on love part I

it will take me a bit to get through this section, but it is certainly rich and worth dwelling on.

God's love for us is not the reason for which we should love him. God's love for us is the reason for us to love ourselves. How could we love without this motive?

It is impossible for man to love himself except in this roundabout way."

Otherwise our love would derive from our own capacity which is stale and tragically finite.

"To love a stranger as oneself implies the reverse: to love oneself as a stranger."

self-objectification
self-desublimation
de-humanization
the reified self

you are a process
unknowable
malleable
changing exterior (self), unchanging interior (God)
connected to all things
rhizomatic interconnectedness

so have grace with yourself
as well as other selves.