The Lover is the Critic
The Lover is the Critic,
Seeing and loving what is and what could be,
holding the beloved to nothing but the best of this hope.
The lover accepts the beloved as he is, recognizing and cherishing the ground of his being,
that inherent value expressed through particularity.
The lover clings to this, remembers this, celebrates this.
Yet too the lover yearns for the beloved better and better things.
Changes that are higher, growth that is wider, alterations that are deeper,
far beyond what the beloved has seen or known before.
The lover says, You are wonderful, beloved, unchangeably so.
Continue in this way: seek, desire, cultivate, pursue,
conform farther into that Greater Goodness which demands everything of you.
And all the while remember that you are changing in your person, unchanging in your belovedness.
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