combination of unconditional love and conditional love. This seems to be true of so many effective and influential people, like St. Francis, John Muir, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Mother Teresa. I know my siblings and I received conditional love from our mother and unconditional love from our father. We all admit now that Mom’s demanding love served us very well later in life, although we sure fought her when we were young. And we were glad Daddy was there to balance her out.
It appears we need a goad, a wall to butt up against to create a proper ego structure and a strong identity. Such a foil is the way we internalize our own deeper values, educate our feeling function, and dethrone our own narcissism. We all need to internalize the sacred no to our natural egocentricity. It seems we need a certain level of frustration, a certain amount of not having our needs met. Then we realize there are other people who also have needs and desires and feelings. As my mother told me, “Dickie, your rights end at the end of your nose; that’s where somebody else’s nose begins.”
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Sarah Young; Jesus Listens
My living Lord, By day You direct Your Love; at night Your song is with me—for You are the God of my life. Knowing that You are in charge of everything is such a great comfort! During the day, You command Your Love to bless me in countless ways. So I’ll be on the lookout for the many good things You place along my path—searching for Your blessings and thanking You for each one I find. Help me not to be discouraged by the hard things I encounter but to accept them as part of living in a deeply fallen world. I rejoice that Your song is with me throughout the night as You lovingly watch over me. If I am wakeful, I can use this time to seek Your Face and enjoy Your peaceful Presence. A tender intimacy with You develops when I remember You on my bed—meditating on You in the night watches. Whether I am waking or sleeping, You are always present with me. For You are indeed the God of my life! In Your blessed Name, Jesus, Amen
PSALM 42:8; By day the LORD directs his love, at night his song is with me—
2 CORINTHIANS 4:16–17; Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.
PSALM 27:8 NKJV; When You said, “Seek My face,” My heart said to You, “Your face, Lord, I will seek.” 9 Do not hide Your face from me; Do not turn Your servant away in anger; You have been my help; Do not leave me nor forsake me, O God of my salvation.
PSALM 63:6–7 NKJV When I remember You on my bed, I meditate on You in the night watches. Because You have been my help, Therefore, in the shadow of Your wings I will rejoice.
Young, Sarah. Jesus Listens (p. 35). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.
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