Valentine’s day has gotten a bad rep in recent decades. Common phrases often heard around this time of year are jaded observations – It’s a “made up” holiday. It’s too commercial. It’s invented by Hallmark to sell cards and flowers. People shouldn’t have to be reminded to tell someone they love someone one day a year, they should do that EVERY day. Or, it’s just “Sad – Singles Awareness Day.”
Most of these are wrong. All of the “made up holiday” or “invented by Hallmark” Valentine’s day predates all of that – even predates Saint Valentine. Sure, Hallmark and others have commercialized it, so there’s some truth in the “it’s too commercial” but here’s the thing – you get to decide how commercial your celebration is. If someone thinks you’re not being “commercial” enough – you didn’t buy the right amount of the right type of flowers, or didn’t take them to the right restaurant – They’re missing the point.
The last two comments I want to pay special attention to, however. “People shouldn’t have to be reminded to tell someone they love them” and “Singles Awareness Day.” Both of these stem from the same root issue. We, as a society, are REALLY caught up in “love” being one specific type of love. As the greeks called it, “Eros” love. Eros is greek for “we touch each other’s genitals.” But it’s certainly not the only kind – there’s love for family, and friends, and cool people you admire. There’s love for your pets and love for your favorite ice cream. And all that love shares one thing in common – it deserves to be celebrated. Valentines isn’t the day to remind you to tell your significant other that you love them, nor is it the day to rub it in the face of single people. It’s a day to celebrate love.
There’s an idea in some societies that love is the most important, most powerful force in the universe. It literally holds the universe together. And everything – from the smallest elementary particle to the largest cluster of galaxies – is just looking for that force to bring everything together. Love. We need love, (Love is all you need, after all.) Because without it there is little reason behind the universe. I do not choose to live in a world without love. So yes, tell your significant other you love them. But tell your parents you love them too. And your friends, and your dog, and even your ice cream. Because today is about LOVE.
This is an excerpt from the Selections from the Writings of Abdu’l-Baha, a holy text from the Baha’i. I thought it fit well here, and is worth sharing. Please read it. And know that I love you. Happy Valentine’s day.
Know thou of a certainty that Love is the secret of God’s holy Dispensation, the manifestation of the All-Merciful, the fountain of spiritual outpourings. Love is heaven’s kindly light, the Holy Spirit’s eternal breath that vivifieth the human soul. Love is the cause of God’s revelation unto man, the vital bond inherent, in accordance with the divine creation, in the realities of things. Love is the one means that ensureth true felicity both in this world and the next. Love is the light that guideth in darkness, the living link that uniteth God with man, that assureth the progress of every illumined soul. Love is the most great law that ruleth this mighty and heavenly cycle, the unique power that bindeth together the divers elements of this material world, the supreme magnetic force that directeth the movements of the spheres in the celestial realms. Love revealeth with unfailing and limitless power the mysteries latent in the universe. Love is the spirit of life unto the adorned body of mankind, the establisher of true civilization in this mortal world, and the shedder of imperishable glory upon every high-aiming race and nation.
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