“You are married. Healing is not a profession but a way of life. Your spouse is not your patient but your flesh. Healing, then, is a task for your heart as well as your head and your hand. ”

“In your attempts to heal this beloved one, the Holy Spirit finds opportunity to keep the promise of Jesus - and indeed, to heal.”

“Volunteering" also honours the sort of work your spouse is obliged to do if you choose cheerfully to do it for him or her. It abolished distinctions and degrees of value. All work is valuable in the house where no work is held in contempt, and where love is not kept in hiding.”

“True "volunteering," then, obeys no law, seeks no returns, pays no debts, plans no praise for yourself, nor proves your goodness”

“So go back to the books. They will comfort you and cheer you. If you earnestly work with them, neither sorrow nor anxiety nor distress nor suffering need trouble your mind any more, no, not evermore.”

“In the bedroom the truer, unpremeditated behavior of intimacy appears, the way this spouse relates to others on the most personal level, body to body and soul to soul. Is he truly patient in sexuality? So he seemed on long spring evenings. Or does he push forward at his own speed to his own satisfaction? And does he consider his satisfaction the measure of his prowess? As he acts here, uncovered, so does he act—more subtly and covertly—in the rest of the marriage.” P35”

“And "sharing the work of survival," therefore, means resisting every temptation towards independence, towards personal liberty, towards "doing your own thing". This takes s sober vigilance and a persistent labour in a world which elevates the individual above the community, in a society which claims that individual desires are more important than contracts, commitments, and the good of the family”