M,
I hope we all see that love must be without context in the end. We are built up on the ideal that there must be a reason for love, a way it must set itself up and a circle that must control it. We separate one kind of love from another so we can conclude that it must have reason and the reason must already be in us: a mother loves her child, a lover loves the good in the other, friends love over common values and countries love over common but arbitrary lines shaped by unknown histories. We cannot bear the weight of love without context.
Yet, this is where we are going. To love what exists because it is exist is the height of the holiness we commonly seek. The rule that says: love yourself and love others in that same way is at the root of our faith. For a long time, I did not come around to this kind of thinking. I was slow on it. I thought it was automatic that we loved ourselves and so it was automatic how we should love others. But we are still learning to love and accept and not denigrate our own holy souls. And the reason for that love is not context but existence. To be kind and patient and longsuffering and true to your own self, without an actual reason we can think of, is the start of how we love others.