Follow-up to May 4th's Post

A couple days ago I was pondering a quote containing these lines:

"Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person..."

Surely these attributes of love describe the purest, truest, most God-like form of love. Such a love sees a relative and, rather than saying, "I love her--she's my granddaughter." It says, "I love her--she's Ruthie!" Between friends, rather than saying, "I love him--he's my friend." It says, "I love him--he's Tom!"; better yet, "I love him--he's ol' Tommy Boy!"

It's a kind of love that sees the very person rather than the relationship held between the lover and that person; the latter kind of 'love' is prone to self-centeredness but the former is not. Something tells me that young children have no familiarity with the kind of love that sees the relationship and not the beloved; they can see nothing but the beloved--which, given what Jesus told us about children and the Kingdom of Heaven, suggests to me that this kind of others-fixated love is that which bubbles forth from the very Life and Soul of the Kingdom of Heaven.