Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine’s Day! Let the spending and the materialistic monetized expressions of romantic love flow forth! Another day like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day and all the rest to spend money and boost the economy and business profits. Will any love, appreciation or gratitude really be expressed and shared? Perhaps. Will a card do, or must there be flowers and candy? And what about for the guys – cigars, whisky, certainly not roses or a card. Gifts and or dinner out seem so much better than a heart-felt “I love you,” supported by actual loving behavior – kindness, consideration, respect, and compassion.

Did you know that dinner out, for example, might actually be an unloving even dangerous thing to do? A report released today by the Restaurant Opportunities Center of Miami, a local chapter of a national workers’ organization says with “long hours, few benefits, and exposure to dangerous and often-unlawful work place conditions,” Valentine’s Day is a hazard to restaurant employees. Imagine that! What whimply bleeding heart liberal crap! Those wet-backs ought to be grateful they’ve got jobs, right?

So what if based on surveys of 580 Miami-Dade restaurants 39.9% of restaurant workers struggle to survive on wages below the poverty level? Hell, let ‘em go to college and get educated so they can get better jobs. This is America, isn’t it? 89.6% don’t receive healthcare benefits. Too bad, but not on my dime – we’re gonna repeal that socialist Obamacare crap. 65.2% worked when sick – ech! Coughing, mucous and germs in my food!! Call the cops, arrest the terrorist bastards!

45.5% have suffered overtime waqge violations and 27.1% have worked off the clock without pay. So what if they don’t get to see their families or take care of their kids, they’ve got the internet and TV to amuse them and gangs to give ‘em that sense of belonging. Also, and this is really hard to believe, the research shows a pattern of discrimination with people of color relegated to the lowest paying jobs. What? How could that be in America? Didn’t we just elect a black President [get the bastard out, so we can get our country back again and give it to the corporations].

Yet in spite of all this, Joel Goldsmith, a wonderful practical mystic says, “The only relationship that exists is a relationship of (loving) oneness, and there can be do division or separation in that oneness.” Hard to hold this idea and the plight of the restaurant workers in the same mind, isn’t it? To me, when we mistreat and abuse our brothers and sisters, as in the case of the restaurant workers, or allow them to be mistreated, either directly or indirectly – directly by voting for and supporting those with a fear-mongering, dog-eat-dog philosophy and indirectly by denying or ignoring the problem, it shows that we have forgotten our oneness and who we all – even the fear-mongering, dog-eat-dog folks, truly are, children of God.

The expression of love, not romantic love, but the love of God for Its creation -compassion, kindness, consideration and respect, is the expression of God’s love through and to us. It is seeing the world through spirit’s eyes; seeing as spirit sees. Feeling and expressing this love, this agape, is a gift; it is a communion that allows us to know spirit directly as both giver and receiver. Each time we give and receive love, we have touched the love of God Itself. And, really, giving is enough. It need not be reciprocated. Love is sufficient unto itself, requiring no outcome or result; because if you change and really feel love, as Scrooge found in the Christmas Carol, everything else changes, too. Feel love, identify with it, share it and each time you do, you make a contribution to a world that works for everyone and everything.