Love is not words or feelings, thoughts or prayers. Love is an action. A spontaneous action taken in the full awareness that one is acting. This is different from an emotional reaction, which is never justified. A loving action has no self in it.
As every resurrection requires a corpse, the birth of a new man requires the death of an old one. Who is the new man? He has no fear. Not even a shred remains.
The difference between a wise man and everyone else is only this: He has no fear.
Let us remind ourselves that none of the virtues—love, forgiveness, generosity, courage et al—require any effort. The only thing effort can do is turn them into a religion.
The virtues are an absence before they are a presence. Courage is the absence of fear, innocence of lust, humility of pride. And what is this purifying fecundity, this mothering absence? Love, actually.
Men's Work 