(I feel that this applies not only—though yes, deeply—to human connections, but also in subtler, perhaps more partial yet palpable ways to our presence with other species, landscapes, the earth and sky, and indeed, all creation)

To love another as a person…we have to love him for what he is in himself, and not for what he is to us.  We have to love him for his own good, not for the good we get out of him.

And this is impossible unless we are capable of a love which “transforms” us, so to speak, into the other person, making us able to see things as he sees them, love what he loves, experience the deeper realities of his own life as if they were our own.

Without sacrifice, such a transformation is utterly impossible.  But unless we are capable of this kind of transformation “into the other” while remaining ourselves, we are not yet capable of a fully human existence.

Thomas Merton
from Disputed Questions

Image: Spirituality and Practice

 These thoughts were percolating as I wrote the previous post (scroll down).