February 14tha lesson in love
(a reflection first shared at the Foothills Mennonite JOY -- Just Older Youth -- luncheon February 9)
there was a man - a catholic priest we are told, who lived in third century rome when claudius II was emperor. but it was claudius (not the priest) who allegedly discovered that single men make better soldiers than those with wives and children and as a result, claudius outlawed marriage for young men. the catholic priest, we are told - found this policy horribly unjust and decided to continue to perform marriages in secret - a secret that was not well kept and claudius had this priest - whose last name happened to be valentine, put to death.
had the poor priest not been put to death, we might have seen where this story might have led.
yet (so we will not despair) there was another valentine, this one a bishop of terni - one for whom our valentine’s day is named after. he too lived during the reign of claudius and he too ended up dead - beheaded outside the gates of rome. but this is where the story rests …
although clearly - the story this far has very little to offer us regarding cupid’s arrows of love on a valentines’s day celebration.
but it is possible that bishop valentine (before being beheaded) engaged in freeing christians from harsh roman prisons where they were often beaten and tortured and valentine himself was imprisoned as a result of his heroics. as the story is told, during his imprisonment, valentine fell in love with a young maiden who would at times come to visit with him - perhaps, says the story, it was the jailor’s daughter. never-the-less …
before his death, we are told, he wrote the young maiden a letter which he signed - from your valentine.
had he known how influential this closing to a letter might become, he would have been wise to patent the wording - but having lost his head, the patent might have come at an untimely moment. regardless, this was a windfall for the hallmark greeting card company, who experiences a slump in sales about this time of year after the christmas season bonanza.
there is actually a great deal of conflicting information regarding the origin of valentine’s day - so much so that i am suspicious that perhaps it was the greeting card companies in league with the chocolate factories who invented the february day of love.
regardless, this is a long preamble to a simple and more straightforward topic of love.
and love is what i expect many of you have come here for today …
well … perhaps not love itself, but a brief reflection regarding love.
i stretch the introduction here as long as possible because i have very little to say about love - at least little more than what i have not already said at other times …
as amazing as it might seem, love is a transferable skill.
having found love at one time or the other, it is easier to be reawakened or rediscovered in other contexts or in other situations.
there is something uncomfortably similar between learning to ride a bike and learning to love.
a person might grow out of a bike, or lose it, but a person does not lose the ability to ride simply because one’s bike is stolen. (right out of the backyard - in broad daylight!) when you learn how to ride a bike, you realize that a new world opens itself to you. you can ride to work, to school, for pleasure, for exercise. you can bike on mountain trails, in marathons, alone or with others. it is clear that bikes require maintenance and attention - but the ability to ride a bike, opens a way into a world that suddenly extends well beyond what the rider was accustomed to.
i have a cousin who with her husband, is heading to vietnam - to explore the country on bikes.
what an amazing instrument of exploration …
what an amazing tool for learning.
now it might be that we might enjoy one bike over others, prefer one bike activity over others, but in the end, it is the skill - the knowledge, the ability to ride that goes with us.
and this is as true of mathematics as it is of love.
once learned, they are transferable skills.
once we have learned to love … to give and to receive love, we begin to see that love lies in abundance all around us.
just as a true bike enthusiast finds hidden moments to ride … where the hidden moments begin to present themselves and the world appears to spin like a wheel around this one desire.
i have mentioned this before but one of the most profound lessons i have ever learned in life came after the passing of my first wife - lydia.
it was perhaps two years after her death that i was struck by the thought that she was not the object of my love - but my lesson in love. and having learned the lesson … when we are able to learn this lesson … we are able to turn from the place the lesson was learned in, to live this lesson into the world - in each of the moments we experience in life.
life is lived in an entirely different way when every moment becomes an opportunity to see love, to experience love, to receive love, and to give love.
life becomes fully invigorating when lived through love … when we learn to ride the lesson of love into the world.
and like many lessons … what we see in the world reflects what we have embodied in ourselves.
so the lesson of love is also our participation in christ-likeness - our awakening in god.
for god is love.
the experience of love is not the object of our love - like the yellow d-1-11 10 speed i bought from the sears catalogue as a boy.
love is not a projection into some back catcher’s mitt - a comfortable place where it can be held tight.
love is a living transforming power that undergoes constant renewal - and is extended like god, into the world.
and our personal experience of love becomes the root of our experience of god.
when love becomes the energy and the passion through which we engage in life …
we find ourselves - (riding - or perhaps only walking) with god.
if you need to be reminded of this through chocolate and greeting cards, then eat and greet in the most loving way. but life flowers abundantly with love - more moments than cupid has arrows - more opportunities than riding a bike.
happy valentine’s day to all
may you live love.