The love for equals is a human thing -- of friend for friend, brother
for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles.
The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing -- the love for
those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the
unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world. The
love for the more fortunate is a rare thing -- to love those who
succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice,
the love of the poor for the rich, of the black man for the white man.
The world is always bewildered by its saints. And then there is the love
for the enemy -- the love for the one who does not love you but mocks,
threatens, and inflicts pain. The tortured’s love for the torturer. This
is God’s love. It conquers the world.
Frederick Buechner
The Magnificent Defeat
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