Can you love without an object?

There is a difference, you know.  Between "unselfish" and "unselfed."

Until recently, I’d pretty much considered those two terms synonymous. 

If you think about it, unselfish love can be ego-tinged.  “I am unselfishly giving up my day off to help my neighbor.”  “I am unselfishly doing this or that good deed.”  

Unselfed love is love without self.  It is divine Love expressing itself.

Unselfed love is having no will of my own, but always, ‘Thy will be done.”  Always, "What can I do next for you and your children, dear Father-Mother?”  

Mother love is unselfish, and this mom has several fuzzy
"objects" for her love!

Here are some observations from Mary Baker Eddy, 19th Century religious thinker and healer. 

• Unselfed love doesn’t take offense.
• Unselfed love lives the might of goodness for all mankind. 
• It builds in our hearts a temple to worship God
• Rejoices in the good of others
• It keeps us in the Christian life

Most amazingly, unselfed love doesn’t require an object.  It just loves.  As the sun just shines, genuine Love just loves.

A different Easter

In church this morning, a woman told this story. To me it illustrates loving one’s neighbor as oneself. It illustrates the very best in human nature.

On Good Friday last year, their home in Tennessee, along with many others, was badly damaged by a tornado. Surveying the damage, they estimated that it would take months to clear away the debris. Every tree in their yard had been destroyed.

Imagine their surprise on Sunday morning when they looked into their yard and found it filled with neighbors and strangers who had come to help clean up. This family had been on the giving end of charity before, but never on the receiving end. It was very humbling.

The wife approached one of the women, “I can’t believe you are all here on Easter Sunday.” The volunteer replied, “If we can’t help one another on Easter, when can we?”

In two hours the debris had been cleaned up and hauled away. The family was in awe, and deeply grateful.

That volunteer, it seems to me, had a sense of church that went way beyond a physical building. She was living her sense of church.