The Challenge of Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day is a cultural and commercial celebration of love and affection. It can be a lonely and painful day for persons who are not in a romantic relationship. It also can be a day when individuals attempt to express their love and fealty for each other. The challenge of Valentine’s Day is not in sending and receiving cards or flowers but is in risking opening our heart and allowing our beloved to enter.

Since childhood we have developed layers of armor around our heart to prevent others from being aware of the pain or loneliness we may be carrying within us. We are afraid to hear our loved one’s response to the question, “If I truly reveal to you who I am, will you still love me?”

Cupid’s arrow pierces the armor and opens the heart so our beloved can enter with the healing words, “You are beautiful just the way you are.”

David was a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist for 35 years before the publication of his first collection of poems, “A Heart on Fire, Poems from the Flames.” He continues to write poetry and makes presentations on poetry of Eastern and Western Mystics and leads poetry workshops as a faculty member of OLLI College at the University of Southern Maine. David is a regular contributor to Kind Over Matter. David plays the “Shakuhachi,” a Japanese bamboo flute used in Zen Buddhist meditation and celebration. He combines his flute music with poetry readings. He has taught Tibetan and Western poetry to Buddhists monks at Sera Jhy Tibetan Buddhist Monastery in South India. He earned his Master of Theology and Ph.D. in Pastoral Psychology degrees from Boston University. You can contact David via email or follow him on his website.

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