Lent, Day 2

The scripture Nouwen followed for today's reading is from Deut. 30:19-20. I don't know if the following is his personal translation or if it comes from another source. It reads: "Choose life, then, so that you and your descendants may live, in the way love of Yahweh [his term] your God, obeying his voice, holding fast to him; for in this your life consists."

In his meditation on this passage (or more accurately the thoughts he wrote elsewhere which his editors cut and pasted to go with this reading), he says, "Trusting in the unconditional love of God: that is the way to which Jesus calls us."

Why is it so difficult to trust the unconditional love of God? For my part I cannot even get my mind close to grasping this notion. I cannot even intellectually reason out the notion of unconditional love. I cannot fathom unconditional love even in the most abstract sense--that is as if someone might love anyone unconditionally. The concept simply does not register. Why is that so?

I certainly have seen sacrificial love from my parents. Whether or not it was unconditional, I cannot say. But I think we generally grow up with the feeling--the intangeable sense--that regardless of what our parents said, it was still conditional love. Without casting any stones toward my parents, I think I have always had the sense that there was some vague boundary out there that if I crossed that point, love would cease. I repeat: Nothing my parents said or did told me that. But I think I just grew up with that assumption.

As my children grew to adulthood, I cannot imagine anything occurring that would stop me from loving them. Still, I sensed that for me at least, there must be some condition placed on someone loving me.

Does everyone feel this way? If so, does that help explain why we cannot fathom a statement about God's unconditional love? If we cannot believe that a human we have seen could love us unconditionally (I am bridging off of St. John's logic), how could we believe that God whom we have not seen could love us unconditionally?

Somehow, I must come to terms with the notion that God loves me just as I am and without reservation. That is the task for me for today.