When I think now of that part of my childhood, the picture I get of my brother John Paul is this: standing in a field, about a hundred yards away from the clump of sumachs where we have built our hut, is this little perplexed five-year-old kid in short pants and a kind of a leather jacket, standing quite still, with his arms hanging down at his sides, and gazing in our direction, afraid to come any nearer on account of the stones, as insulted as he is saddened, and his eyes full of indignation and sorrow. And yet he does not go away. We shout at him to get out of there, to beat it, and go home, and wing a couple of more rocks in that direction, and he does not go away. We tell him to play in some other place. He does not move.
And there he stands, not sobbing, not crying, but angry and unhappy and offended and tremendously sad. And yet he is fascinated by what we are doing, nailing shingles all over our new hut. And his tremendous desire to be with us and to do what we are doing will not permit him to go away. The law written in his nature says that he must be with his elder brother, and do what he is doing, and he cannot understand why this law of love is being so wildly and unjustly violated in his case.
Many times it was like that. And in a sense, this terrible situation is the pattern and prototype of all sin: the deliberate and formal will to reject disinterested love for us for the purely arbitrary reason that we simply do not want it. We will to separate ourselves from that love. We reject it entirely and absolutely, and will not acknowledge it, simply because it does not please us to be loved. Perhaps the inner motive is that the fact of being loved disinterestedly reminds us that we all need love from others, and depend upon the charity of others to carry on our own lives. And we refuse love, and reject society, in so far as it seems, in our own perverse imagination, to imply some obscure kind of humiliation.
There was a time when I and my magnificent friends, in our great hut, having formed a "gang," thought we were sufficiently powerful to antagonize the extremely tough Polish kids who had formed a real gang in Little Neck, a mile away. We used to go over in their neighborhood, and stand, facing in the general direction of the billboards, behind which they had their headquarters, and, from a very safe distance, we would shout defiance and challenge them to come out and fight.
Nobody came out. Perhaps there was nobody at home.
Merton recognizes that the treatment his little brother receives verges on sin. It is a rejection of love--John Paul wishes to be with Merton and his friends in their clubhouse, and, instead of welcoming him, they throw stones to drive him away. Which seems very Old Testament to me. Stoning. Of course, John Paul has done nothing wrong, other than love his older brother.
It is late as I sit typing this post. And, in the past few days, I have learned what unconditional love really means. You see, I currently have a puppy curled up asleep at my feet. She is tiny and perfect, and she seems to really love me for some reason. I don't know what I have done to deserve her devotion, other than take her outside to go to the bathroom and let her sleep in bed with my wife and me at night. Early this morning, I woke up to find the puppy sleeping on my chest.
Unconditional love is a rarity. It only happens occasionally. Most love comes with strings attached. We all want to be loved on our own terms.
*****
I started this post three days ago. I typed the passage from Merton the first night. Last night, with my new puppy sitting at the feet, I started reflecting on the meaning of love and unconditional love. Before the hour grew too late last night, I typed the sentence "We all want to be loved on our own terms," and then I went to bed. Because I didn't like the idea that I put conditions on the love I send out into the world. (I think that's what Merton is struggling with in the passage above--how he treated his little brother who was simply seeking Merton's approval and love.)
However, because we are human, we aren't wired to love without expectation. If I love someone or something, I expect to be loved in return. Period. However, that's not the way love always works. Merton's brother learns that sometimes love is repaid with stones being thrown at you. I've learned, because of my wife's mental illness and its accompanying problems, that you have to work hard at love.
Love is seasonal, sometimes easy--marriages, births, deaths. These are times when love overpowers all other emotions. It's love distilled to its essence. Then there are times when love goes fallow, stays hidden, heads south for the winter. That's when love becomes a job. You have to endure seasons like that, wait for the green to return. After all, spring does follow every winter. The world always renews itself, mysteriously, somehow. I think love does the same thing.
You may think I'm being naive. Stupid. Unrealistic. Foolish. I don't care. I'll be naive for love. Unrealistic for love. I will be a fool for love. Love is what gives life meaning for me. It's what gets me out of bed in the morning. It's what keeps me moving all day long. And it's what pulls me back home at night. Love is what every person needs and deserves.
Some people have love given to them freely, and they throw it away. Addicts do this all the time. And some people have love sleeping right at their feet and never reach down to pet it, thank it, say to it "good girl" or "good boy." Give it its favorite toy, a drink of water, a treat.
Just call Marty the Patron Saint of Fools.
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