The unconditional heart

I wrote recently on my Facebook:

"Only an honest heart, a true heart, can offer unconditional love"

I was asked by a friend what that really means and believe it or not I did have to stop and think. It is easy to make up something which sounds really deep, but in reality, is very hard to explain.

Here's my go at it.

Unconditional love is offered by Christ. You can be a failure, a loser, a dope, a speed bump in the making and Christ will still love you. That's the basis for the entire faith, so let's skip over the religious discussion and go right to the human side.

Offering someone unconditional love is a lot like offering someone your credit cards, wallet and ID. You give them everything that is you. There goes your privacy, your faults, your fears and your failures into someone else's hands. You've now said to someone "here I am for what it is worth."

This is pretty hard to do because we all have the areas inside our head we would rather not share with someone else. We hide our lusts, our indiscretions, or embarrassments and our failures and we do it for good reason. We hate that crap and we hate knowing that if you give unconditional love to someone, eventually they too will know what we've hidden from everyone else.

But when we offer our unconditional love to someone, we have said to our self "I now trust this person with all of my secrets and I am not afraid."

Sure, we sling the words around like they mean something... saying things like "I love you" to our siblings, "I love you" to our friends, "I love you" to the hottie we met two weeks ago in the bar, and to some extent the words are meant to convey a feeling of affection.

Don't get me wrong, I love my family, I love my dog, I love a few of my friends enough to tell them I love them without feeling either awkward or gay. But I love my children unconditionally. I loved my first ex-wife unconditionally. (Being honest here, she screwed me royally when she joined the other team, but at one time, unconditional was there). I love God without condition and it has nothing to do with faith as I have talked with Him personally on three occasions.

Two other times in my life have I felt, deep in my heart, my honest heart, that there was someone to whom I would offer unconditional love and did. It feels good to trust someone that much.

That's my take on it. For what it's worth.