Valentine's Day - February 14, 2015

How Do I Love Thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being an ideal Grace. 

I love thee to the level of everyday's 

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. 

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; 

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. 

I love thee with the passion put to use 

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. 

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose 

With my lost saints,- I love thee with the Breath, 

Smiles, tears, of all my life!- and, if God choose, 

I shall but love thee better after death. 

-- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Last year I wrote my first ode to love with A Poetic Definition for Valentine's Day.  Valentine's Day is an important day to all hopeless romantics, and I'm very happy to count myself among them.  I happen to love women, but I think whomever you love, this is the day to show and celebrate it.

St. Valentine legends are too numerous and colorful for me to cover in any detail, suffice to say there are at least two that explain Cupid, amethyst, hearts, and love associated with this saint. But, regardless of legend, the Feast of St. Valentine is a Christian celebratory day to commemorate the death of another martyr of Christendom. As with Christmas it will be interesting for everyone to see how many secular, non-Christians, partake in the commemoration and try to detract from the Christian aspect of it. Hypocrisy will abound, I'm sure. But, why not? Like Christmas this is a day to celebrate life and love, and Christians should welcome all to partake and allow God to sort out the bullshit down the road.

I think St. Valentine would fit into the controversial culture of today, exempli gratia: One legend says the Roman Emperor Claudius II, a pagan, had banned marriage for his soldiers thinking unmarried men made a better army. St. Valentine would perform weddings for these soldiers in secret which led to his demise. Today, the saint would have been in his cups performing weddings for the LGBTTQQIAAP (et al) community which we continue to haggle the legalities of, ad nauseam, across this great nation.

Regardless of how it came about, the day has become a celebration of love, and for lining competing gangsters up against garage walls and machine gunning them to death. Ah, those were the good old days of Al Capone and "Bugs" Moran, and of course, Bonnie Elizabeth Parker and Clyde Chestnut Barrow. If there were ever two people that would have celebrated the day, with love, Bonnie and Clyde were them, as there was absolutely no love lost between Capone and Moran.

As for the rest of us, love will certainly be in the air.  Wine will flow, dinners will be served, suits and gowns will grace the finest eateries in the seediest of boroughs as men and women, boys and girls, and every combination in between and then some, woo that one special person, or so, in the hope of finding true love.  

Gee, somehow the romance of the day just gets lost in the modern translation, but I'm sure everyone will find a translation that suits their desires.

"DON'T MISS LOVE.  It's an incredible gift.  I love to think that the day you're born, you're given the world as your birthday present.  It frightens me to think that so few people even bother to open up the ribbon!  Rip it open!  Tear off the top!  It's just full of love and magic and joy and wonder and pain and tears.  All of these things are your gift for being human."

-- Leo Buscaglia (1924-1998), teacher, writer, lecturer

Who you love is not as important as that you love.  More and more people are sidestepping marriage in favor of living together, life partners.  More and more people are having children out of wedlock.  More and more people want to celebrate the vows of holy matrimony, and can't.  I have talked to more people lately that recognize gays seem to be the ones interested in holy matrimony, marriage in the church.  They will settle for a civil service, but they would really like the blessing of God, and why not?  Is their love any less true than others? At times I think straight couples could take a lesson from the gay handbook on a loving relationship.

 As an interfaith minister, I report to no church.  There is no negative aspect to this.  The positive is that I answer only to God.  My faith holds that mainstream Christianity has wandered off their path; they have become lost in hypocrisy and replaced the tolerance, love, forgiveness, and the sweet reasonableness of the Christ with their own interpretation to forward their own agenda.  Because of this, gay relationships are damned and not deserved of a holy matrimony.  My path does not allow this blatant hypocrisy.  Love will not be held back by hypocrisy and true love by Christians deserves the witness of their God.

“Find the person who will love you because of your differences and not in spite of them and you have found a lover for life.”

-- Leo Buscaglia

As for those that "live in sin," let's be honest.  Love is love.  God would rather you do the right thing, and hopefully you will decide this in future.  But if you love, the love of forever, is this not important as well?  The strong love of forever is an elusive commodity, and many want to make sure they get it right before mucking it up after making promises before God and friends.  I think this can be tolerated.

If you do nothing else the Valentin's Day, love.  If you don't have that one special person, do not feel that love has passed you by, love abounds around you.  Become one with the day and celebrate love.  There was a time when I had no "significant other" in my life.  I wanted to buy some roses.  There was a checker at my local supermarket that was not having a good day, so I bought a bouquet and gave them to her.  She smiled and asked why I was giving them to her.  I told her the smile she had at that moment was so much prettier than her day was allowing, and I wished her a happy Valentine's Day.  If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with?  Sometimes this is a good thing.

Love is patient and sweet; love does not envy; love is not upset neither puffed up.

Love does not commit what is shameful, neither does it seek its own; it is not provoked, neither does it entertain evil thoughts,

Rejoices not in evil, but rejoices in the truth,

Endures all things, believes all things, hopes all, bears all.

Love never fails; for prophecies shall cease, tongues shall be silenced and knowledge will be nothing;

For we know partially and we prophesy partially,

But when perfection shall come, then that which is partial shall be nothing.

When I was a child, I was speaking as a child, I was led as a child, I was thinking as a child, but when I became a man, I ceased these childish things.

Now we see as in a mirror, in an allegory, but then face-to-face. Now I know partially, but then I shall know as I am known.

For there are these three things that endure: Faith, Hope and Love, but the greatest of these is Love.

1 Corinthians 13:4-13

Editor's Note:

Before you go getting your panties in a bunch, it is essential to understand that this is just an opinion site and, as such, can be subjected to scrutiny by anyone with a differing opinion.  It doesn't make either opinion any more right or wrong than the other.  An opinion, presented in this context, is a way of inciting others to think and, hopefully, to form opinions of their own, if they haven't already done so.

It is my fervent hope that we keep open and active minds when reading opinions and then engaging in peaceful, constructive, discussion and debate in an arena of mutual respect concerning the opinions put forth.  After over twenty years as a military intelligence analyst, planner, and briefer, I have come to believe engaging each other in this manner and in this arena is the way we will learn tolerance and respect for differing beliefs, cultures, and viewpoints.

We all fall from grace, some more often than others; it is part of being human.  God's test for us is what we do afterward, and what we learn from the experience.

Pastor Frank Anthony Villari

Pastor Tony is founder of the Congregation for Religious Tolerance and author/editor of "The Path," the Congregation's official blogsite.