'Trick or treat!' Oh, wait...wrong holiday...

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Corinthians 13:1-7 ESV)

Today, so far, has been kind of a blah sort of day-- I'm not even all that motivated by my weekly victory cry of "TGIF!" (I write the equivalent on my board in Russian every Friday). There's usually plenty of blog fodder in high school, particularly for a blog labelled "a faith journal." About the only observation of note today is the teenager's hapless buy-in of the next commercialized holiday in the 12-month rotation, Valentine's Day (which is Sunday, so we're in a sea of red and pink on my campus today). February 14th (or, for the herds moving through our Hallowed Halls, the 12th) is the one day of the year when everybody's in love. Or not. Or supposed to be. Or something.

I found this statement on a website which expresses (probably by accident) the yin and yang of Valentine's Day in this country: For those who see Valentine’s Day in its traditional sense, as a day where both couples and our broader society celebrate love as a cultural ideal, the influence of commercialism has muddled or polluted its expression. I agree; both couples and our broader society celebrate love as a cultural ideal, rather than the agape love of, say, The Song of Solomon. What passes for love in our society is something equivalent to popping a tantalizingly flavorful piece of chewing gum into your mouth then spitting it out after a time because the flavor's gone... Love, like just about everything else this world has to offer, is disposable. And, yes, the influence of commercialism has muddled or polluted the expression of true love, God's design that has sadly become a four letter word in our culture; a word that should be binding, not negotiable; a gift that should never (have to) be rescinded.

The same website proffers these statistics: The percent of women who send themselves flowers on Valentine’s Day, sadly, is 14 per cent. Average consumer spending on Valentine’s Day is $116.

I think that the history (or histories-- much of Valentine's Day is unverifiable legend) of this holiday is more interesting than the day itself. The nontrinitarian, Sabbatarianist United Church of God has a good webpage about the origins of Valentine's Day. An excerpt:

During the Middle Ages, Valentine’s Day became increasingly popular in Europe. February 14 was significant not only for its religious meaning, but because it was widely believed that birds begin to mate on this date...It is true that various birds are involved in courtship and mate selection around this time of year, but it is not specific to the date of Feb. 14. What was specific to Feb. 13 through 15 on the Roman calendar was the pagan festival of Lupercalia [also known as Februatio, from which comes the month name February]...

The original festival is founded in the ancient legend of Romulus and Remus, the traditional founders of Rome. The story says the two brothers were abandoned as infants but were then discovered and nursed by a she-wolf, or lupa in Latin—the cave where this supposedly happened, at the base of Rome’s Palatine Hill, becoming known as the Lupercal...

The Lupercalia festival was celebrated in honor of a number of pastoral deities. It combined the idea of cleansing before spring renewal with the promotion of sexual fertility and reproduction, a prevalent theme throughout pagan religion. Young men dressed in the skins of sacrificed goats would run from the Lupercal cave brandishing strips of goat skin [called februa] as whips. Any women slapped by these were assured fertility and ease in childbirth...

Pope Gelasius is said to have eradicated Lupercalia from Christian observance in the last decade of the fifth century. But in reality, the intermingling of paganism and Christianity had become inseparable in much of the Western world. Saturnalia and Mithraism were incorporated into the church through claiming a December birth date for Jesus Christ. Various spring fertility rites merged to form the basis of Easter celebrations. Lupercalia evolved into the observance of St. Valentine’s Day.

Just as interesting-- and much more romantic-- is the Christian origin of St. Valentine promoted through the ages laid out nicely on CBN's website. A quote from Father Frank O'Gara of Whitefriars Street Church in Dublin, Ireland: "Love -- human love and sexuality is wonderful, and blessed by God -- but also the shadow of the cross. That's what Valentine means to me." And that's what this day should really be all about...

How much true love-- agape love-- can be found in flowers or candy, $116 worth? (I do like those little candy hearts with the cheesy messages on them-- I'm particularly fond of the Kiss Me ones, though they don't seem to work very well.) For my beleagured high schoolers, I'm afraid Valentine's Day is nothing more than an ersatz litmus test of relationship strength in an adult world that teaches even love has a price (a better lesson to be learned in the pew, rather than in the school parking lot).

For me, Valentine's Day is less obnoxious (but spookier in its own way) than Halloween; both revolve around sweets and involve a facade. And both are cultural celebrations I could do without.