Creative people tend to see life's problems as opportunities to exercise their creativity, to explore something new, to build character, to grow spiritually, and to develop self-knowledge. Love, creativity, and gentleness are closely linked. People who are creative and open to life are more able to learn to love others and themselves. Once we learn the art of turning problems into opportunities, there is no more distinction between self-love and the love of others.
What has always struck me about the way in which the desert dwellers receive friends is their ability to put all activity to one side. You, the guest, become the focal point, and they range themselves round you in a circle. If the owner of the tent has planned to go on a journey, he puts it off: now he must concern himself with you. If the wife was thinking of doing the laundry, she piles it all up on one side: now she must see about serving you. The guest is sacred: everything else is less important.
For the time being you are the one who matters: time is less important. And if the friend, who has left one corner of the world in order to search you out and spend a bit of time with you, has these rights, surely God has the same right, the one who came from heaven itself to find you; who took flesh in order to become visible for you; who became the Eucharist in order to gain entrance to your tent and stay there as long as possible.