Here it is, Valentines Day, 2003, a day devoted to love. Everywhere in this country, husbands and wives and lovers are exchanging chocolate-filled satin hearts, red roses and a myriad of other tokens of affection. Many will be proposed to or married on this day. Cyberspace will be awash in cupids and flowers and beautiful poetry of the heart.
How strange to see this against a backdrop of impending war and heightened alert against feared terrorist attack. Along with candy and flowers, it appears many are stocking up on duct tape and plastic sheeting as a desparate attempt to feel secure against a possible chemical or biological foe lurking outside. Storing extra water and batteries, they are prepared to lock themselves away from the uncertain and threatening world outside. How bizarre life has become.
You will find no dancing cupids or frilly sentimental poetry on this page. There is plenty of that elsewhere that too often masquerades as love. Love is much more. It doesn't threaten or hide. It doesn't pick and choose it's recipient based on ideas or geography or labels. It simply gives of itself requiring nothing in return and requiring no ridiculous test of deservedness. Love does not understand duct tape and locked doors. Love does not understand fear or hate. In fact they do not and cannot exist where love is.
On this Valentines Day, I ask you to find this love within your heart, and to send it out into the world. You'll ask, "How can I love those who hate me and wish me harm?" They, dear friends, are the ones that need it the most. Just for today, do the thing you think you cannot do. Find one person you judge to be the most dispicable and find something in them to love. Dig deep within your heart and remember that those who hurt others, those that are filled with hate do these things because of a secret history you will never know that has turned them into the people they are. Shine the light of love into their darkenend hearts. Help make this day truly devoted to love. And then pledge to add one more person tomorrow and the next day and the next. If you find yourself feeling angry or judgemental, stop, and see if you can see the situation from a place of love instead. If we all do this, by next Valentines Day we might even forget that we ever had to set a special day aside for love in the first place. And there will still be 9,376,894 uses for duct tape. Just not this one.
