Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives.       –C.S. Lewis

I love gardening.  I love raking the flattened fall leaves off the perennial beds after a winter of snow and cold and watching the new shoots rise up out of the warming earth.  I love making tiny straight troughs in newly-tilled earth and deliberately placing vegetable seeds in them, covering them, and patting down the soil.  I love harvesting the abundant crops that grow from those tiny seeds, marveling each year at the miracle of it all.  But gardening can be hard…and messy.  Those stubborn sumac roots that creep into our vegetable garden are a pain to pull out.  Mosquitoes and humidity in the depth of summer combine to drive the most tolerant gardener to abandon ship in quest of a weed-free zone.  Even in the best of conditions, pulling weeds can be tedious and never-ending work.

It reminds me of Love.  I believe in the power of Love to heal, comfort, and grow a person into a better human being who is capable of sharing abundant gifts with the world.  I believe that pain can be contained in a trough of Love, covered over with compassion, and transformed into something miraculous.  But Love can be hard…and messy.  Anyone who has been in a family or a relationship knows this truth.  Sleep-deprived nights and chore-filled days marked by dirty diapers, colicky crying, and minimal adult conversation can test the mettle of new parents.  Years of marriage and routine and kids and jobs can strain the vows that bind us.  Heartbreak and tears that seep from the depth of our souls threaten to uproot all we have worked so hard to plant.

Under the large and multifaceted umbrella of Love is a quality that sustains the integrity of that Love.  It is a moment, an action, an interaction, and even a look—it is Affection.  Affection opens our hearts, makes us feel warm, induces a smile, relaxes our bodies.  It happens when I look at a beautiful flower or find an extraordinary creature in an ordinary moment of my day. It is the delight of biting into a home-grown tomato and the peace of a fragrant pine forest.  Affection is the warmth of holding someone’s hand, the gift of offering our time and energy, the tenderness of pushing back a strand of hair from a tear-stained face.  Affection demonstrates our attachment to the most important things in our lives.

On this Valentine’s Day, I wish you Love in all of its glory and difficulty, but I especially wish you Affection.  May you give and receive a moment, a smile, an action, a gift, a whisper of love, the extraordinary beauty of Nature, and the peace that passes all understanding.