On the Need for Implacable and Unconditional Love

In one of his many hit songs, Tony Bennett poignantly warbled about his need to be loved. So, he emotionally asserted “If I have love I know I can make it.” Tony, notwithstanding his secular values, does have something to say about human nature. Even in the world of pop music, musical comedy and Rap, one can stumble on truths to live by. Popularization does not necessarily mean superficiality. Yet if anything is universal and clear, it is that all of us have a profound longing to be loved with no conditions. In the human heart there is an unbounded desire to be uncritically esteemed and valued. The bravado one meets in life—such as: “I don’t need anybody!” (in the case of the uneducated the statement becomes “I don’t need nobody”), or “Who cares?” or “Who needs it?” or “I take care of #1 — me!” is really a mask or pose to disguise, even from himself, the terrifying suspicion that he is basically unlovable. One can expend enormous energy, perhaps even a lifetime, avoiding a real self confrontation lest his suspicion might be true. As Bennett implies, anyone who truly feels love will be open to the real basic joys possible to the human heart. Contrary wise, the feeling that no one really loves me, inevitably leads to anger and bitterness and sarcasm. Without love, life is misery. The blessed Apostle Paul put it brilliantly in his 1Cor.13 when he wrote “If I have all Faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.”

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