Valentine's Day is a Weird day

Valentine’s Day is a weird day.


It is a day we show that special someone, you care about them, maybe even love them-whatever that means. So, like a math formula, it is also a day to be reminded of those that don’t love us, broken loves, fractured marriages or relationships, and for many it is a day we would rather leave to pass us by then spending a small fortune on a stuffed bear and chocolates that no one’s waistline needs.

But maybe, just maybe, we can try to look at it from a different angle.

It is actually a day when a bunch of years ago a priest named Valentinus decided to stand with the poor and sick in the catacombs and sewers, marrying them in the faith of the new religion with the threat of bat-crap crazy Nero putting him to death. They killed him on February 14th so the story goes. He just couldn’t leave his people. He, it is said, loved them even unto death.

Hmm. That sure is different than a fuzzy bunny, bear, or those teddy things from Wal-Mart and who, by the way, are those little skivvies for? But I take a rabbit trail.

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. If we really want to show love, we need to be ready to write a metaphoric check. And it can be expensive.

You see, an old man taught me once a long time ago that Love-is a sacrifice word.

You can’t love without sacrificing. You can’t love without there being a cost. Anyone can do the romantic stuff. Who couldn’t spend a weekend at a ski lodge drinking hot chocolate, eating strawberries dipped in chocolate, and wearing those skivvies from Walmart?

How about holding your sick father’s hand while he’s in the hospital—for weeks. How about listening to your child scream in pain day after day while undergoing chemo? Or experiencing a miscarriage? What about sheltering your aged parents while they travel the last few months of their lives, all the while calling you names and berating you for what you are doing simply because they don’t remember who you are?

What about—looking over your shoulder and catching the glance of the man who is scourging you with thirty-nines strokes? You lost count somewhere around fifteen, knowing full well his life is about to be changed dramatically for the better because you let him do what he is doing?

People talk about loving with a happy heart. Well, the Guy who wrote the definition of love would call bull on that. There’s nothing happy about some of our love. There is joy but that also does not involve a happy skip down the street. It’s okay to love and hate the act of the love. It’s okay to sigh heavily, before you get out of the chair and join the fight. It’s okay to drop the always applicable ‘F Bomb’ just before you run into enemy fire looking for those last two soldiers who didn’t make it back in the wire. It’s okay to want to run, hide, scream, cry, wish, pray, and yet when the sun rises, we still find ourselves standing in the game. We might have even left the game for awhile, but something pulled us back. Love is that powerful.

That’s the metaphoric check. That’s the cost.

So today, love well. Look over your shoulder and find those hateful eyes and know your actions in the next few seconds will change those eyes you meet from hate and fear to compassion and contriteness.

That’s how strong that word ‘Love’ is.