Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, the day we celebrate romantic love. Most of you will experience romantic love at least once in your life. It is a thrilling and wonderful experience, as Joni Mitchell describes it, “that dizzy dancing way you feel”; but it’s not really the most important form of love in the world.

In the movie, “Groundhog Day,” the lead character Phil the weatherman lives the same day over and over again. What saves him from the spell is not his love for his girlfriend; but his dedicating his life to loving and helping all people.

We are advised to love others as we love ourselves and to love our enemies as well as our friends. That is the bottom line of the non-violent civil rights movement. That is what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. meant when he said, "Non-violence is a powerful and just weapon which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it."

Rosa Parks, in her 1994 book, “Quiet Strength,” described that love when she remembered, "I kept thinking about my mother and my grandparents, and how strong they were. I knew there was…an opportunity being given to me to do what I had asked of others."

Many of the civil rights leaders had a background in the church with a belief in unselfish love. Dr. King, Andrew Young and other leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference read extensively from the writings of Mohandas Ghandi. Ghandi wrote, “Nonviolence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our being.”

Enjoy the fun feeling of Valentines Day tomorrow, but remember the love that changes worlds goes way beyond valentines and candy hearts.