Love Grows

Valentine's Day. http://www.history.com/content/valentine/history-of-valentine-s-day who knew?

What is Valentine's day mean? (to me).. honestly - a whole lot of nothing - there is so much lacy doilies and pink-ness involved it makes a bit irritated. Everywhere you look there are mushy gifts and cards and expensive dinners. It makes me a little sad. No - not the kind of sad when a person doesn't have a valentine, although I admit that produces a sense of sadness on this day - a sadness that our world today - the people that live in it - have lost the true sense of this day. I know the technical history (as mentioned above) is about a saint and the good deeds he did and him being a martyr and all. But did you read the end? How did we go from a martyr saint to the second largest card-selling holiday on this day today!?!? I think the only ones that had it right was Great Britain in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries - they used notes and cards as a way to express their feelings in a society where such things required a level of subtlety.

So, the true essence of this day? Love. Regardless of the methods, or the history, Valentine's day has come to mean a day of expressing love. Personally, love should be evident all days of the year - in an ideal society. Sometimes, we feel it, and yet it is unreasonable to ponder on it everyday. So, why not set aside this day every year to think about love, its meaning, and perhaps be thankful for all the love in our lives. (kind of like a thanksgiving for love!)

This year, I want to venture into thinking about what is love. I think the two best explanations I have ever come across have been poetic, and from two sources that in other senses differ greatly from each other. What are these two things that supply me with my definitions... The Bible and William Shakespeare.

Here is what the Bible says:
1 Corinthians 13:1-8a and 13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails....And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (NIV)

And here is what Shakespeare says:
Sonnet 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not loveWhich alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove:O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken;It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come:Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom.If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

There are so many adjectives that can be used with love. And here is the funny thing about love - upon the use of the word, people automatically think romantically. But love doesn't just exist between a man and a woman. Between parents and a child, a sibling to sibling, a friendship, a pet even. Even God. There is so much love filled in our lives, and most of us are not even aware of it. The loneliest man (or woman) on this Earth has love - of this I am sure. They just don't know it's there.

Now, let's pause for a second. Skeptics of this world might challenge the theory of love and say it doesn't exist - just like God. That it's a bunch of hormones that physically attract one to another (yes we're talking romantic love here) that causes us to think it is "love." Or that when a baby is born, the mother has special hormones allowing her to nurture and in turn interpret it as "love." If the world is going to get physiological about love - than let them at least get it right. Yes, love is not just about emotions - it is about hormones. But how do you explain the feeling of happiness when love is in the air? There are actual physiological tests that have been conducted (using the brain and nerve endings) to prove that a couple who has been together many years - in love - is happy being together. There is no "need" - it is simply a feeling of being better than normal when two are together. It was tested that the chemical that releases feelings of stress within us, was suppressed in the couple's brain due to their bond of love with each other. Is that proof enough or what?

"Love is life" That has been my motto, my advice to live life by, and it still holds true. No matter what the love is - romantic, familial, friendship, or religious - it is love nonetheless. Cherish it, feel it, embrace it - because life is short and there is a lot of love to go around - so make it go around :) because there is this silly thing about love: it grows as you share it.