VALENTINE LOVE GREETINGS

Day after tomorrow is Valentine Day and a great opportunity to tune into one of the most pleasurable aspects of living, sharing extra happiness. Every culture explores new ways of expanding love to our spouse, family, friends and all who are part of our sphere of living. The airwaves are full of suggestions of still one more way of doing this and here is one from a child to his grandmother, Dr. Gladys Taylor McGarey. They were chatting together about things that interest a six year old when he abruptly changed the subject, looked into the loving understanding eyes of his namesake. "Nanni," he said, "I think the meanest thing that anybody could do would be to kill the teddy bears and blankies."

"I gave him an understanding hug," she writes, and later thought about how much wisdom children share with us and how easy it is for us to think that our thoughts are more important than their insights. Taylor's statement was telling me that we need to be very aware of the nurturing aspect of divine energy, that we cannot live life fully without letting tenderness and compassion enter into our everyday lives. We have done so much harm taking away the arts and nurturing programs from our school children in our attempt to have them fit into certain proscribed patterns. I wonder what the children in war-torn countries are doing for blankies and teddy bears. No wonder the world is angry. We may not be able to give them the material blankies and teddy bears, but we can all pray for them and hold them in our hearts with loving concern.

Thinking further on this, I realized that not just children need this kind of concern, but the child in each one of us needs and wants to share love and compassion with each other. I know a young person who just started medical school last fall and has taken his blankie with him to his apartment. Pretty much of a rag by now, but it continues to be a comfort to him because of awareness of such needs and will be a truly good doctor.

When we cut back our interest and concern from the finer things in life and concentrate on the power of the mind, money and material things, our souls are injured. The use of creative energy for nurturing has always been important to the human soul. As we look for opportunities to be kind and gentle with the hurt parts of ourselves, we will find tenderness, and softness that will bring laughter and humor into the most difficult situations and healing when nothing else can. There is no receiving without giving, for he that would have joy must make joy in the lives of others, for peace and harmony creates peace in self and in relationships with others." I could not possibly add anything more to the words of Taylor and his grandmother, Dr.Gladys Taylor McGarey. She is coauthor of "The Physician Within You" and the lead physician at the Scottsdale Holistic Medical Group in Scottsdale, Arizona.