It's Such a Good Feeling.

In re-reading Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird lately, I came across this passage I particularly liked:

"A sober friend once said to me, 'When I was still drinking, I was a sedated monster. After I got sober, I was just a monster.' He told me about his monster. His sounded just like mine without quite so much mascara. When people shine a little light on their monster, we find out how similar most of our monsters are. The secrecy, the obfuscation, the fact that these monsters can only be hinted at, gives us the sense that they must be very bad indeed. But when people let their monsters out for a little onstage interview, it turns out that we've all done or thought the same things, that this is our lot, our condition. We don't end up with a brand on our forehead. Instead, we compare notes."

The human condition. We're all in it. And while I think the point, at least in part, is to try to transcend it if we can, we will of course accomplish that with limited success here on earth. Because here on earth, we're human from start to finish. All created from the same basic mold, with a few modifications and some special equipment to differentiate us one from another, but all made in God's image. And the only conclusion I can draw from this is that He must like us this way.

I believe Mr. Rogers was really on to Something Big when he said, "I like you. Just the way you are."

I bring it up because I've had love on my mind lately. All kinds of it. The Capital L kind, and also the little bits that we bump into all day long but hardly recognize if we're not paying attention. I've probably been thinking about it as a result of marrying off my baby this past week, and also attending my parents' 60th anniversary celebration. But I know I also started thinking about it shortly after Elder Holland's most recent and now somewhat infamous talk (the one we've already covered here).

A lot of people are still discussing that talk. I've heard it rehearsed in three separate church meetings already, I'm scheduled to teach it in Relief Society as soon as July, and it seems nearly everyone has an opinion about it. This has made me continue to wonder what it was about his words that caused such a stir on all sides, and as I've read interpretations and re-read the text and thought more about it, it's pretty clear that my own negative reaction to it was centered squarely in the notion of God's love, and what our relationship with that love is meant to be. 

I simply didn't feel the kind of love I recognize in some of the ideas he presented, and I think that's why it left me in such an uneasy, unhappy, uncomfortable place. By coming to better understand where that message and I failed to connect, I've found peace on the matter. (But I'll admit I've recruited a sub to teach my upcoming lesson. We'll all be happier.)

On top of that, I've had several conversations lately about the concept of Unconditional Love, and its place in our collective Mormon thought, and more importantly in our curriculum, and there seems to be quite a disagreement as to whether the idea of God Having Unconditional Love For Us is a doctrinally friendly idea or not.

Now -- I don't know any better way to say this than to just say it: The idea of God without unconditional love pretty much just blows my mind.

Or in other words, the idea of A God of Conditional Love is not an idea that I can relate to. At all.

But then I don't think I'm supposed to teach you about God's love so much as help you feel it, am I? It seems to me that's the way we learn about it. We feel it. It teaches us about Itself. That's what the Holy Ghost is for, after all. To help explain what we're feeling. To point out, this is what God's love feels like, at the appropriate times. And to direct our attention to the source.

Because if we don't know what God's love feels like, we don't stand much chance of loving others in the same way. And that's the commandment.

So I've decided it hurt to have a church leader tell me about God's love in a way that didn't feel like the same love I have come to recognize, appreciate and understand in my own life. Because it felt personal.

And as that idea has finally crystallized, I have also realized this: when I don't like things I hear at church, it's most often for this very same reason.

I know what it's supposed to feel like, for me anyway. I have that gift just like everybody else. He's my Father, too.

Unconditional love is the only kind that makes sense, once you're a parent. I just spent the past week with my three daughters, whom I see infrequently now that they're off living their own lives. And it reminded me just how much I love them. Doesn't matter one whit to me what they're doing, when it comes to that. I am just plum crazy about those girls. Sure, there have been days in our relationship when I've wanted to put them in time out or even flat-out spank their behinds, but it never impacted the bottom line. Not even a little. And that's not going to change.

Do my parents feel the same way about me? I can only think that they probably do. I understand that now. Heaven knows I haven't done a thing to earn it, having been bratty as they come as a youngster. But I'm theirs. And as a parent, I know precisely what that means and how it feels.

It seems to me that the destination of any successful spiritual journey is probably the same, regardless of whether or not there is a specific denomination acting as the vehicle to get us there. The goal is to draw close to God, to feel His love, and then to understand and act upon our obligation to turn that love outward and shine it on those we come in contact with. Which is everyone.

I don't really feel God's love in lists of requirements. I don't feel it in things that divide, differentiate or discriminate. If it's a thing that causes anyone to feel that they are in some way less, I don't feel love there. A demand for unquestioning conformity also does not feel like an accurate reflection of His love to me.
 
Instead, I feel it in the billions of ways people are different. And also in the billions of ways we are the same. For me, it's there in my relationships and the ways I care and am cared for.

I feel it wherever I encounter excellence, or striving, or mastery. I feel it in the magnitude of creation, its infinite variety, and in the new chance we are given every day we're lucky enough to wake up. I see it in divine, serendipitous connections between people and ideas, things and events. In the way the Universe seems to tip its hat to me now and then, just to let me know someone's paying attention.

Also in falling off the wagon just like everyone else, but being allowed to get back on. Its in all the hands that reach down to pull me up, over and over.

But the net is much wider than that. When I am on a run with my iPod and suddenly Freddy Mercury sings the opening lines of "Barcelona", I feel God's love. Huh? She feels God's love when Freddy Mercury sings? Absolutely yes. Right down to the tips of my toes. (If you don't know what that feels like, get an iPod and put something really good on it. A sound that feels like love to you, if only because it's better than any sound you could possibly make yourself. You'll know it when you hear it.)

God created giraffes for no reason at all that I can think of. Who does that? Except that giraffes are simply oozing with awkward, graceful love.

I feel God's love whenever I log on to Facebook. Well now that's a bit ridiculous, right? The thing is, I'm miraculously allowed to interact with people from all the different parts of my life there, and to show them that they matter to me. Even though I maybe didn't sit by them in the school lunchroom, it wasn't always a reflection of how I felt. I was busy figuring out how to navigate the world. But every day I noticed they were there, and now I get to show them how glad I am that they still are. Surely that's a divine gift.

Maybe I'm getting a bit silly as I age, but as the years tick by, I feel God's love in just about everything. It's the joyful stuff of life. So I'm not interested in narrowing or restricting any channels, but rather in continually increasing my notice of it, absorbing as much as I can and figuring out how to act as a better, more luminous human reflector.

Unconditional love doesn't mean God isn't interested in seeing us improve, like every good parent is. He expects it. But the fact that He's provided a way for each one of us to do that puts us on equal footing, no matter where we stand. That's unconditional love. And if His expectations are really only relevant to our desire to get closer to Him personally, they don't have anything to do with being a yardstick by which we measure or interact with others.

A light that grows brighter and brighter, until the perfect day. Something like that. That's the kind of love I want to feel, and the kind I want to give.

And always, I'm interested in comparing notes. Because I think you probably know as much about God's love as I do. We're all monsters, after all...but that's quite all right because it seems He designed us this way. And because we are His little monsters, I'm quite sure He loves us. Every one of us. And just exactly the way we are.

Anyway, that's the way it feels to me.

- S.