For those in a relationship, Valentine’s Day might feel exciting. To others, at best it’s just another day; at worst, it’s a reminder of what we feel is missing.

The latter is what I felt one year in college when a long-term relationship ended. So a friend and I decided to create an alternative Valentine’s Day. We baked treats and left them anonymously in friends’ dorm rooms. 

We’d been inspired by an idea from our study of Christian Science about the quality of affection as “more than words: it is the tender, unselfish deed done in secret; . . .” (Mary Baker Eddy, Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 250). This is shared within a paragraph about love that is not just sourced in divine goodness, but is the very nature of God. The paragraph begins: “Love is not something put upon a shelf, to be taken down on rare occasions with sugar-tongs and laid on a rose-leaf. I make strong demands on love, call for active witnesses to prove it, and noble sacrifices and grand achievements as its results.”