Think You Don’t Have a Valentine? Bet You’re Wrong

Think You Don’t Have a Valentine? Bet You’re Wrong
Photo by Emma Styles on Unsplash

“Valentine’s Day is Friday,” said my teenage daughter as we turned into the parking lot of her dance school.

I nodded in agreement and circled the lot’s perimeter so I could let her out at the entrance.

Just then her brother announced from the backseat, “I have a Valentine.”

“Who?” said his sister, her voiced cocked with unnatural interest. I could tell she was hoping he was about to reveal a crush on one of his 4th-grade classmates.

“Mom.”

My eyes softened, a smile spread from the corners of my mouth, and some tiny measure of tension evaporated off my shoulders.

‘Great,’ you might be thinking… ‘Her kid just called her his Valentine. Good for her. What about me?’

Isn’t that the way we all think? ‘What about me?’ I do.

Now if you’re a regular reader, you know I have a Valentine in the traditional sense, my husband of almost 22 years. And I am forever grateful for him and the family we’ve made together.

You also know I write a lot on this blog about goodness, generosity, and how an ounce of faith can make it easier to see where divine light shines through the cracks of everyday life.

But what you might not know is that sometimes that’s hard for me.

It’s hard for me to see grace when I feel uninspired. When world news is bad, very bad, or devastating. When my family members suffer with long-term illnesses. When I pray daily for friends whose kids are struggling. When weeks go by in a blur of activity and every short winter day is actually a long darkness. When I fight my body’s desire to hibernate and drag myself out of bed. The promise of spring lightness seems far off.

So I do what I’m suggesting you do. I look up. I try see beyond…

I’m fairly convinced that some amorous souls were thinking along similar lines as they developed this unsophisticated holiday – Valentine’s Day – over the centuries and then, thankfully, the more winsome among us adopted it with gusto.

To keep us focused on what’s cheerful, and frankly, right.

Love.

Love writ large and small.

Because Love always wins.

Not just for star-gazing couples kissing in the moonlight. But for far-less glamorous and equally important pairs too.

Think you don’t have a Valentine? I’ll bet you’re wrong.

Got a neighbor who always smiles at you?

A colleague who wishes you good day – every darn day?

A clerk at a local store or restaurant who knows you by name and takes an extra second to ask you how you’re doing?

Is there a child in your life – any child – who likes to talk to you? Hold your hand? Play a game? Pet your dog?

And best yet – a friend or loved one who paid you a compliment that sang to your soul because it reinforced a truth you’ve always known about yourself – the substance of who you really are?

Love is always with us. It’s not always dressed up and smelling good. It’s often subtle and understated. But it’s always there.

Essentially, beautifully, Valentines are simple overtures of Love, and they are sometimes expressed by sweet hearts we’ve overlooked.

Somewhere in your life, you have a Valentine.

Ask God to make that person’s presence obvious to you. Give thanks when God does. And then rest in the knowledge that this person is simply one channel of the greater Love that is promised to you – and present to you – now and forever.

“They” – It’s a Bad Word: My Thoughts After the Shootings at Tree of Life Synagogue

“They” – It’s a Bad Word: My Thoughts After the Shootings at Tree of Life Synagogue

Photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash

The tiniest phrase in a recent article about the latest massacre – the one at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh – infuriated me.

It said the shooter “raged against Jews.”

Who are these “Jews”?

I’ll tell you who “they” are. Over the course of my life, people – who happen to have Jewish heritage and espouse a time-treasured faith – have been to me one or more of the following: family members, neighbors, classmates, teachers, doctors….friends.

They are people I love, respect, and deeply admire – just as I would anyone of integrity and goodness who seeks to do unto others as he or she would do unto himself or herself.

And over this week, as I cried for the beautiful people who lost their lives while worshiping God, I considered the state of things…a nation where “raged against Jews” still seems an apt phrase.

Our world repeats many lies to its constantly thrumming drum, but the biggest one is this…

There is a “they” – separate from us – that we can treat as “other.”

The list of self-identifying groups and sub-groups is endless….Christian (i.e., Protestant, Catholic, Evangelical and hundreds of denominations in-between), Jewish, Muslim, Atheist, Agnostic, Democrat, Republican, Men, Women, Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, Straight, LGBTQIA+, Graduate of Such-and-Such College, Having X Degree, No-Degree, Hard Worker, Slacker, Pro-this, Anti-that – you follow?

Add on your own tags – the ones you apply to yourself – as many as you can think of – and stand in your circle to see how many fellow humans are left there with you. One? Two? None?

When we push outward we discover we are all alone.

There is NO “they.”

They are us.

And we are them.

Mother Teresa said it best when she declared, “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten we belong to one another.”

I don’t know much about the shooter at the Tree of Life Synagogue, but I do know this: his hatred was homegrown and it started as a seed in his heart.

The call to action for us as citizens of the world is to LOVE ONE ANOTHER.

There are no caveats in that.

No exclusions if we think the person has strange ideas, smells, does her hair in a funny way, or is infringing on our space.

And whether you happen to agree with me when I say that God created each person – and in His own image – formed to be imperishable for all eternity, unique and sacred as an individual – I would venture this…

Deep down you know that freedom from self-absorption and egotism – those inclinations that isolate us and proliferate fear by pushing others away – means reaching out and extending the thing we all want most. Love.

We all play a role in making this world the place we want it to be.

Call out the darkness and bring it to light.

The darkness within each of us is where the battle is waged.

There is no THEY.

There is only US.

And LOVE that surpasses us all.