Henri J. M. Nouwen's close encounter with death reveals to him fresh understandings of God's love and the need to recognize how your death will affect those around you. Here's a passage on the spiritual practice of love.

"Dr. Prasad was very honest and direct. She told me all she knew. I, myself, however, kept feeling that dying was quite possible and that I had to prepare myself and my friends for it. Somewhere, deep in me, I sensed that my life was in real danger. And so I let myself enter into a place I had never been before: the portal of death. I wanted to know that place, to 'walk around' it, and make myself ready for a life beyond life. It was the first time in my life that I consciously walked into this seemingly fearful place, the first time I looked forward to what might be a new way of being. I tried to let go of my familiar world, my history, my friends, my plans. I tried to look not back, but ahead. I kept looking at that door that might open to me and show me something beyond anything I had ever seen.