beautiful glimpses of love

The Enemy [God] wants to bring humans to a state of mind in which s/he could design the best cathedral in the world, and know it to be the best, and rejoice in the fact, without being any more (or less) or otherwise glad at having done it than s/he would be if it had been done by another. The Enemy wants him/her, in the end, to be so free from any bias in his/her own favour that they can rejoice in their own talents as frankly and gratefully as in their neighbour's talents - or in a sunrise, an elephant, or a waterfall. He wants each human, in the long run, to be able to recognise all creatures (even his/herself) as glorious and excellent things. He wants to kill their animal self-love as soon as possible; but it is His long-term policy, I fear, to restore to them a new kind of self-love - a charity and gratitude for all selves, including their own; when they have really learned to love their neighbours as themselves, they will be allowed to love themselves as their neighbours. For we must never forget what is the most repellent and inexplicable trait in our Enemy; He really loves the hairless bipeds He has created and always gives back to them with His right hand what He has taken away with His left.