The Oath of Unconditional Love

Stewart Stern, the Rebel & my answer

Jul 31, 2023

Stewart Stern, the great storyteller, was eighty four when I had the good fortune of sitting in his class. He possessed the energy, spark and delight of a child and the wisdom, kindness and vulnerability that comes from unwavering reflection. He was authentic, inspired, humble and wise. He was also one of kindest and most insightful people I have ever met.

I’m not the only one who thinks so. His longtime friend, Paul Newman said, “He's one of the most beloved people I've ever known." As for his ability as a writer, Newman said, "Stewart's words give an actor a kind of emotional depth that you can just ride on, like a wave.”

Audio version: The Oath Of Unconditional Love

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As the nephew of Adolf Zukor, co-founder of Paramount Pictures, Stewart certainly had an enviable list of friends and connections. He spent his childhood summers at Uncle Adolph’s upstate New York estate and while the grounds glittered with Hollywood royalty, Stewart was most at home with the cows and farm animals. Despite the glamor, Stewart’s home life was fraught with tension and neglect. "I felt the depression in our household, and thought it must be my fault. There was no demonstration of love I could read as a little boy."

At twenty two, Stewart’s army unit was called to war and he was sent to Germany.

"The war taught me that writing comes out of life, and that people's defenses disappear in the dark," He explains. "The voice from the dark is the voice of confession, of pain, of fear. People tell you who they are if they feel cloaked by darkness. I also learned I could reach people by confiding my own fear and vulnerability to them. In the Army, sharing my poetry with men who'd never read a poem allowed them to find the poet inside themselves."

Stewart led his rifle squad into the Battle of Bulge. They were trapped for days while thousands around them died. His parents were informed that he was missing in action. He was later found in a hospital suffering from severe frostbite.

Stewart came home from the war and went on to become one of the great Hollywood screenwriters. He was friends with Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Marlon Brando and James Dean. He wrote Rebel Without a Cause, Sybil, The Ugly American, Teresa and more. He won an Emmy, WGA awards and was nominated for two Oscars. Then, in 1980, he left Hollywood desperate to find himself again.

Twenty six years later, I sat in his class, the Personal Connection.

Stewart told us, “the Personal Connection is about going out and in. The connection between those experiences of ours and those experiences of the characters we create.”

He shared examples from his own life experience and how he symbolically wove them into his stories. In a scene from Rebel Without a Cause, the James Dean’s character drinks a pint of milk after a knife fight. The milk symbolically represents his mother; someone from whom the character needs comfort and guidance. Ultimately, the milk and his mother are incapable of soothing him.

At the end of our first class, Stewart warned us that we would be digging into our own past, pain, fear and mistakes. To create a safe environment for our group, he shared the oath he wrote for his wife when they got married.

The Oath of Unconditional Love

My ears perked up. I had been searching for Unconditional Love my entire adult life, but it slipped through my fingers like fog. What was Unconditional Love? What did it sound like? What did it feel like? What caused it and what made it stay?

I did experience unconditional love in one area of my life. The moment my children were born and I held them in my arms, an unbreakable bond of unconditional love flowed from me to them. It existed without thought, without intention and without trying. I could no more stop loving them unconditionally, then I could stop the sun from rising. It was more than love, it was something else.

This feeling that I have for my children wasn’t something I felt from my parents. My parents loved me, but because of some tough things we went through, I didn’t feel they loved me unconditionally. It felt conditional. It felt like I was loved as long as I was doing what I was supposed to do. As soon as I stopped behaving, I was no longer acceptable and no longer lovable. Getting kicked out at fourteen for being ‘too much to handle’ didn’t help.

The reverse was also true. Just like I didn’t feel unconditional love from my parents, I felt blocked in my ability to feel unconditional love toward anyone else. My children had it without trying, but I struggled to love anyone else unconditionally. Falling in and out of love had made me wary.

As Stewart read the oath to class, I listened to every idea and compared it to my life experience. When he finished, it felt like the most complete description and deep understanding of Unconditional Love that I’d ever encountered. It was the first day of class and I had found the answer to a life long question.

I shared with Stewart I had been searching for what Unconditional Love was, and his oath had described it exactly. I asked if he would tell me again so I could copy it down.

He smiled and told me he would write it down for me himself. At our next class he handed me an envelope, inside was this handwritten card.

Oath of Unconditional Love
I will not harm you -
I will not judge you -
I will not blame you -
I will never use your fears against you.
I will support you passionately in your quest for the excellence of
your spirit and the perfection of your being, no matter how far
from me it might take you - and for all the rest of our time.

I read it and reread it. I sat with it. I thought about it. I pondered, considered and reviewed my life in reflection to it. It was masterful. It was divine. And it was indeed my answer.

Now that I have my answer, what do I do with it?

It’s a common idea that if someone hasn’t been raised with a certain thing, like love or kindness, then they don’t know how to give it; reasoning that they can’t give something they don’t have. Stewart grew up without Unconditional Love, so how did he have such a profound grasp on it? If I had to guess, I think it’s because he was a sensitive soul who knew exactly what it wasn’t.

I was thirty nine and three years sober when I heard the Oath of Unconditional Love and I was in the ongoing process of building a relationship with a higher power of my own conception. The directions on how to treat others in the Oath of Unconditional Love was something I aspired to. I also knew that if I wanted to show up for other people in my life unconditionally, then I needed to feel this kind of love flowing into me.

I had a thought. I wondered, in the same way I have irrevocable, unconditional love for my children, is it possible, my belief in a higher power may feel the same for me? I read the oath again, thinking this time that it’s how my higher power feels about me.

I will not harm you -
I will not judge you -
I will not blame you -
I will never use your fears against you.
I will support you passionately in your quest for the excellence of
your spirit and the perfection of your being, no matter how far
from me it might take you - and for all the rest of our time.

It felt peaceful, grounded and authentic. I decided this would be part of the paradigm for my higher power. I felt like I had back up. That to my higher power, no matter how far from him I go, I will not be harmed, judged, blamed or manipulated by my fears. Instead, I’m supported and loved as I live my life growing in to the best me I can be.

I’m not sure why it was so easy to assimilate. Maybe it’s easier to attune to truth.

God is Love. And God is Everything - including Unconditional Love for you and me.

I’m eternally grateful for Stewart. Not only for his Oath of Unconditional Love, but for his class and how he modeled vulnerability with grace and joy. Some of the hardest times of my life were about to unfold, but I had now a sense of peace and hope that helped me walk through some very difficult things and keep my personal connection.

Stewart and I in 2009 at The Film School graduation party. Photo by: Greg Miskin

Stewart Stern passed away on February 2, 2015.

Thanks for reading. To share Stewart Stern’s Oath of Unconditional Love, click here.

Sidse Powell

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