Faith: This Valentine's Day consider sacrifice as holiday's message

As a kid I never quite got what eggs laid by chickens had to do with bunnies, let alone what both had to do with Jesus’ brutal execution. These cute and colorful tokens of Easter never quite moved me past the painful reminder of Good Friday.

Along the same lines, we may ask what flowers and chocolates given to lovers on Valentine’s Day have to do with the brutal execution of the saint for which the holiday named. Historical records suggest that three men named Valentine were martyred — all on Feb. 14. The three have become so intertwined with legend over the centuries, however, it’s nearly impossible to determine who is the original.

The most pervasive account revolves around a Roman citizen in the year 270 in Africa. That man is said to have healed the blind daughter of his jailer to whom he wrote letters from prison signed "Your Valentine."

Writing letters for the blind? The legend’s already in trouble.

Some accounts suggest that the to-be saint struck a bargain: his release for this healing. Pushing his luck, however, Valentine (all three in fact) tried to convert this young woman’s father to Christianity, resulting in his/their execution. The three separate saints might simply derive from different versions about the same Valentine, Bishop of Terni.

Even so, three executions, took place in the end. According to one account, at least, Asterius, the jailer, converts and has his whole family baptized. Yet he along with his newly sighted daughter and the bishop end up beheaded under the order of Claudius II, when the emperor learns of these conversions.

Some scholars, deconstructing the holiday’s link with Christianity altogether, suggest its roots lie in the ancient Roman celebration of Lupercalia, begun by a rural cult of masculinity involving the sacrifice of goats and dogs. Young men in nothing but thongs stitched together from the skin of these slaughtered animals then ran through the streets. Local pregnant women supposedly believed such rites guaranteed for them healthy babies.

At this point, you’re considering supermarket aisles stuffed with flowers and candy an improvement and feel grateful that Pope Galasius came along to put the kibosh on such revelries.

At any rate, Valentine’s Day in its origins had more to do with faith, whether pagan or Christian, than romance. True, Medieval legends had the bishop, like the friar in "Romeo and Juliet," passing notes between Christian lovers also jailed by Claudius II and marrying them.

We can blame the English, specifically Chaucer, for cementing the connection of Valentine with "eros," the Greek word for romantic love. He used the metaphor of mating birds to describe the intent of the feast day.

European royals then began exchanging mushy missives during avian courting season. The hoi polloi soon fell in as well and Hallmark and every neighborhood florist picked up the baton from there.

I spent nearly a decade of my ministry working with folks whose romantic story lines either fizzled in divorce or never got off the ground. The churches where I pastored attempted to create a safe meeting place and community for those enduring Valentine’s Day with a red-letter sense of profound failure.

When true love becomes just another way to fall short of the glory of God, might we not at least consider its unhealthy and unrealistic grip on the culture at large.

If you’re still reading and haven’t already dismissed me as a Debbie Downer, allow me to offer a confession: I’ve not escaped our societal spell of romantic expectations. I, too, have a Valentine’s tale to tell.

When my first marriage ended, I remained far from confident that I’d remarry. I concluded in time that my loss had as much to do with the disruption of my sense of familial belonging as it did my sense of romance.  During the past dozen years, I had helped raise three stepchildren, the youngest of whom I adopted, wrapping up my identity in the role of parent as well as spouse.

Subsequent holidays, following Betty’s and my split, hammered home the absence of those with whom I routinely celebrated them. By my second Christmas as newly single, I decided to subtract myself from the scene. I headed south to minister to Salvadoran refugees during the final weeks of December.

After that I planned to execute a lifelong dream of traveling to Africa. There, I’d complete a doctor of ministry program and see what ecclesial opportunities presented themselves on that distant continent.

Romance proved the last thing on my mind. That’s, of course, when I met someone, throwing a monkey wrench into all my plans.

Initially Alix (also involved in Central American refugee work) and I shared projects spreading the word back in the U.S. about the plight of Salvadorans. When it became clear that I wanted more than friendship from my fellow activist, I chose Valentine’s Day to share my affection.

I drove from my home in San Jose to Palo Alto to hand deliver the stamped valentine to the mailbox beside Alix’s front door. I followed up with a phone call. To my relief Alix confirmed her own love interest. I then immediately began unloading my list of relational caveats. I shared my Africa plan — one where children had no place in the long-term picture. I’d already raised a family.

My announcement rendered a small rend in that initial valentine: my wife-to-be’s silent protest. Our next date proved tense. We in short order resolved the issue, and I never went off to Africa to abandon my true love, who’d only just launched her medical education at Stanford.

Thirty plus years later, we together parent two grown children. My no-more-parenting declaration proved my way of protecting myself from the pain I felt at losing my first family. I soon realized that, if one wishes to avoid pain, one has no business in the business of love … or faith for that matter. St. Valentine provides a case in point.

Alix has kept the valentine in question. Its tiny tear reminds us that romance will never suffice to sustain long-term commitments … not only to those chosen as life partners and to those in ensuing families but to all relationships, God included.

The original Valentine tales are about as far from romance as one can get. They have much more to do with sacrifice. Bishop Valentine sacrificed all for his faithfulness to a higher calling. Sometimes our relationships might even, as in my case, result in sacrificing what once believed was one’s higher calling.

If you need an excuse to profess your love to your mate, then by all means use the red heart holiday to do so. It’s important to consider though that in claiming this feast exclusively for the god Eros, we risk a kind of idolatry — one, albeit inadvertently, that rubs our romance in the face of those who’ve no one with whom to share the day.

We also might feed our own deception about the power of eros to produce such commitment. Red roses wilt and chocolates melt: ephemeral expressions like the romantic drive itself propelling us into connubial union.

In declaring in writing our love commitments, however, we come closest to historical accuracy in commemorating Feb. 14. One might, however, consider placing a small tear in those valentines to remind one of the sacrifice necessary to keep relationships alive — to remind us of the many whose hearts remain broken on this day and of executed Valentine himself.

Go ahead send a card … or go running naked through the streets. Your choice. Have a happy, but not sappy Valentine’s Day, my friends.

The Rev. Terry Dawson is an ordained Presbyterian minister and former adjunct faculty member of San Francisco Theological Seminary.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Faith: This Valentine's Day consider sacrifice as holiday's message