. . . on Valentine's Day (2011 and forever)
("Stretch your white hands toward me beneath your white stars"--Abraham Sutzkever)
It is one of those times that I know a holiday is within me waiting for expression to its depths.
There are saints backgrounding several of our major holidays--I consider this one the biggest of them all, for what is our ultimate wealth, joy, stability, prism, magnifier, if not love?
What was Jesus' message if not love?
There is All Saints' Day embracing Halloween; St. Patrick's Day, Christmas--Jesus the ultimate saint for many of us, St. Nicholas having jumped on his sleigh only a few hundred years ago.
There is a Saint Lucia important to the Nordic Christmas, and so on. I'm thinking literally now--not in terms of how sainted our laborers and military have become. That's another article.
St. Valentine, martyred for giving, martyred for activating love.
We need to start a movement to make St. Valentine's Day a national holiday. If we tweak our priorities and perhaps turn it into St. Valentine's week--imagine.
To observe this week-long holiday, we will have to activate love conscientiously every day, every night. We will all get the week off, but hardly a vacation. No trips to the Caribbean. Maybe lots of babies will be born in November.
But we can create all sorts of ways to celebrate this week. Perhaps it will become the most crime-free of all fifty-two.
We must be careful not to go any farther into the materialistic aspect than we already have. And then be sure all Valentines not kept are judiciously recycled in a special compost heap of love. What can we do with that?
We need effective, charismatic leadership to actualize this idea. I'm just a writer. Presidents' Day has been around for years (I remember the days when the two birthdays were celebrated separately, without a three-day weekend). What do we accomplish by lumping Washington and Lincoln with all the other presidents? Not much. "Back in my day" (I don't believe I'm saying this, but Soc. Sec. is just around the corner), we studied Lincoln on Lincoln's birthday, and Washington on Washington's--who tells the story about the cherry tree anymore, or about Lincoln's proverbial and literal burning the midnight oil to educate himself?
On MLK Day, we have a single focus and a very meaningful experience of another martyr who preached love and nonviolence.
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