Kicking Up Valentine's Dust

It’s hard to get cheery on Valentine’s Day. It had a purpose really way back when I was a teenager, and that was still virgenette when I’m sure many in the 1960s had some virgin attitudes about them. 

Living in Tanganyika wasn’t much heart stuff. I did learn how to make homemade butter from scratch; a woman had to have tough muscles, it seemed, whipping with hands the buttermilk until it became butter. My mother-in-law knew all sort of tricks, living in the wilderness near the coffee plantations. I was so ignorant about how to cook, feed, and keep silent bumping along in a Land Rover as we hunted the elephants who visit the many rows of coffee seeds at night, leaving a mess for the workers the next day. When one drove to town on the dirt roads, you had to be cautious not to run into a giraffe, which would appear in a sudden open space. There were not many paved roads in those days. Just cross-country dirt most of the way to town.

In my early life, I was not popular when Valentine’s Day came. I always felt if someone did give me a gift, it was to follow the leader, and not because they particularly liked me enough to give me a box of Dinstuhl candy, or a giant lollypop or just a kiss on the cheek. It was a sort of ho hum to me. So, I usually snitched chocolates out of Dad’s box of Dinstuhl chunk chocolate. Who knows what Dad gave to my mom for Valentine’s Day - since we never saw the results. She wasn’t a show-off when Dad gave her something special.

I always felt as I grew older it was just an effort to charm someone, and not to express love. Love is not just a day in the year, but a blister or a heartbeat - depending on the sincerity of the giver. A pile of Mexican ice cream cones would make a bunch of us smile on a day when it was the Saint Day of courtly love. We were supposed to love each other, and it was not some grudge to remind someone not to forget to feel love by someone else. It really isn’t a religious thing. But there was a saint considered and holding up the idea of love.

Yes, there was a St. Valentine. He may or may not have indulged in candy. But He was a Saint, a 3rd century Roman saint, honored on Feb 14 in the Western faith and Eastern Orthodoxy on July 6 - just a hop skip ad a jump from July 4. Either way, it is a time to respond to or give thanks for the people you love, or who love you.  St. Valentine is also dealing and wheeling as a saint for Terni, epilepsy, and beekeepers. He was a clergyman of course - probably a bishop - who attended to persecuted Christians in the Roman Empire time. However, he was s martyr and his body buried on the Via Flamina on Feb 14th. He also was associated with birds, roses, bishops with crippled persons or a child with epilepsy at his feet; a rooster and refused to adore an idol; It’s hard to think about these but there was bishop being beheaded; priest bearing a sword, or holding a sun, or giving sight to a blind girl. St Valentine was busy. And tried to do good so that people could remember who he was.

Fascinating as he was, He was a patron of affianced couples, against fainting, for beekeepers, and happy marriages, love, mentally ill peoples, plague, epilepsy, and Lesvos (a Catholic thing] It was a bus load of things to consider.  St. Valentine’s body and relics were in the catacombs of San Valentino in Rome. His skull, crowned with flowers, is exhibited in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, Rome.  He is just as popular in the Anglican church and Lutheran. In the Middle Ages, birds paired in mid-Feb. This was a sign of romance.

Claiming to be Valentine is a priest at Rome, a bishop of Interamna in Italy, and one in Africa with a number of companions. There was someone named Valentine who was martyred and then buried on the Via Flaminia in north Rome about 269. He was often arrested for trying to convert people to Christianity or a secret marriage so husbands would not have to go to war.

To be frank, Americans think they can say “God bless America” and believe they have made God happy. Or the crowd at peace. But, Lordy be, that has nothing to do it. It is almost as fake as a movie. It seems too that Valentine or love or friendship or just plain reality,  we used to believe beautifully and simply that Holy Mary was a young virgin who gave birth to Jesus in a very special way, so that He would be the only one with such a birth, although so many of us would like another round of birth where our Savior can try again, come save our children and our faith, and if nothing else, teach us how to love and encourage each other even though we don’t particularly like what our friends and cohorts do, whether it’s at work, at home, at basketball or football competitions, or growing corn or Dahlias or whatever our favorite thing to do. We forget to thank God every day at certain moments when we are gracious because something good happened, or a car didn’t hit us, or our Grizzlies finally had another victory, or the kids who are locked up in prison are given some sort of project so they can learn something about themselves and life and maybe there would be freedom in the long run.

There is so much going on outside in the fresh air and in the neighborhoods that are not just dedicated to the poor and hungry, but anywhere that a bevy of young thieves and car jackers are turning things over on our streets. Memphis is one of the most dangerous cities in the United States. Why. We probably have more churches than any city in the United States. Why. Thank God for the 901 Block Squad who tries to turn violent kids around so that they can learn about life and have some hope in the future. There are so many projects if they can just get signed up or encouraged.

More people have left the memory of the past or it seems that they have left the churches because so many of the churches are becoming victims of crime and robbery and violence. How did this happen? This is when we must turn on our hearts and let them become things of hope and care and love for those who don’t understand the things of life. Something needs to push us all, youth, or adult, into projects to build hope in our very dangerous city. We can do it if we work together somehow. That would be a super Valentine Day hope for the future.

~ Rev

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audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
www.audreytaylorgonzalez.com