BEYOND WORDS

     Every Valentine's Day is an opportunity and a challenge for me. Easy enough to write about love in a blog, or to say I love you at the end of a phone call to family. But V-Day is the time to find special ways to express your love, or else just go through the motions. What comes up for me is a certain helpless feeling, a frustration, that I cannot put all the love that I feel into words on a greeting card, or a note with flowers.

     It's wonderful to frequently write about love, and to meditate on love in your heart, and to contemplate love as the very essence of our life together. But when it comes time to deliver the perfect statement of your special love for the most important relationship in your life, it's a daunting task. And a great opportunity. Love is so far beyond words, like the starry heavens are beyond the dusty roads of earth. Love is beyond words, like a flower and a mountain are beyond a dictionary. Love has a language that can be felt and known and shared. But words can only be indicators, like a cooking thermometer that tells you when the roast is done. Love is not a metaphor. Love is silent, before words. For Valentine's Day tomorrow listen for it, feel it, celebrate it. Love is the real thing, beyond words.