Anonymous Reading Option: Exploring Love Beyond Gender Roles

I baulked at sharing this anonymous reading option because of the reference to a MAN’S love (at least it doesn't mention a different role for a woman!). It is archaic and you would just re-write it to describe love between and among the sexes. However, as the combating of violence against women continues maybe there are some men who could read and digest it!

Here it is –  from an anonymous author in my collection:

Love is the power within us that affirms and values another human being as he or she is. Human love affirms that person who is actually there, rather than the ideal we would like him or her to be or the projection that flows from our minds. Love is the inner God who opens our blind eyes to the beauty, value, and quality of the other person. Love causes us to value that person as a total, individual self, and this means that we accept the negative side as well as the positive, the imperfections as well as the admirable qualities. When one truly loves the human being rather than the projection, one loves the shadow just as one loves the rest. One accepts the other person’s totality.
Human love causes a man to see the intrinsic value in a woman; therefore love leads him to honour and serve her, rather than try to use her for the purpose of his ego. When love is guiding him, he is concerned with her needs and her well-being, not fixated on his own wants and whims.
Love alters our sense of importance. Through love we see that the other individual has as great a value in the cosmos as our own; it becomes just as important to us that he or she should be whole, should live fully, should find the joy in life, as that our own needs be met.
Love leads towards the goodness, the value and the needs of the people around us. In its very essence, love is an appreciation, a recognition of another’s value.