Contemplation #19

 

If your experience was anything like mine as a child, I can remember anticipating Valentine’s Day with a degree of excitement and dread.  Excited at the possibility of receiving that very special valentine from that very special someone, and, of course, dreading the heartbreak if it didn’t come. I would eagerly wonder if I would get that special valentine and not just those required ones! You see, where I went to school Valentine’s Day parties required that if you gave a valentine to one classmate, you give a valentine to every classmate; you couldn’t leave anyone out.  And of course those “required valentines” just didn’t mean a whole lot.

Valentine’s Day was originally set aside to commemorate St. Valentine, a third century Roman priest who was martyred and beheaded in Rome on February 14 in the year 273. St. Valentine was a compassionate priest who secretly married Christian couples and provided assistance to Christians in need. This was illegal at the time and so he was jailed for doing so. As the story goes, while imprisoned he healed, through the power of Christ Love, his jailer’s blind daughter. As a result, the jailer’s entire family converted to Christianity and were baptized by St. Valentine in his jail cell!

As you might imagine this didn’t set well with the emperor who ordered his execution. When St. Valentine failed to die after being beaten with clubs and pummeled with stones, he was beheaded. Just before his execution, he wrote a compassionate letter of encouragement to the jailer’s daughter signed:  Love Forever, Your Valentine.

It wasn’t until the 14th century that St. Valentine’s Day became associated with romantic love. Now, just like Christmas and Easter, it’s difficult to celebrate the true meaning of Valentine’s Day without getting lost in the commercialism of the day; we can easily lose the deeper meaning of what St. Valentine’s Day is all about; a celebration of the healing power of Christ Love.

The power of love is a mysterious and miraculous thing. Millions of books have been written and songs sung about the power of love. And who among us has not suffered the pain of a broken heart?  Wars are waged and lives lost in the name of love. Love is a powerful and mysterious thing; we crave it, we live for it, we die for it.

And yet with all its mystery, there are some simple truths about love. First, let us set the record straight:  Love has never broken anyone’s heart, created pain, or demanded a single sacrifice. There is no sacrifice in love. Hearts are broken and pain created not by love, but the lack or loss of it.

So, as we prepare to celebrate the power of love this Valentine’s Day, perhaps it would be helpful to begin by defining just what love is:

Genuine love is Divine Creative Energy out of which all good manifests,

and eventually returns.

 

• All that is good manifests from the energy of Love.

• All life is the physical manifestation of Love.

• All of creation is a reflection of the manifesting presence of Love.

If it is not wonderful and good, then it is not love, but rather the manifestation of loves opposite, which is fear. Make no mistake about it, we can lose ourselves in fear and fail to see the love that is within and all around us in every moment. But we can never be without it. The question is always how aware of it are we?

Jesus’s message to the world was ‘The kingdom of heaven is within you!’ And what is heaven but a state of awakened awareness of the perfect love, Divine Love, Christ Love, that is within us and all around us in every moment.

In A Course in Miracles, it is written;

“It is hard to understand what ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is Within You’ means.

The word ‘within’ is however unnecessary.

The kingdom of heaven is you.”

(4,3.1.2)

 

We are children born of Christ love. Perfect love is within us because perfect love is what we are.

Again, from The Course we are told:

 

“Teach only love, for that is what you are.”

(6,1,13)

 

The problem is we forget the truth about ourselves.  We fall into a place of separation from the perfect love of which we have been created.  As a result, we experience fear, and all the pain our fears create. We fall out of love and experience all the painful manifestations that come from living life outside of the loving energy of God’s creative power.

And so each Valentine’s Day we are given another opportunity to remember the truth about ourselves, and the power of perfect love through which we are all created.  Another opportunity to celebrate the truth about ourselves and one another:

• We are all individualizing manifestations of perfect love!

• We are the children born of Christ,

• We are children of the Divine.

This is not arrogance or wishful thinking. It is a simple statement of the truth about ourselves.

Again, from The Course we are told:

 

“Because of your fathers love you cannot forget him,

for you cannot forget what he has placed in your mind.

You have but to ask for this memory and you will remember!

(12,8.4.1)

But to remember means we must never forget the function of love which is always to

• Unite,
• To bring everything together into oneness.
• To dispel separation.

This means there can be no “specialness.” It means we recognize we are all unique, but no one is “special.” God, our Father, loves no one of us more than another. He does not love Jesus more than he loves you or me. And so this is how we must love if we are to know love; we cannot exclude anyone from our love, and know love.

The Course reminds us:

 

“ If you would love unlike God,

 who knows no special love,

how can you understand it.”

 (15,5.3.2)

And so to remember the perfect love that is within us, we realize that genuine love is found in the “required valentines” and not in the “special” ones. Genuine love is found in the choice to love everyone; even those who would wish to do us harm. It’s in the choice to love everyone; even those that frustrate us, think differently from us, and irritate us.

In Psalm 23, we are reminded,

“God prepares a feast in the midst of his enemies, and my cup runneth over.”

So on this Valentine’s Day, a day set aside for the celebration of the power of love, here are a dozen heavenly Valentines, from A Course In Miracles(ACIM), sent to remind us of the truth about ourselves, and the power and nature of perfect love that lives eternally within each of us.

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ACIM Valentines

Love is all inclusive. To withhold even the smallest gift is not to know love’s purpose.               

 (ACIM 24,1.1.1)

 The Christ in you is very still, and holds everyone unto Himself, that you may bless all living things and see their holiness, which is also your own.

(ACIM 24,5.6.7)

You are a work of God, and his work is wholly lovable and wholly loving. This is how you must come to think of yourself in your heart, for that is what you are.

  ( ACIM 13.,3.2.3) 

 God has given you a place in his mind that is yours forever. Your love is as limitless as his because it is his.

  (ACIM 11,1.6.8)

 God has given you everything. That is why there is no distinction between having the kingdom of God, and being the kingdom of God.

 (ACIM 4,3.9,1.7)

 When your mood tells you that you have chosen wrongly, and you will know that you have because you are not joyous.

In every case you will have thought wrongly in some way about your life, which God has created.

Think honestly about what you have thought, that God would not have thought.

Then say “this need not be” and remember you are a mirror of truth, in which God himself shines in perfect light.

  (ACIM 4,4.2.3.4,9.1)

 Where you look to find yourself is up to you. But, always remember that what you see in another, you will strengthen in yourself. Your patience with a brother or sister, is your patience with yourself.

 (ACIM 5,6.11.3.4)

 Only you can limit your creative power, but God wills to release it.

Therefore, do not withhold your gift to others, or you will withhold yourself from God.

(ACIM 7,9.1.1.3)

 Only love is strong because it is undivided. The strong do not attack, because they see no need to do so.

(ACIM 12,5.1.1)

 Love always leads to love.

There is the light of love in you which you can give as it was given you.

As you give it, you will lay aside the old world and find a new one.

And this new world is bright with the love which you have given it.

(ACIM 13,6.10.1 & 11,1.5.6)

 There is no problem in any situation that faith in love will not solve. Is it not possible all your problems have been solved, but you have removed yourself from the solution?

 (ACIM 17,7.2.1.4)

 God is in your memory. Listen and you will hear. His voice will remind you that you are part of him. To remember is merely to restore to your mind what is already there. God will do his part if you will do yours. Seek to remember and nothing is beyond his will for you.

(ACIM 10,2.4. & 3,1.5)

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And so it is. We are children of Christ love. We have but to ask for the memory of God – the Christ in us – perfect  love, and we will remember.  We will awaken to the perfect love that is within us.

And so here is that “special” valentine all of our hearts crave.  God’s special valentine to each of us this valentine’s day:

 

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My Dear Child

you are my love, you are my treasure.

I have written my eternal love upon your heart so that you will never be without it. 

 I will never leave you. 

I am with you in every moment, and every breath. 

Quiet your mind and listen and you will hear my eternal song of love to you. 

 Love others as I love you.

 See others as I see you.

And then my kingdom shall be yours forever,

 and it will be on earth as it is in heaven.

 

 Your Divine Creator

Your Valentine

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