I never do this, but...

Here goes.

One summer of my teenage years, I worked as a baby-sitter/mother's helper for a family with two very young children. The older son was a toddler who was apparently not happy about his new role as "big brother." As he expressed his frustrations in the only way possible for someone whose command of the English language was limited to the words "Mommy!", "No!", and "Now!", his mother would often gently admonish him: "I love you, but I don't love what you're doing right now."

My take-away at that time: Unless you are his mother (and sometimes even when you are), a toddler who is hell-bent on throwing a temper tantrum does not care what you do or do not love about him or his behavior.

With the wisdom of many years, however, comes more lessons. First and foremost: expressing love is important, especially when you're also expressing contradictory emotions (frustration, disappointment, even anger). Secondly: expressing those contradictory emotions is just as important for building a loving relationship.

Real love can't be blind. You have to acknowledge the existence of flaws -- in a person, in a relationship, even in the country where you live -- and make a conscious effort to address them in a loving way. When you don't, you let resentment of those flaws build up inside you until they become all that you can see, and there's no love left to shape your response to them. "I love you, but I don't love what you're doing right now," becomes "I don't love what you're doing right now, or what you did last week, or that thing from three months ago that we never talked about, or that annoying habit you have that makes me crazy." Eventually, it just becomes "I don't love you."

Having meaningful communication and building lasting relationships means accepting that both parts of that sentence can be true, that it is entirely possible both to love (or at least to respect) a person, an idea, a value, or a nation AND to not love something that's happening at any given moment. It also means recognizing that love exists even when it's not spoken out loud, and even at times when other emotions are expressed.

I love my husband and my family even when they drive me crazy. I love my friends even when we don't agree. I love freedom of speech even when the ideas being expressed aren't ones that I like hearing. I love that people can find strength and comfort in their religious beliefs, but not the way that some people turn those beliefs into a platform for prejudice and passing judgement on others. I love being an American, and I respect the leaders and the citizens of our country, but that doesn't mean that I have to love everything that is said or done in the name of "Making America Great." Staying silent at this point in my life is no more of an option than letting a frustrated toddler eat M&M's for lunch would have been 25 years ago.

 "I love you, but I don't love what you're doing right now."