"Watch over you..."

One line in this one has stuck with me more than anything else.

How can you love someone
​And not yourself?

My understanding is that you can't. The golden rule in so many walks of life is a variation on "Love Thy Neighbour", which gets more focus than "As you love yourself." If you don't know how to love you well, I'm not sure I want you to love me in the same way. Or if you think you can love me as your neighbour, I want you to be able to love yourself in the same way.

A huge part of what I am called to do is to show people their own value and worth as inherited through the image of God instilled in all people, and by virtue of just being human and alive. I am called to love them, but what if it is more important for me to show them how to love themselves?

I know what itinerancy is like. I've worked with young people over years and then upped and left. More often than not I'm not the only one who loves them and wants them to grow, but when I have moved there is inevitably less opportunity to be there to love them. And me moving is less heart-wrenching for them than the loss of a friend, the break-up of a relationship, family changes or death of someone who has loved them.

When the knowledge of love is dependent on someone else showing it to you, what happens when they are gone?