Desert Diva

Today, I received the following comment from someone regarding a comment I had made on “Manic Monday” regarding “unconditional love.”

I’ve followed your blog off and on for a while now. I really like the pictures you take. I also agree with a lot (not all, maybe a little more then half) of what you say. I’ve never had the notion of making a comment before, but you hit one of my buttons with the “unconditional” love comment. I think the phrase is without true meaning. I for one want to have conditions put on the love I receive and give. Some, not all, of those conditions would be respect, trust, honesty. If someone breaks those conditions, then I’ll try to find love somewhere else.

P.S. Before I go, I thought of another possible condition. It sure would be nice if she could make good biscuits and gravy.
Take care.

It’s pretty amazing that people read my weblog at all, let alone comment on something I wrote regarding love.

Let it be known that I’m certainly no “expert” at love – I’ve been disappointed more than once and go from periods of great despair to elation. However, the one thing remains constant is that I believe we all have a desire to “connect” with each other on a higher level. Woody Allen summed up this “need” nicely in a quote from “Annie Hall:”

A guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, “Doc, my brother’s crazy; he thinks he’s a chicken. And the doctor says, “Well, why don’t you turn him in?” The guy says, I would, but I need the eggs.

Loving some “unconditionally” regardless of their actions or beliefs, doesn’t mean that we allow another person to control, degrade, or violate us. It just means that we love them as they are and don’t attempt to “make them into something they’re not.” To say to someone, I’ll love you if your nose was straighter, or if you were twenty pounds thinner isn’t love – it’s a form of attempting to control another. I’m speaking more to the mother who loves her Down’s Syndrome child – even though she realizes he/she will never be a concert pianist or university professor.

To me, unconditional love is the ability to look beyond the superficial and embrace the beauty that we all have. I’ve had personal experience with people that I can’t trust, weren’t honest, and not respectful. However, those traits are problems within that person, and not within myself. When I encounter this type of person, I just have to do my best to love the “good parts” of them and set boundaries not to allow their pain to influence me. It’s not easy, and something that I have to work on daily.

As for biscuits and gravy, my Aunt Cassie from Fisty, Kentucky has the “knack” for making light flaky biscuits, and delicious sausage gravy. It’s something that my mother also made well. However, nowadays it’s not a very healthy dish and I’ve somewhat lost my taste for sausage products.

All I can say is that I’m learning more each day, and “set my goal” on loving unconditionally.

Spread the Love!

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