The Valentines Day Resentment

A few years ago I was doing an exercise where I was listing my resentments down on paper. This exercise was part of a program of Spiritual development. At first I was listing people mostly and then it was pointed out that I could identify institutions or other things or entities. My first thoughts went to the IRS which made it first on the paper.  But then I remembered Valentines Day.

On the surface the reader might or could think, the writer - me,  has no heart. (No pun intended). To this day I can remember standing in a florist shop on Valentines Day in 1983.  It was early afternoon, on lunch break actually, and here I was standing in front of a reach-in cooler staring at various flower arrangements.  I can't even remember the lady I was dating at the time. I do remember though the two guys who were standing next to me; one on my right and one on my left. This situation could have been an episode of the "The Three Stooges".

My recollection was that the guy on the right had beads of sweat on his forehead and the guy on the left had veins popping out on his temples. Both had glassy eyes and a deer in the headlights look of "How did I get here?" It occurred to me that there were no women in there looking for a gift for their boyfriends and to this day I have always felt that this commercially driven date on the calendar is mostly directed one way. All one has to do is study the advertisements to substantiate this premise.

All humor and sarcasm aside, my true belief is that if we love and love fully and totally; If we love everyday those we are close to and those we meet in passing, we do not need to designate one day to show Love.. We do not have to do something special just once a year for the folks in our lives to know we love them. Each moment of each day we love with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our minds, with all our strength.  If we love ourselves first then we can love our neighbors as ourselves!

'There is no fear in Love..."
1John 4:18