Of love and celebrations.

Valentine's Day is here and chances are there will be a plethora of red, a mass of flowers and a drying up of wallets in the name of impressing that current special one today. Hearts will be broken, ladies will cry, men will curse and prostitutes will do roaring business. Bars, restaurants, and other entertainment spots will be attempting to cash in on the madness while others will stare forlornly at their phones hoping somebody will ring or, at the very least, send a message. There will be temporary affairs, grandiose proposals and mega breakups. All this in the name of finding love.

St. Valentine's Day began as a liturgical celebration of a certain Valentinus, it not even clear whether it was one, or more, saints by that name. The most popular martyrology associated with Saint Valentine was that he was imprisoned for performing weddings for soldiers who were forbidden to marry and for ministering to Christians, who were persecuted under the Roman Empire. He is reputed to have written a letter to daughter of his jailer, just before his execution, which he ended with the line "From your Valentine" a line which has come into popular use today. Today, Saint Valentine's Day is an official feast day in the Anglican Communion, as well as in the Lutheran Church. The Eastern Orthodox Church also celebrates Saint Valentine's Day, albeit on July 6th and July 30th, the former date in honor of the Roman presbyter Saint Valentine, and the latter date in honor of Hieromartyr Valentine, the Bishop of Interamna (modern Terni). The day was associated with romantic love in the middle ages, and it evolved into an occasion where lovers expressed their feelings by exchanging flowers and confectionary as well as sending cards which are referred to as "valentines". Somewhere along the line the pagan god Cupid got involved in the celebrations and seems to have taken the place of honour therein.

This years St. Valentine's Day took me a bit by surprise. For a rather strange reason I still thought it was Wednesday 13th February and Valentine's Day was still to come, and I was preparing to write a rather different article on it. A few messages to wish me a happy Valentine's as well as a call yesterday did not quite convince me the day had finally dawned. It took the intervention of Social Media to bring home that face. Suddenly most posts were talking of love, affairs, flowers, hope and despair. There is even a group of people who have armed themselves to hunt down this Cupid fellow and give him a taste of the "misery" that he inflicts upon others. The side shows are certainly quite amusing and the story of love, hope and despair would rival any Mexican soap.

The hullabaloo of St. Valentine's Day mirrors our new "I want it now" society. We have set up a day where everyone is supposed to move around in something akin to post-coital bliss, propose for no other reason than it is the lovers day, wear colours that might, or might not, suit one's skin tone and carry around assorted vegetables in the name of being the perfect romantic gentleman or lady. Sadly by this time tomorrow, when all the furore has died out, we go back to our crass, misogynistic ways and ignore the same person we were putting on a show with to cheer our favourite football teams, or imbibe in our favourite drink at our locals. We give our significant others one day then ignore them for the rest of the year as if that grand declaration of love is supposed to last a year and is only renewable once a year on the fourteenth of February. We forget to communicate, we avoid being seen out with her, and we even forget that she is a lot more than that person who we remember when we have certain feelings after imbibing one too many and failing to find a suitable receptacle for our advances.

I do not think we should have set out a day for love, or even need to be reminded that we are in love. Being in love, showing your love or even appreciating your significant other is something that we should be doing continuously. It is something that we should renew each and every minute that we are alive, something that should be as natural as breathing, as pleasurable as a nice meal, and would need as much reminder as we need to take that next breath of air. I am not saying we should take love for granted, but that we should savour each and every moment of the love while it lasts, we should enjoy and indulge when we can, and we should not need one day to remember that it exists. We should not be needing this day to buy gifts for our loved ones, we should not be needing a day to show appreciation, and we shouldn't be needing one day that we set aside to be ourselves with our loved ones. If we do need this one day then it's not love we are celebrating, but a crass show off and a materialistic and ego massaging orgy. All we are doing is looking for that fifteen minutes of fame, and failing to build the lifetime of love that we should be having.

Remember, live and love for this, too, shall pass. It is better to have loved, and loved well, than it is to tell the world you have love only to have it pulled out from under you by your reality. For those who do have significant others this is just another day to celebrate your love and tomorrow will still be another day to celebrate your love. For those of you who do not have significant others then this, too, is a day to celebrate your love, unrequited it may be, for tomorrow will still be another day. As for me and mine we will celebrate each and every day in our own unique ways for every day, to us, is lover's day.