A thought for Valentine's Day

Again and again [humankind] tries to put into words and symbols the meaning of experience that never quite by implied by any words and symbols, however great and strategic such words and symbols may be. A simple illustration of what I mean is the use of the three words, "I love you."

Over a period of a half century one person may say that phrase through endless days to another person, and yet at the end of [her] life discover what [they] knew all along, that [she] has never been able to say what [she] meant. -- Theologian Howard Thurman in Deep River and the Negro Spiritual Speaks of Life and Death