Some People Are Born Lovers

“There are some individuals who by constitution are born lovers, who have what a friend of mine calls “the gift of intimacy.” To be near them is to find yourself warmed by their fire. Their presence in the midst seems to activate in others a contagion of good feeling towards the world in general. But for most of us, it is a thing that has to be worked at, cultivated as a kind of inner development. We have all experienced this warmth in some degree. You know what a difference it makes when you feel that another person is truly aware of you, of your presence, or even of your existence.

I know a nurse, for instance, who can walk into a sick room, take a quick all-pervading look at the patient in bed, then walk over to the bed, touch a pillow here or make some shift in the covers there, do some little thing that adds enormously to the immediate comfort of the patient.

But how may such a quality be developed? Of course, I must assume the fundamental intent or desire to love.”

— Howard Thurman, 1961 (source)
Professor and theologian