my-beautiful-reward:

The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them

Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island

How I love Merton. He cuts straight to the essence of the thing. How few times I have truly loved! How few times I have forgotten myself for the benefit of another! Most often in my life, what I call love is simply the adoration of myself looking like I am focusing on another. I am just kissing myself in the mirror.