Hallmark Cards, florists, chocolatiers, and merchandisers across the country would have you believe February 14 is the only day of the year to express love. Who are they kidding? We all know that unbridled and unconditional love should flow freely throughout all humanity twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
Unfortunately, we’re all human and fall short in that area more often than any of us would dare admit. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.
Below, we’ve included a poem about the transformative nature of love by acclaimed author, poet, and civil rights activist Maya Angelou. Hopefully, like us, you’ll be inspired to love others more freely and extend them—as well as yourself—a little grace when unconditional love is in short supply.
As always, love one another.
Clay, Stephen, and Sherry
The OHF Weekly Editors
Touched by an Angel
By Maya Angelou
We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.
Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.
We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love’s light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.
Image by OHF Weekly.
