Valentine's Day is about feeling special

Valentine’s Day is about feeling special - making others feel special and experiencing the feeling of being special.

As a celebration of love, Valentine’s Day gained traction in medieval times.  Prior to the 14^th century, it was a feast day in honor of Saint Valentine.  Valentine was a priest who defied Emperor Claudius II’s edict that forbad young men to marry, until he was caught, condemned and executed. As the legend goes, he healed and fell in love with the daughter of one of the judges who had condemned him.  On the day of his execution he sent her a note and signed it “From your Valentine”.   The salutation, as we know, has become standard, and frequently expresses the romantic attachment between two people.

Today’s culture emphasizes the romantic aspect of the day, probably because romance translates into dollars.  Last year, Canadians spent a whopping $3.38 billion on jewellery, $6.38 billion on wine, and $70.9 million on flowers in honour of romantic love.

The National Retail Council estimates that this year total consumer spending for Valentine’s Day in the United States will reach $18.2 billion.  To be fair, some of that amount includes spending on gifts for children, parents, teachers, friends, co-workers, and pets. Still, lovers will spend, on average, over $85 on their significant other compared to about $27 on family members.  They will spend $4.3 billion on jewellery, $3.8 billion on an evening out, and $2 billion on flowers.

Spending aside, the rituals of Valentine’s Day, from candlelight dinners at tony restaurants to cupcakes with pink icing and cinnamon hearts shared in an elementary school classroom, express many different forms of love.

The English language is not very inventive when it comes to describing love.  We use the same word to describe the way we feel about all sorts of things. We might love to ski, our morning coffee, the movie we watched last night, or a special outfit.  We love our pets.  We love our spouse, children, parents and friends. 

The ancient Greeks were more sophisticated when it came to describing emotional attachment. They spoke about six forms of love.  

• Eros expressed passion or intense desire. It was the fire within, and like a fire, eros could get out of control and become destructive. 
• The concept of philia included friendship, appreciation of others, as well as loyalty to family, community and even the workplace. 
• Storge referred to the love between children and parents. Unlike eros and philia that depended on an individual’s personal qualities, storge arose from feelings of dependency.  
• Ludus could be the affection between young children, puppy love, or flirtatiousness. Ludus relationships were playful, casual and uncomplicated. 
• Agape referred to the love of God for man and of man for God.  Agape was selfless and encompassed all humanity.  
• Pragma described the mature love found in successful marriages. Where eros expressed the feeling of falling madly in love, pragma reflected the will and commitment required to maintain a loving relationship for the long haul. 
• Philautia described love of self.  Like eros, philautia could be good, as in having healthy self-esteem and treating one’s self with kindness, or bad, as in being narcissistic. 

Valentine’s Day gives us a chance to celebrate the critical human experience of loving and of being loved across the spectrum of these various types of emotional attachments.

The simple acts of loving kindness that we enact on Valentine’s Day can move passion towards a mature and life-giving relationship, express friendship, enhance family bonds, communicate our concern for others, and nurture a sense of self-worth.  In an otherwise ho-hum, often dreary month, Valentine’s Day rituals brighten the landscape of the heart. 

My appreciation of Valentine’s Day has remained undiminished over the years. While never a big spender on the day, I like to mark it in some way.  It’s a playful, light-hearted way to celebrate something that is of great importance - the beauty of relationship and the uniqueness of the individual.

Valentine’s Day celebrates our ability to love. While we may not have the vocabulary of the ancient Greeks to distinguish between and define the various forms of love, our Valentine’s Day rituals express them all – passion, friendship, self-giving, commitment and healthy love of self.  Our rituals, large or small, are visible signs of the regard in which we hold one another.  Regardless of spending, love makes everyone feel special.

    

Valentine's Day: a brief history

Love is in the air today

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
"Hearts Falling From Sky"

Love is in the air, and with it, red roses, chocolates in heart shaped boxes and jewelry. Today’s symbols and celebration of the romantic love that we associate with Valentine’s Day have little resemblance to its ancient Roman and early Christian roots, both of which involved some violence.

The ancient Roman fertility feast of Lupercalia

In the middle of February, the ancient Romans celebrated Lupercalia, a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture. While the festival involved a blessing of crops with the blood of sacrificial animals, there were also rites for human fertility.

The festival opened with the sacrifice of a goat for fertility, and a dog for purification.  The goat’s hide was turned into strips that were then dipped into the sacrificial blood. The strips were used to whip young women, who lined up to be beaten because they believed that the whipping would make them more fertile in the coming year.  Later in the day, a lottery paired up the city’s unmarried women and men for the remainder of the year. Sometimes the lottery got it right, and couples that fell in love were married at the end of the year.

During the 5^th century, by which time Christianity had become the official religion of the Roman empire, Lupercalia was outlawed, and in its place, Pope Gelasius declared February 14 Saint Valentine’s Day.

Saint Valentine defies an emperor 

Saint Valentine was a third century Christian priest who lived during the reign of the Emperor Claudius II. Claudius had prohibited young people from marrying because he thought that unmarried men made better soldiers than men with wives and children.  Valentine defied Claudius’ edict and continued to perform marriages in secret.  In 269 AD, Valentine was sentenced to a brutal execution that included beating, stoning and decapitation.

A legend associated with Valentine’s imprisonment and execution has done much over the centuries to establish the man as a romantic figure.  According to the story, while he was in prison, Valentine healed the daughter of one of the Roman judges who was to decide his fate, and he fell in love with her. On the day of his execution, he sent her a note, and signed it, “From your Valentine”, the salutation immortalized in Valentine’s Day greetings.

The association of the feast of Saint Valentine with romance began to gain traction in medieval times when written Valentine’s Day messages began to appear. This may have had something to do with Geoffrey Chaucer, who in his poem “The Parliament of Fowls” (1380) linked Valentine’s Day to love; on Valentine’s Day all the birds known to man chose their mates.

Towards the middle of the 18^th century, friends and lovers of all social classes exchanged symbols of affection. By 1900, commercial cards began to replace handwritten notes, and at some point, Valentine’s Day morphed into the hugely successful commercial celebration of today.

Valentine's Day ejects money into retail coffers

In the United States, an estimated 200 million roses are grown for February 14, when 180 million Valentine’s Day cards will be exchanged, and six million couples will become engaged. According to its Valentine’s Day Consumer Spending Survey, the National Retail Federation (NRF) estimates that the cost of all this love in the air will reach a staggering $18.9 billion this year.

Here in Canada, we are less extravagant. According to the Retail Council of Canada, in 2013 Canadian shoppers averaged $37 on Valentine’s Day purchases. That same year in the United States, American shoppers spent an average of $130.97, and this year’s NRF survey suggests that amount will increase to $142.31.

The roots of Valentine’s Day go deep into the past, to a pagan fertility festival and the martyrdom of a priest whom legend remade into a figure of romantic love. Since medieval times, it has been a day to express and exchange tokens of affection. So whether it is a simple card or an expensive piece of jewelry, whether you spend a little, a lot, or nothing at all on Valentine’s Day, love is in the air; breathe it in!

Valentine's Day celebrates loving well

I have always liked Valentine's Day. Its rituals of celebration mirror the way in which our understanding of love develops over time, and deepens as we mature in every way.

 From elementary school ...
From my elementary school days, I fondly recall the paper booklets with punch-out Valentines. They had simple and wholesome pictures with corny phrases that were amusing or promising, depending on your age. A six year old might laugh at a kitten meowing, “You’re purrfect”, while a ten year old might see an invitation in a card with the caption, “Let’s hang out”. 

In those days, teachers did not require us to give everyone in the class a Valentine. Because my mother was ahead of her time, and insisted that no one be left out, everyone received a Valentine from me. Still, like the other girls, I had a hierarchy for giving Valentines. Best friends got the nicest cards. Casual acquaintances got nice cards, and classmates on the periphery got what was left. Selecting cards for the boys required an extra level of attention. While we girls got caught up in this foolishness, the boys were reluctant participants in the Valentine’s Day excitement, until it was time to eat the pink cupcakes with the cinnamon hearts.

I learned something important from those early Valentine’s Day rituals, apart from my standing on the popularity ladder.  Valentine’s Day was an opportunity for inclusiveness. It was a day that encouraged us to extend the hand of friendship to others, and to share in the joy of belonging. I didn’t recognize this immediately because I was self-centered. I was absorbed with the number of Valentines filling the paper bag taped to the side of my desk, and comparing them with those of my friends. My mother was right; it would have been horrible to be left out.

To high school...

In the teenage years, when the boys were more interested, Valentine’s Day rituals celebrated the romantic love affectionately called puppy love. Valentine’s Day was no longer about including others; it was about exclusivity.  It was an opportunity for couples, or would be couples, to declare their affection in some way. I way pretty excited when the guy of my dreams, now my husband of thirty years, offered me a ride home from school one Valentine's Day.

And beyond ...

As a young mother, the focus of Valentine’s Day shifted to a celebration of family. Cards, special treats, and a heart-shaped cake made the day special.  Our little rituals celebrated the uniqueness of each child, and the deep bonds within our family.

An act of will in response to the heart
My appreciation for Valentine’s Day remains undiminished after thirty years of marriage. My husband and I always acknowledge the day in some way.  It’s a chance to express our gratitude for the gift of one another. This is a gratitude that grows deeper with each passing year, and is strengthened in the crucible of life’s joys and challenges. While romance need not fade away, Valentine’s Day is a gentle reminder that love is an act of the will in response to the complex emotions of the heart and the vicissitudes of life.

Valentine’s Day is a celebration of loving well. It celebrates the expansive force of love that moves us from self-absorption towards an ever-increasing awareness of others. For me, Valentine’s Day most profoundly expresses the self-giving love that characterizes the best in human relationships, and mirrors the unconditional, self-emptying love of God.

On Love

Love is…

Love Heart Gift Box by Grant Cochrane

With Valentine’s Day peering around the corner, romance hovers in the air. Love is chocolates and flowers. Love is reserving a table at a favorite restaurant. Love is the many little expressions of affection that we bestow on those we love.    

A comic strip called “Love is…” became widely popular around the world in the 1970’s, and is still going strong. Each cartoon features the phrase “Love is…” above an illustration; the phrase is completed beneath.

http://www.loveisfan.com/

The phrases are sometimes trite, sometimes amusing, and sometimes sweet. While the cartoon looks simplistic, its insights about relationships and the nature of love are often profound.

As we get ready to celebrate the romantic love associated with Valentine’s Day, let’s take a look at the lighthearted portrayal of love as captured in the “Love is…”comic strip. 

Some characteristics of loving relationships

“Love is… a slow dance together.” It takes time to develop a committed relationship. The initial phases of a relationship can be more like a vigorous jive than a stately waltz. Relationships grow and blossom when we gently hold one another through the various dances of life.

“Love is …losing the game but making a great match.” Sometimes we cannot have our own way. Even in the greatest love matches, there are disappointments and disagreements. Love overcomes the fractious moments, letting go of the insignificant to focus on the essentials.

Heart by Salvatore Vuono

“Love is …not trying to impose your ideas on others.” A loving relationship is based on mutual respect. We must not try to control or overshadow one another. Each person must have the freedom of their individuality, even as the couple grows together, becoming one in spirit.

“Love is … pulling her hair away from her eyes.” Good relationships challenge us to become the best we can be. Sometimes we are blinded by stubbornness; we are set in our ways and opinions. We need the other person to help us see with new vision. Acting with tenderness, the other person can help us widen our horizon when it begins to narrow.

“Love is…toasting the arrival of spring.” Relationships often settle into a comfortable routine. We may begin to take one another for granted. We nurture our relationship when we seek out little reasons to celebrate each other, the relationship, and life in general.

“Love is…cleaning the bathtub after you use it.” Undertaking an ordinary task that is outside our usual realm of responsibility can be an expression of love. On the flip side, saying thank-you for that clean bathtub is equally important. Thoughtfulness and consideration in little things goes a long way in nurturing harmony.

“Love is…letting him be the greedy one.” There is a give and take between each person’s needs and desires. Sometimes we have to put our selves last. Good relationships require self-giving and service from both people.

“Love is…saying you’re sorry” and “Love is…forgiving even if you are really angry.”

Admitting our mistakes is unpleasant. Forgiving when we are angry is really difficult. Love requires that we humble ourselves, and that we cultivate a generous spirit. Love demands that we ask for forgiveness, and that we extend forgiveness.

“Love is…contagious.” The illustration with this phrase shows the couple, holding hands, covered in a heart shaped rash. Loving relationships cannot be contained. Love is directed outwards, becoming a contagion for the good of others, and for the world.

A biblical vision 

Saint Paul penned one of the most frequently quoted “Love is…” passages. While Paul wrote the passage to a community plagued with division, pride, and selfishness, today the passage is often read at weddings, directed to a couple. The passage expresses the quality of relationship that the human heart longs for, and presents the ideal form of interaction between people.

From Paul’s “First Letter to the Corinthians,” we learn the attributes of love. Love is patient and kind. It delights in goodness. Love perseveres in times of trouble. Love is always hopeful. Love is not arrogant or rude. Love is not irritable or selfish. Love overcomes and outlasts all things.

A relationship rooted in the attributes of love is the greatest gift of all. This Valentine’s Day, as we enjoy the more material gifts of romantic love, let us treat our relationships with spouse, family and friends as a joyful dance of love rooted in patience, kindness and humility.

From the First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians: 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

(NRSV)

Photo Credits:
Heart by Salvatore Vuono, courtesy of FreeDigitalPhoto.net
http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=659

Love Heart Gift Box with Ribbon by Grant Cochrane, courtesy of FreeDigitalPhoto.net

http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=2365