We are a scant few days away from Valentine's Day 2016.
Those flowers, chocolates, fancy restaurant meals, cards and sentimental moments of marital bliss are all being offered in splendor over the various types of media.
My heart aches for all who do not "feel the love" as others do.
Sometimes the love that is missing is romantic love that takes the breath away and sweeps one off of their feet both metaphorically and literally.
Sometimes what is absent is that feeling of sure belonging in a family where none is present.
Ofttimes, the missing love is simple friendship.
We have immediacy in our ability to communicate, but that doesn't mean we actually have the all important heart to heart connection that breathes life into our being.
We have a multitude of means with which to express our love both quiet and full blown parade of emotional outpouring.
But still there are multiplied millions sitting on the sidelines of the "love-in" that the advertisers of the world would have us to believe is a shared emotion.
Not everything in the heart of a neighbor is joyful. Not everything in our own is either.
Valentine's Day needs to become a day to see to the needs of those who are not in the mainstream of the parade of candy and love in.
Shared service can show people on the fringe that there is more to the fabric of love than the spectacle of romance for the sake of show.
Though there are many traditions old and new that surround the "day of love", the most lasting show of love is the kindness that makes a place for one and all at the table for the Supper of the Lord.
Sometimes, it seems like the invitation to that seating has been lost in the mail.
I know that there are many others who have felt that disconnect from the joy of love.
Divorce, death, separation of time and distance, and the loss of what once was are all ways that the love once held dear shatters into irreparable shards of broken hearts, the symbol of the Valentine expression.
Take some time to ponder over who is lonely, who might feel lost, who is feeling an empty space in their heart at a time where others are showered over with a multitude of gifts.
