happy [insert holiday name here]

for some people, today is valentine's day, when they are expected to gift their sweetie with something:
men: flowers [roses are a safe cliche], candy [chocolate by default], trashy lingere, etc.
women: i have no idea what's expected here, except that she put out.

for others, today is valentine's day, when they plan some time to be with their sweetie and bask in the simple pleasures of time together.

for still others, today is single's awareness day, when they are expected to mope and sob, hate all happy couples, and tour the "holiday aisle" at their local grocer for the ingredients to a depressed and bitter binge.

for yet others still, today is single's awareness day, when they recognize that a holiday represented by the media as honoring attachedness singles out those unattached and guilts them into a desperate search for "the one" with whom they can play out their duty to society.

and these are just four of the myriad combinations of reactions available to the one day out of the year dedicated to [depending on who you ask] couples, guilt trips, consumerism, or what have you.

you'll notice i left love off the list there. i do not believe that february 14th, whatever you happen to call it, actually celebrates love anymore. i think love got lost in the mix as jesus gets lost in the christmas mix year after year. yes, people profess to spend the day, or at least a romantic dinner, with their sweetie out of love. they are not; they're fooling themselves. they can have that romantic dinner or that peaceful evening in or whatever any of 364 days a year and celebrate their love. on this particular day of the year, love is on a pedastal so high it's forgetten in the clouds of candy hearts and red hot monkey sex.

it is safer to put love on this pedastal, to keep it beyond arm's reach. if people were trapped by the media into actually thinking about love today, they would be frightened. when we look deep within ourselves and pull up all we know about love, and then pair it with all we do about love, we are woefully inadequate. it is easier to transmute love into something else, to skim its surface and spend a day wallowing in affection.

affection is not love. attraction is not love. sex is not love. passion is not love. what is love? i'll join the masses in [over]quoting paul today, because he really does say it quite well:

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. Love never ends. 1 corinthians 13: 4-8a, ESV

forever means not just today. forever means always.

most people react to this verse by smiling and adding another inch to the pedastal that lifts love up to a safe distance. people remember a moment when they had that love thing nailed, they were spot on, they did all the right things... people read this passage to get the warm tinglies, the fuzzy, squishy gush that makes the world seem right. people read it for comfort, and to comfort themselves with a nice pat on the back.

and yeah, sometimes that's the way to read it. but the harder reading, the painful reading is more beneficial. this is an example of love, folks. this is the "way it oughta be."

this is what we're incapable of.

our only "duty to society" is not to go out and buy up high priced chocolates, nor to send each other bitter cards full of single comisseration, nor to pair up and procreate, however fun and enlightening a hobby it may be. if we have a duty to society that will actually improve society, it is not any of these things. we need to look at the example set forth, see just how incapable we are, and seek to improve by god's grace.

it's easy to reflect on our own radiance, to relive those moments we are proud of, where got it right. and such self-affirmation is necessary to maintain a healthy self-image and not descend into the pits of self-recrimination and despair. but to focus solely on those highlights isn't really helpful for anyone, least of all ourselves. the student of life who dwells on the positive to the exclusion of the negative will not be able to improve on the negative--s/he doesn't see it!

so if you're a couple, look back today on those times when you haven't been patient or kind, when you've envied or boasted, when you've been arrogant and rude, when you've nagged insistantly, been irritable and resentful, when you've taken pleasure in evil (no matter how "tame"). remember when you've given up, when you haven't believed in something or someone, when you've lost hope or given it away or thrown it away as useless baggage, when you've turned your back on something or someone that was just too hard to deal with. your love ends. your love is not perfect.

and if you aren't a couple, do the same thing. you're not excused on the basis of being independant, because you aren't independant. you don't have a sweetie at the moment? look at your family. look at your friends. look at your coworkers and the people you see in the grocery store, the post office, the bank, the car in front of you on the street or highway who just possibly cut you off. be honest. what's your love like?


so, february 14th. national day of love avoidance, of love overlooking. of love substitution. can we change that? probably not on any large scale. given media power, probably not ever on any large scale. but locally? in your heart? yeah. let's try it.

love and peace