Everyone has some experience with love—even a child who has a pet kitten or a dog. Soul is trying to give back or respond to God’s love that’s coming through. In some way the child learns lessons about caring for the pet. If he neglects the pet and it runs away, the child learns one of the first hard lessons about love: If you love something, you have to nurture it.


Like anything else, you have to put your full attention on it. Sometimes in the courting stage, a couple focuses all their attention on each other, but after they are married they begin to take each other for granted. Instead of looking at each other when they talk, their eyes drift. Maybe the man is thinking about work, and she is thinking about things happening in her life. They talk past each other.


During courtship when two people are looking at each other very directly, there’s the power of love in the gaze of one human being upon his beloved. They can actually feel the power in it.


But later when the partners become distracted and put their attention a foot above each other’s head, the nourishing power of love, or the ECK, doesn’t come through to nurture each other. This is often when their relationship begins to die a slow death than can take many years.


If you love someone or something, nurture it. That means, at least once during the day, give the object of your attention or the person of your heart your full love. Even if just for a little while, listen to what they are saying. During this time, you are putting the little self aside.


The little self comes forward to meet the problems of the day, but put it aside to take time to just listen, love someone, and put your full attention on them, face-to-face. It’s directly looking at the person you love, even after you are married. This is when the nurturing occurs and when the relationship is strengthened.
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Excerpted from Spiritual Wisdom on Relationships.