Tales of the Heart

This next week men and women, little boys and little girls, and those in between, will be running around ordering flowers, cards, rings, making dinner reservations to lavish on their life partner, or someone they just met. We scramble to either get a date or to avoid it all together, to not give any false impressions, intentions, or basically tip our hand. Valentine's Day is next Sunday and this week is a running gaggle of stuffed bears made of soft reds and whites with sewn heart-shaped pillows attached to them. I think sometimes, we mix our definitions of 'romance with 'love'. Or even worse, the definition of 'gee, I really like you...' with love.



I remember in grade school, I had a Cyrano heart for a girl named Mary, I know-how traditional. She never knew about it. I could never tell her. Sometime between then and college, hormones kicked in and I think I 'loved' everything: cloudy days, rainy nights, my bathrobe, Gilligan's Island, liver and onions from the school cafeteria, and just about any high school aged girl and three teachers-everything. But upon reflection, it was the romantic side that I was wallowing in, not love. Especially after I learned what 'love' really meant years later.



I wrote, some time ago, that my bed was my 'lover'. Now, before you shutter and wipe the key board down with alcohol, you have to understand the context. It was in a book and, well, I thought it was pretty cool. My editor slapped me-hard. "Geezus, Mary, and Joseph Williams, are you from some small town in the West Virginia Appalachians? NO ONE can have a bed for a lover-unless, of course, you live in that part of the country." The point was, I liked my bed and bedtime and the resulting sleep a lot, most men, my very young age, do. I misused the word.



Every year, I get my students to write a letter expressing their love to their parents. That will take place again this Friday, for hand delivery on Sunday. Now, some of my kids really don't like their parents or many don't know where their parents are at so we substitute someone else. But this letter follows a discussion of the origin of Valentine and what 'love' might really mean.



A great teacher once said "Love is a sacrifice word." There, I should just let that line end this discussion. When I ask my high school students to tell me what 'love' is, they give me all the TV versions. They giggle when someone is bold and says 'Sexin' it up.' They dance all around it from 'really really liking someone' to marriage. When I ask them why do we say we 'love' our ham sandwich-does that fit into one of their definitions, they give me the deer in the headlights look. Sacrifice is funny too. I love my dogs. But I wouldn't sacrifice our financial stability and spend thousands on vet bills to keep them alive. However, and here's the weird part, I would run back into a burning building to rescue them.



But what if love meant 'sacrifice' and we lived by that? What does that make the world look like then? How would that thought, change the way we look at each other?



I look back at myself, coming up on 30 years of marriage. I swear, it just started yesterday. I made a video for my kids to give them on my 50th birthday, about two years ago, of pictures showing our family as they grew up, and set it to music. I have it on my desktop and watch it every now and again and still get teary. What a life I have been privileged to live! Now, hold the pony there sheriff, we stepped into it big time when we got married. Both Joni and I would say, and actually we did say in counseling six months after we were married, that it was completely different then the day before we were married. When you say 'for better or worse, sickness and health....'-- wow! Hold on to your toast.



We all say those words, almost as an after thought. Then, about a week into it, something I do, isn't so 'cute' anymore. Then the world applies stresses and tugs on that bond like the Olympic tug of war team. Job stress, bills, hidden issues from our childhood that we thought were dealt with come back again, addiction issues, self-esteem issues, unflushed toilets, pms, sex, fatigue, all weigh in, sometimes all at once. Those are fun days! The romance, so easily supplied at first, drains away and what you have left after the sweet candy outside is licked away is that weird chocolate center, which we all know, isn't chocolate. But there's something that happens in that trail ride of a married couple. Something that only happens if we allow it too.



We get purified.



After years of life, and if we allow ourselves to, we never reach the apex of that word, 'love'. It never stops growing-until we take our last breath. Soon into relationships, after the sex, and makeup, and ski trips to Vail, are all washed away in the sink, we wake up to living life and all the blemishes it has for us. During the daily melee of living, we have respites of peace, spread out over time, broken by life landing on us again. It is here, when we look around, we see those who matter. They matter because they stood in the fight with us. We look up and down the trench line and those faces that look back at us, providing a wink, a slight smile, a look of confidence letting you know they are standing firm with you, no matter the cost-'sacrifice'. They mouth simple words, like an old Scottish warrior-"Aye, ti's a good day for a fight." There is love in a form we can almost taste.





We have seen it daily:


The nineteen year-old marine in Fallujah


The single mother working to provide for her son


The father working three jobs to make ends meet


The fire and police running into a collapsing building while everyone is running out


The child, holding the hand of their dying parent as they reach the end of their life.



The problem is many of us fail-once, twice, many times. So, we think we can never find this Valhalla that is so celebrated; we can never get it 'right'. But we can. That's the thing, we can find it. Its there, we see it all around us if we stop to look. That act of sacrifice, we do-daily. We don't think much about it but the fact is, its huge! Look to both sides and see who is near you. Look and see who you are near and then take a hand. Sometimes that last few dollars or minutes of our time, that we can't really spare, we use to give a small token for someone less fortunate, a shirt, a birthday card, letting them know they matter, sometimes that small act will change that person's life forever.

So, here we are, approaching another Valentine's Day. Legend has it, that an old priest refused to give up marrying people in the dungeons of 3rd century Rome even after Caesar said he would have him killed. He was following an example of a guy before him. He didn't stop, and he was killed for it.



If you looked throughout the catacombs of the Roman dungeons where Valentine wandered, you won't find a stuffed bear with a red heart sewn to it anywhere.

Happy Valentine's Day!!