"Unconditional Love"

by

Dr. Jaye E. Reviere

Christ taught us to love and to love unconditionally. Someone has said that perhaps transgendered Christians have a better concept of this love Jesus taught us then most other Christians. How do you feel about this?

Interesting question.

First, the very essence of my understanding of God and the Chirst manifestation of God is defined by the phrase: Unconditional Love. That is a love beyond the imagining of humans, a love that is totally beyond reason and beyond conceptualization by humanity. Still we see it best illustrated in the Greek language concept of Agape' or as best as we can describe it: Godlike love.

As humans we suffer from many severe limitations. First, we are totally unable to love in the way God loves. Still, in some instances humans to approach or approximate that Divine kind of love. The Scripture tells us: "Greater love has no one than that he/she lay down her life for her friend." What does it mean to "lay down one's life?" Immediately the image of giving up life, or accepting death on behalf of someone else comes to mind. I think the phrase means more than that, however. I think "laying down one's life" also means setting aside one's likes and dislikes, setting aside one's judgements of the other person, setting aside one's prejudices, and setting aside one's expectation commonly placed on someone else. I think all of those things: likes, dislikes, judgements, prejudices, and expectations are basic elements of a human's life. When we set those aside, we "lay down our lives" for our friend.

As a trans-person this is particularly meaningful because a common experience among trans-people is an intimate knowledge of what rejection feels like. When I say rejection, I don't mean exclusively the rejection by others, I also mean the violent and painful of all rejection: self-rejection.

Coming to understand at least in a shadowy way, the unconditional love of God opens the door for a trans-person to begin to accept and to love themselves. Being able to love one's self is essential and basic to being able fully to accept the love of others and the love of God. It's a complex matrix of interwoven influences. Still, the key is to realize if God is not sitting there about to hammer me for being who, for being how, and for being what God has made me to be, then I can say this is because God loves me JUST AS I AM! And if God loves me just as I am, then it is illogical for me to reject myself and for me not to love myself.

Then as I begin to develop the healthy self-love based on the truth of God's unconditional love, then I can experience what it means for other people to love me. Then with the strength of that as a foundation, the rejection I continue to get from the unloving and uncaring people I encounter can be accepted and I can feel sorry for them for their very action speaks of their own ignorance of God's love.

Yes, dealing with and coming to understand the concept of unconditional love is very very important to a trans-person. Without it, because of societial pressures, socially defined stereotypes, and the ignorance so abundant amidst which we live, life for a T person would be wholly miserable, without a doubt.