A listening heart is always open, sensitive to the joy and pain of others, offering a space within itself for the other to enter. It gives each person what is so badly needed – an affirmation of their place in this world.
~ Eliszer Shore
This is one of the things that love is called upon to do:
To affirm and sustain the seed in another human being even though no tangible evidence has been given of the nature and quality of the seed that is growing there. Love depends upon the capacity to reach beneath the surface of persons, to feel and touch the seed of life that is hidden there. And love becomes a power when it is capable of evoking that seed and drawing it forth from its hiding place.