In The Sign of Jonas Merton writes: "It is in deep solitude that I find this gentleness with which I can truly love my brothers. The more solitary I am, the more affection I have for them... Solitude and silence teach me to love my brothers for what they are, not for what they say. Now it is no longer a question of dishonoring them by accpeting their fictions, believing in their image of themselves, which their weakness obliges them to compose, in the wan work of communication. Yet there will, it is true, always remain a dialectic between the words of men and their being. This will tell something about them we would not have realized if the words had not been there."
Our love for others, as Christ's other-love is, cannot be based on peoples' words or consistency, just as I am inconsistent in that my words do not always match my being. Much solitude-time with God takes us deep into the being of God where love is pure and untainted by a lack of human integrity. God loves us because we are his children. Nothing can separate us from such love.
