I seem to have a hard time with certain expressions that are said a lot and that I don’t really understand. I seem to have an objection to phrases that become well-worn. No matter how ideal they are, I am just a tiny bit at odds with them. One of them is the phrase unconditional love. Now who could object to that concept?

It’s not that I object to the concept. In fact, I love the idea. I object to the widespread use of the word, as if unconditional love could be turned on just as easily as it is to say it. As if it were a common thing.

Maybe what I object to most is my lack of ability to apply it, and my skepticism of its practical application altogether.

Loving no matter what seems far away. What it would be, as I see it, is that no matter who or what someone is, I wouldn’t mind. I would love them anyway. The idea that I will love anyway becomes my first difficulty, for doesn’t the word anyway make that statement ring with judgment, and doesn’t judgment have to be the opposite of unconditional love?

If I were to say that I will love unconditionally, aren’t I saying: “Despite how I see you, how you seem to appear to me, despite what you say and do, despite even any opinion you have of me or my family or my country, I will love you just the same.�

I don’t really know how to get my arms around this phrase unconditional love that slips off the tongue so easily.

Except for God, I believe there is only one person I personally know who loves always. I can safely say that, unqualifiedly, he loves everyone. He just loves. It isn’t that he loves no matter what. The no matter what does not enter into it. He just loves.

I have seen many people who have this kind of ease of acceptance — not for everyone by a long shot –but for a few. They love a few the way we would like to love everyone. For instance, they love their babies. They are powerless not to! But, of course, our babies please us and make us happy! It is easy to love when we are pleased!

Looking back, I think my father and one of my brothers loved me in the way today that we would call unconditional. Back then, the word unconditional as applied to love didn’t exist. My father and one brother just loved me, and that was it. Their love was just there. It asked for nothing. There was no effort.

When I taught school,  I believe I had a kind of unconditional love. As teacher, I did come to love all the children under my care.

Now I will tell you about a time in my life when I went from disliking someone to liking him very much, and I think I can say how this change happened.

It was from that bizarre time I taught Sunday School, bizarre because I knew nothing about Judaism. Of course, there was a text book, and I did know something about children. The principal of the Sunday School was the cantor of the synagogue.

No one seemed to like him, and I was no different, I am ashamed to say. He was just not someone to think highly of. There was something about him. When the teachers met with him in a group, it was in the air that he was not important, and all we could do was put up with him while we had to.

Now, for the life of me, I don’t really know why we discounted this man. He certainly cared about the children. He was devoted to his religion and fulfilling his responsibilities. He had a beautiful singing voice. He was kind. He liked all the teachers. It could have been no more than his sweating and heavy breathing that invalidated him.

The worst thing that could happen happened. He singled me out in front of the other teachers. He praised my teaching to the high Heavens. And with every word of praise, I sank lower and lower into my chair and avoided the eyes of the other teachers.

You know, I could have had a principal whom everyone respected who wouldn’t have approved of my introducing Waldorf School techniques into the Sunday School, but instead my principal was a loving appreciative man who, for the time, was unloved.

At the time, what could be worse than being singled out by this Sunday School principal? What was worse was that he, this principal whose name I can’t remember, invited me out for coffee. He wanted to learn more about what wonderful things I was doing with my class. As mortified as I was, I didn’t know how to get out of it.

I don’t remember what I told him, but I do remember he told me he was recently divorced, was missing his children, and, if I remember correctly, that this was his first year as principal here, and he was also new to the city.

During the week, I started to think about him as a living breathing person. I told myself that I didn’t have to like him. I told myself that I didn’t have to let him know that I didn’t like him. I told myself I could smile at him, and it wouldn’t mean I was a phony. I could be nice to him, and that wouldn’t mean I was being untruthful. I could be genial even if I didn’t like him. I didn’t have to like him, but I did have to be decent.

I realized it wasn’t about who he was. It was about who I was. I didn’t have to admire him, but I did have to respect him. This may not seem like a great revelation, but it was for me.

What happened was I met with him for coffee several times. I did come to like him very much and to enjoy him tremendously. I became his friend, this man who had always been a friend to me.

Best I can tell, the change came because I became less self-centered and released myself from having to like him, and then I did.

Of all the people in that one year at the Sunday School, he is the one I remember.

Thank goodness we learn and grow in life, and I want to thank that lovely cantor for what he taught me.