大象传媒

From Dr Jim Harris, Art Historian:聽
Valentines Day. The day for the loved-up and the loving. The day when hope and longing coalesce in an inescapable, incandescent burst of desire. The loveliest, sappiest, soppiest, most intolerable day of the year. On Valentine鈥檚 Day we talk about true love but half the time we don鈥檛 know whether it鈥檚 true or not - and feelings, let鈥檚 face it, are hard things to trust.聽
So on Valentine鈥檚 Day we fall back on what we are told is romantic and we go out and buy it, sterilized, homogenised, tied up, sealed and packaged, with all the life and all the love in it crushed and made tawdry. I鈥檒l admit that鈥檚 a pretty jaundiced view, but bear with me鈥�. The problem I reckon is that, on the day when romance reigns, many of us are tired, grumpy, busy and just not feeling it. Weirdly, for me, it鈥檚 not unlike the experience of church. Some weeks, I really don鈥檛 want to be there. Sometimes I get there and I feel as if there鈥檚 no-one listening when I pray. Sometimes I鈥檓 just not feeling it.聽
But then, as the service starts, something happens. I fall into its familiar rhythms and the responsibility for me to be feeling anything at all is lifted and I find myself simply pulled along in the flow of it. That greatest of all contemporary Christian thinkers, Sister Monica Joan from Call the Midwife, said a wise and true thing in this regard: 鈥淚n chapel, we need not choose our thoughts. The words are aligned like a rope for us to cling to.鈥澛�
Sometimes it really is the words and not the thinking that I need. And words are at the heart of Valentine鈥檚 Day, because even when it鈥檚 said out of habit, to hear the words, 鈥業 love you鈥� is enough to make the most jaded heart soar and cause the most sluggish pulse to race. And to say, 鈥業 love you鈥� is a gift. So this Valentine鈥檚 Day, even if you鈥檙e tired, even if your mind is elsewhere: say the words.聽
Even if you鈥檙e busy, if you鈥檙e irritated and annoyed: say the words. Even if you鈥檙e holding out for someone to say them to you first: say the words. Say 鈥業 love you鈥�. Say it. Give someone you love a rope to cling to. And perhaps you can cling to it as well.