What good is our affection if we only offer it when we like someone or something? Or when that person or thing does for us what we desire? Or when we perceive inherent good?

How can it be that we only approve or acknowledge when we cannot find fault in someone or something?

Aren’t all these examples of conditionality, we withhold demonstrations of our good will unless and until someone or something meets our expectations or wishes?

Isn’t it strange that more than anything else most of us, perhaps all of us, want more than anything else to be loved and accepted exactly as we are. And yet we struggle to extend that outwardly. To others. To the world.

Love is a principle.

Loving is its practice.

Suddenly it all makes sense why so many spiritual masters and wise men and women in the arts, philosophy, science, and leadership encourage us to be loving to and for those people and things with which we struggle to love.

A wise older mentor urged me to practice loving by picking a situation which I hated or found unacceptable. Boy was it a struggle!

“How can I can feel good about a situation or circumstance when it is not good?”

“Ron, how you feel about it doesn’t matter.”

“But … “

“Ron, how you feel about it doesn’t matter.”

“But …”

“Ron, do you make mistakes? Do you fall short? Are you without flaw?”

“No, but …”

“Ronnie, do you want those to be held over your head until you achieve some kind of perfection which is never to be?”

“Oh …”

“Ronnie, until we can offer that which we most need and desire, we cannot and will not receive it. It’s the way the Universe works. It’s why we are told to love our enemies. And why we are urged to seek to understand.”

“Ronnie, isn’t the real virtue in loving no matter what, including the bad, the painful and the ugly?”