We agree with Reverend Maier when he writes that love is a spirit that changes life. Love is a way of life that is creative and that transforms. However, Maier does not view love as being reserved for a perfect world."Love is meant for our imperfect world where things go wrong. Love is meant to be a spirit that works in painful situations. Love is meant to bring meaning into where nonsense appears to reign¹."

梅尔教士在他的著作中说，爱是一种改变生活的精神力量，我们同意他的观点。爱是一种创造性的生活方式，并使我们的生活方式得以改善。不过梅尔并不把爱看成完美社会的专利。“爱是专门赐予我们这个有问题，不完善的世界的。爱注定就是在痛苦的环境下发挥精神威力的。爱就是要使看起来无意义的生活变得有意义。”

In other words, love comes into an imperfect world to make it livable.

换句话说，爱来到这个不完美的世界，使它可以适合人们居住。

Love is freeing. Love is freely given,not doled² out on demand. At the same time, my love for you is not dependent on whether you fulfill³ my expectations of you. Authentic⁴ love does not imply "I'll love you when you become perfect or when you become what I expect you to become." Authentic love is not given with string attached .There is an unconditional⁵ quality about love.

爱是自由的行为，爱是自愿地付出，而不是在要求之下的施舍。同时，我对你的爱不取决于你是否满足我对你的期望。真正的爱并不意味着“你成为一个完美的人，或是你成为我期望你成为的那种人时我才爱你”。真爱的付出是不带条件的，爱的特性之一就是无条件。

Love is expansive . lf I love you, I encourage you to reach out and develop other relationships. Although our love for each other and our commitment to each other might bar certain actions on our parts,we are not totally and exclusively4, wedded⁶ to each other. It is a pseudo love that cements one person to another in such a way that he or she is not given room to grow. Casey and Vanceburg put this notion well.

爱是广阔的。如果我爱你，我就鼓励你向外发展，建立其他的人际关系。尽管我们之间的爱以及我们相互承担的责任不允许我们做某些事情，但我们并不是完全彻底地栓在一起。把一令人和另一个捆绑在一起，而不给他发展空间，这是一种虚假的爱。凯斯和温斯伯格把这个概念讲得很好

The honest evidence of our love is our commitment to encouraging another's full development. We are interdependent' personalities⁷ who need one another's presence in order to fulfill ourdestiny.And yet,we are also separate individuals. We must come to terms with our struggles alone。

我们相互承诺要鼓励对方充分的发展，这就真实地证明了我们之间的爱。我们是互相依存的，为了完成自己的使命，需要对方的存在。但我们又是不同的个体，我们必须各自面对自己的奋斗。

Love means having a want for the person I love without having a need for that person in order to be complete. If I am nothing without you, then I'm not really free to love you. I love you and you leave, I'll experience a loss and be sad and lonely, but I'Il still be able to survive. If I am overly dependent on you for my meaning and my survival, then I am not free to challenge our relations; nor am I free to challenge and confront you. Because of my fear of losing you,I'll settle for.z less than I want,and this settling will surely lead to feelings of resentment⁸.

爱意味着我需要所爱的人，但不是缺了他就不行。如果我没有你我就不能生存，那我根本就不能无拘无束的去爱你。我爱你，你离开了，我有失落感，我难过，我感到孤独，但我还能支撑去。如果我的价值和我的生存过于依赖于你，那我就没有审视我们之间关系的自由，我就没有反驳你的自由，我也没有与你当面进行争辩的自由。由于我怕失去你，我就只有降低要求，而这种委曲求全肯定会引起我的不满情绪。

Love means identifying with's the person I love. If I love you, I can empathize with you and see the world through your eyes.I can identify with you because I'm able to see myself in you and you in me. This closeness does not imply a continual "togetherness"for distance and separation are sometimes essential in a loving relationship. Distance can intensify⁹ a loving bond,and it can help us rediscover ourselves, so that we are able to meet each other in a way

爱就是要能够理解自己所爱的人。如果我爱你，我就能与你有同样的情感，我就通过你的眼睛去看世界。我能够理解你是因为我在你身上看到了我自己，而在我身上我也看到了你。这种亲密的关系并不是说要持续的“在一起”，因为距离和分别对于相爱来说有时是必要的。距离可以增强爱的联系，距离还有助于重新发现自己，这样我们就能够以新的方式面对对方。

Love is selfish. I can only love you ifl genuinely love,value, appreciate, and respect myself. Ifl am empty, then all I can give you is my emptiness. Ifl fell that I'm complete and worthwhile in myself, then I'm able to give you out of my fullness. One of the best ways for me to give you love is by fully¹⁰ enjoying myselfwith you.

爱中充满了自我，只有我能真正地爱自己，珍惜自己，欣赏自己，尊重自己，我才能爱你。如果我空虚，那么我能给你的只有空虚，如果我感到自己是完整的、有价值的人，那么我就能够让你分享我的充实。给予你我对你的爱，最好的一个方式就是和你一起充分享受我的一切。

Love involves seeing the potential with the person we love. In my love for another, I view her or him as the person he or she can become, while still accepting who and what the person is now. Goethe's observation is relevant here: by taking people as they are, we make them worse, but by treating them as if they already were what they ought to be, we help make them better.

爱还包含能够看到我所爱的人的潜力。我爱那个人，我一方面承认他的现状，另一方面我现在就视他为他将来能够成为的那种人。歌德有一句与此相关的评论：我们如果按照人们的现状来对待他们，只能使他们越来越差，要是按照他们应该达到的目标来对待和要求他们，我们就会促使他们变得更好。

We conclude this discussion of the meanings that authentic love has for us by sharing a thought from Fromm's The Art of Loving .His description of mature love sums up the essential characteristics of authentic love quite well;

我们把弗罗姆在《爱的艺最美丽的爱情术》里阐述的一个观点介绍给大家，以此来结束我们对真爱含义的论述。他对成熟的爱的归纳极好地总结了真爱的基本特征:

Mature love is union under the condition of preserving one's integrity,one's individuality.In love this paradox¹¹ occurs that two beings becomes become one and yet remain two.

成熟的爱是两个人的结合，但又不是各自的完整和特性。爱中有这种矛盾现象;合二为一，却又一分为二。