"Love is the power that enables people to make the movements of a singing community. It is the discipline and the disposition that equips people to give themselves to others, so that they can fully realize the potential God has given them. It creates the communal contexts of nurture that are crucial to people who are prepared to risk the journeys of self- and world discovery. Love is the hospitable and merciful way of being that makes room within us to welcome others as gifts rather than threats. It inspires us to be patient with each other, recognizing that each person comes to life wounded and worried, hurt and hesitant. But in gently waiting upon each other and in accepting responsibility for each other, the possibility of a beautiful and fulfilled life emerges. Paul put it directly:
" 'Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. (I Cor. 13: 4-8)'
"Once again, imagine for a moment what your life would be like if the people you knew were each devoted to helping you find and then exercise your gifts, thereby helping you realize all that is best in your life. Then imagine yourself becoming sympathetic to the lives of others and committing to be an encouraging, nurturing presence. What is being imagined is something of the life of heaven, a life in which God is glorified in the abundant, flowering life of each thing."
