The will to grow is, in essence, the same phenomenon as love. Genuinely loving people are, by definition, growing people.

The principal form that the work of love takes is attention. When we love another person we give him or her our attention; we attend to that person's growth.

The time and the quality of the time that their parents devote to them indicate to children the degree to which they are valued by their parents. . . . When children know that they are valued, when they truly feel valued in the deepest parts of themselves, then they feel valuable. This knowledge is worth more than any gold.

It is our task-our essential, central, crucial task-to transform ourselves from mere social creatures into community creatures.

Commitment is inherent in any genuinely loving relationship.

When I am with a group of human beings committed to hanging in there through both the agony and the joy of community, I have a dim sense that I am participating in a phenomenon for which there is only one word...."glory."

Although the act of nurturing another's spiritual growth has the effect of nurturing one's own, a major characteristic of genuine love is that the distinction between oneself and the other is always maintained and preserved.