Is this thing on? Okay, here we go.
I don't have a lot of time, but I'm writing anyway. I hardly ever have time when I do sit down to write. Anyway, let's get to the topic at hand, shall we?
It's nearing the middle of February, and everybody knows what that means: Valentine's Day!
Why does this day capture my attention every year? I've never had a partner on that day, or even as far as I recall anytime in the month of February.
February is WINTER. It's not a time to be going out and doing things. This is the time of year I want to just curl up in bed and not get up for eight weeks. Wake me when it's almost spring.
Still, we've got 70 degrees coming up later this week. That'll help relieve some of the downers of winter.
But despite how I've never participated as such in Valentine's Day, the event still captures my attention like a train barreling down the tracks to which I'm tied.
It has often felt about like that once it's past, too.

So what's Valentine's Day about? Love, in simplest explanation. Romance too. Oh, romance!
I am a romantic, but I'm also very sensible in my view of the future. While I want each relationship to be bordering on perfection, I know few if any can reach that level.
How can I make romantic statements about the length of our lingering love when it's more likely we'll not be together in a few months?
To say I'll love you until the stars burn out can easily be a true statement. I expect most of us to live forever, in ever expanding love.
But to say we'll be together forever? I know this life is short. And in the next life, we don't have the same kind of partnerships we do when we're mortal creatures.
How then to offer the undying love that so often rolls to the tip of my tongue, there to trip over as I try to find how and when to say it?
All I really feel I can offer is to say we'll all know the love of God, and whatever happens will be directed by His supernal wisdom. [ref]
After all, love flows from our Father. Our love grows in response to being loved, and love is our Father's eternal attitude toward his creature children.
It is in striving to be like the Father, to make our natures more like His, that the greatest love grows.

Whew, how I do ramble on at times.
I could offer some in-depth study. Some well written papers, offering the best I've found on the subject.
I'm personally more interested in an experiential study though. I want to discover how love works on the human level by throwing myself into it with my whole heart.
Yet, my heart is tender, and easily pained.
I can talk about love in the spirit sense, and I think that's the best concept of love we have. A little further down the page from that earlier link, the author bemoans the lack of an exclusive word for the divine affection, since so often the word-symbol love refers to much that is unworthy of sharing a term with that attitude. What a downer...?

So what about relationships? In other ages, it was pretty much all arranged. Love grew once marriage was underway. Today, we seek love before dedicating to such a relationship.
And this is the area where my experience is lacking. I can go on all day about divine love, or platonic human love manifest in service; partnership love? I simply need more experience.
Where does love come from? It cannot be created, manufactured, or purchased. [ref] It must grow, and it grows out of understanding. For this, I will quote directly into this article:

In the mind’s eye conjure up a picture of one of your primitive ancestors of cave-dwelling times — a short, misshapen, filthy, snarling hulk of a man standing, legs spread, club upraised, breathing hate and animosity as he looks fiercely just ahead. Such a picture hardly depicts the divine dignity of man. But allow us to enlarge the picture. In front of this animated human crouches a saber-toothed tiger. Behind him, a woman and two children. Immediately you recognize that such a picture stands for the beginnings of much that is fine and noble in the human race, but the man is the same in both pictures. Only, in the second sketch you are favored with a widened horizon. You therein discern the motivation of this evolving mortal. His attitude becomes praiseworthy because you understand him. If you could only fathom the motives of your associates, how much better you would understand them. If you could only know your fellows, you would eventually fall in love with them. [ref]

Yes, I feel as though I'm beginning to love this primitive human. And through my studies of human evolution, I am starting to develop an understanding of all my fellows.
I can't just acquire an understanding of all people, but I can and have started to develop an understanding of many threads which are woven throughout modern peoples.
So it's often easy for me to love... I form a deep understanding of my fellows' motives quickly, because I grok what influences are coming from the past.

Still, it's not always so easy. It try to keep this in mind: If someone irritates you, causes feelings of resentment, you should sympathetically seek to discern his viewpoint, his reasons for such objectionable conduct. If once you understand your neighbor, you will become tolerant, and this tolerance will grow into friendship and ripen into love. [same paper, earlier]

I guess I've rambled on enough for now. Certainly, I need to get going, my time is up.
I should probably edit this all apart. Maybe not put it online at all, even in this hidden grotto of the internet which is that sprout of my own site.
But what the heck, I didn't write this just to throw it away now! I'll put it online, and even mention it to some people, probably.
Come one, come all, look and see this foolish mortal, crying out for heaven to reach down to him.
I know few will come here. Fewer still will read, and even fewer will read everything.
Yet here you are, reading these words. Perhaps you've been able to gain a little understanding of me. Perhaps you'll grow to tolerate me; even, someday, to love me. Perhaps you already do.

But, no matter what you choose, choose love.
I'll be back to talk about love as the sum of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. When I can.

Be Great,
Chris