So here I am, on this day of days, Saint Valentine's Day. It is raining, I am listening to some tuneful music, I am warm....So here I am, on this day of days, Saint Valentine's Day. It is raining, I am listening to some tuneful music, I am warm.

Outside, people are going about, filing paperwork, cleaning the streets, tuning their guitars, getting ready for the night shift, climbing trees to fix worn wires, swimming in the bay to look for some dumped cargo.

We are busy.

Outside of us, plants are busy converting CO2 to O2. The ocean teems with microscopic plants called plankton, who breathe out O2 and their bodies constantly rain down on the ocean floor to become future land. Whales are singing. The sun is losing weight constantly, burning itself up to provide light and heat for the solar system. Our moon is constantly falling toward the earth, providing light at night, providing our tides, affecting the rhythms of us and animals. Our continents are floating above a sea of liquid rock and slowly sinking down to be reborn in volcanoes as new land.

Within us, we are busy burning O2 to provide our cells with energy. Our cells are constantly manufacturing chemicals to make our body run. Our brain is collecting information from our sense organs, finding out where that information goes, and then translating it and giving out orders. Our heart is constantly pumping our blood. Our circulatory system, made of kilometres of vessels, carries the nutrients through our body to where it is needed.

At the subatomic level, little bits of reality that we call electrons fling themselves around other little bits of reality we call atoms, providing us with the basis for chemical reactions and our sense of touch.

All of this without our conscious effort. Selfless and working together for the greater cause. This is the baseline for life, for reality. It is selfless Love.

The Greeks had many different names for Love. They had Agape, which was used to describe a spouse's love for their family or affection toward a certain activity. It was thought to describe divine love, selfless and unconditional. The ancient Christians took this and, taking it as their own, said it was Christian Love or Charity. Therefore, 'God is Love' was really 'God is Agape', which has been translated through the years to our one word, 'Love'.

The Greeks also had Philia, which denoted friendship, which Aristotle defined as love for what is pleasant, useful, and good.

The Greeks also had Eros, where we get our word Erotic from, meaning sensual love*. The philosopher and theologian Thomas Jay Oord further defines it as love that affirms the beautiful or valuable.

The Greeks also had Storge, which was used to describe affection for one's children.

The Greeks also had Xenia, which was their term for hospitality.

In Roman times, Juno was the head of the Gods. She was the goddess of women and marriage, and her day was Feb 14th, when they honoured her. The next day was the Feast of Lupercalia, where young boys and girls, whose lives were normally segregated, drew names. The young girls would write their names on slips and put them in jars. Each young man would take a name from the jar and for the whole feast, those two were a couple. Sometimes, this lasted for a year and they could fall in love and later marry.

Emperor Claudius II of Rome, after a series of bloody battles, was dismayed at the reluctance of people to join his military, so he blamed it on the soldiers not wanting to leave their loves, so he banned marriage. Onto the stage came St Valentine, who, with a St Marius, secretely married couples in defiance of this. He was found out and killed on Feb 14, year 270.

The early church in Rome took this pagan holiday, Feb 14, and to get rid of the pagan connotations, during the Feast of Lupercalia, substituted the names of Saints instead of the names of maidens. And so on to us.

This is, of course, one story. Another story is the one we live with constantly, that of the commercial world, where there are cards and flowers and chocolate, and an almost intentional guilting or 'thou hast to feel bad about love' in a way.

Now, which do you want? Dare you to dig deep into your culture, to find the deep stories that lie beneath? Or will you give in to the silly commercialism, that says all you are is a consumer?

So, on this day of days, take a moment to consider all these things, all the things that Universe does for us, the sheer beauty and elegance of it all. Go to your library, talk with old folk about their holidays and rituals, do something for someone else, make someone's day or night.

My gift of love to you.

*Pope Ratzinger's first encyclical was all about Love: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/
hf_ben-xvi_enc_20051225_deus-caritas-est_en.html

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