Sugar Heart
I was in Israel a long time ago, engaged to a Jewish boy who wanted to live there--to jump to the end, the boy and I didn't last--and it was Valentine's Day on the kibbutz and I was running around like a moon infected crazy delivering tiny candied hearts to people in the communal dining room who didn't know what a valentine was and didn't care and threw the tiny hearts engraved with inane love messages over their shoulders, shrugging. I was breathtakingly young and dumb and REALLY thought these people should be educated on the elevating power of love, not even considering that St. Valentine was a Christian saint. But what did it matter? Isn't love always a good thing? Nowadays, a bunch of people in my family are evangelical Christians and so Valentine's day is lost on them too, as, they have educated me, St. Valentine was a Catholic saint, and evangelical Cs don't pay homage to saints. They don't send cards, give flowers, receive assurances that they are someone's special love--all this with a sour fervor in order to deny a saint's power--when it would be a lot more fun to just go ahead and have a heart.
Although Valentine was a Christian saint, his value of love transcends all religions, as ALL faiths believe in the power of goodness and love from a Higher Source. Too often the Love is lost as people inflict their beliefs on others.
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Interesting. Being nice to people is really the message of all religion isn't it? Maybe not. Maybe the real message is be nice to those who are in the same religion. Everyone else is fair game for scrutiny. Too bad. We rob ourselves.
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