Today is Valentine’s Day, and it is the 60th Anniversary of the first date I had with my husband. In the years we have been together we have celebrated, acknowledged or honored the day in a variety of ways. I came from a family which honored all kinds of love on the day with paper, glue and hearts; my husband, not so much! So our observances have varied from year to year, place to place, energy to energy. This year while we recover from injury and illness, I am naming this year The Year of the Loving Spoons!

There is a prevalent theory for people who are in the process of healing of all kinds called the Spoon Theory. It posits that a person has a certain amount of “spoons,” units of energy that they are given at the start of the day, and each activity uses up a certain amount of spoons. When one has run out of spoons, one needs to rest up until the energy has been restored. This is what we are finding on our road to healing: limited “spoons,” needs for restoration, yet continuing to love and learning to love. It is not always immediately intuitive to me. Each of us has different speeds, wishes and needs, and to love the other in concrete ways isn’t the same for each of us.

Among what we are figuring out day by day are some of these things:

• each of us knows our own needs better than the other; if we want help, we need to ask, in some way–with words or another medium
• we each want the best in body, soul and spirit for the other, so our intentions are loving
• it is not easy to be quiet, patient, or (fill in the blank) that the other one needs right now
• we don’t get everything right the first time
• we are not made to be everything to each other, just some important faithful things
• when one need to rest, he or she needs to rest
• it is important to laugh as often and as genuinely as possible
• we have better imaginations than we knew
• we have plenty of things to do together here and close by that don’t use too many “spoons”
• we need to give our forgiveness muscles continuing workouts
• we have family and friends at the ready to come give us a hand
• we are held in Grace by the One who will never let us go

So this Day of Loving Spoons, we are sharing five small meals tailored to one of us, savoring two dozen roses from the local store, sharing the humor we encounter in reading, welcoming message of cheer, trying to remember how our first date happened and continues, and practicing deep gratitude for all that was, for all that is and for all that will be! Happy Valentine’s Day!