Mature Love

Infantile love follows the principle: I love because I am loved.
Mature love follows the principle: I am loved because I love.  (Erich Fromm)

Jesus said it, if you reciprocate love,
so what? Who wouldn’t do that?
But love enemies, rivals, perpetrators?
How special is that? How unexpected?
And how can it happen? It’s not my nature.
But that’s the point. My nature, my will,
my impulses made me insane, unable to cope,
hopeless. But a power greater than that,
greater than I, managed to love me,
the repugnant, at my worst.
And when my will’s laid aside,
when I manage to say, to mean,
not my will, but his, his kind of love
lives in me. And all the love I give
radiates right back
to me.

A Time for Verse