For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.

It is also good to love: because love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation. That is why young people, who are beginners in everything, are not yet capable of love: it is something they must learn.

Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.

After Rilke's Letters
-- by John VanDyke Wilmerding II

this is my letter to a young person
poet you may be, but yet not know it
love is life’s great end, its final purpose
that for which all other tests prepare us
love is not to merge, nor to surrender
yet leads into solitude most tender
alone, into wholeness, one is called
before contemplating how one might wed
that your other might not lack your loving
owing to you finding yourself wanting
however far you are from who you are
that’s the distance you’ll travel for true love
be patient and wait on your completeness
only then can grow your full tenderness
be yourself, and you become another
enhancing your one beloved other

-- original poem written May 27, 2015,'after' Rainer Maria Rilke's 'Letters to a Young Poet

There are quantities of human beings, but there are many more faces, for each person has several.

How is it that you profess love for God but can't accept another human being?