Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day – or “national hearts and flowers day” as my wasband calls it – when lovers all over Western culture celebrate their romance with gifts and special outings, and young children are encouraged to give cards to everybody they know saying “I love you” or “be my Valentine.”

I’ll be working. It’s a second Sunday, which I’ve committed to the Florence Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship, here on the Oregon coast. I’ll speak at the Sunday service, helping to lead the singing, then, after the refreshments, I’ll sit in a “dialogue circle” with some of the folks to explore the ideas further. Lunch with a few congregants will be followed by an afternoon in the office, visiting and counseling with members. Then an hour or so of group meditation, and a quiet evening in the home of two women who help to maintain this wonderful congregation.

Not exactly romantic, but, truly, a day filled with love – the love between the people who attend, the love I feel toward them, the love they share with me, the love that flows through me as I open to my Higher Power for guidance in speaking, the love that built this congregation, and more…

Which is what I’ll be talking about during the service: how Valentine’s Day has kept love between mortals a part of the Christian tradition, and how that love can mature beyond the adoration of childhood and lust of adolescence to a wonderful range of emotions and actions and experiences that can lift us far beyond our norm.

For all the Abramic “people of the Book” – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – love for God is fundamental, and loving one another is encouraged: as friendly, agape in Greek, or “brotherly,” philos in Greek. To love one another as siblings means to put up with foibles and weaknesses, to support each other’s growth and development, to reach out in caring ways, to trust fully, and to share without concern. And it’s what schoolchildren are encouraged to feel when sharing Valentine cards, cookies, and candies.

All that’s good. But that kind of love is not what holds a marriage together, or drives someone to overcome tremendous obstacles to save another person or create a new lifesaving process.

No, that kind of love requires passion, which, in Greek, is eros. Romantic or sexual passion is fundamental to a good marriage, and is what Valentine’s Day symbolizes in our culture – unlike any other day in the Christian calendar.

Not that it’s really important in that calendar – the lack of data about the original saint has led the Roman church to downplay the date considerably. But they’ve left it for those who wish to honor it – which I believe is a good thing.

(to see a video of Ruth's talk, CLICK HERE)

So who was that original Valentine?

Valentinus was a common name during the Roman Empire, meaning courageous, valorous. And it seems that 3 Christian leaders bore that name at about the same time: 250-280c.e. Of these, 2 are reported to have been from the nearby city of Terni and to have been beheaded in Rome during the reign of Emperor Claudius II. These are probably actually the same person with slightly different reports.

What Valentinus did to deserve beheading is not clear, but the strongest tradition is that the emperor needed huge amounts of soldiers to restore the badly damaged borders of the empire and so made it unlawful for young men to marry until they’d served their duty. Bishop Valentinus, not wanting people to sin by coming together without marriage, went ahead and married his Christian followers in secret.

One version of the story says that he was put under house arrest in the home of a judge while awaiting the imperial decision, and that the 2 debated the power of Christ until the host challenged Valentinus to use that power to heal a young girl who was blind. She was healed and the man and all his household became Christians as a result.

The stories go on to suggest that Emperor Claudius II had a few conversations with the bishop, too, which went agreeably at first, but at some point he drove Valentinus out to be stoned to death. My sense, based on the limited knowledge we have of Claudius’ background, is that Valentinus’ Christ came far too dangerously close to the soldier’s god Mithras, a far more ancient “son of God”, and that even though Claudius himself may have been intrigued, he could not, as the head of the Roman army, allow this heretical teaching to continue – nor could he let Valentinus continue marrying Christian men.

The stoning, we’re told, wasn’t enough to kill Valentinus, so they beheaded him and buried his head outside the gates in a spot which the Christians marked, so that some time later it was dug up and carried back to his home town. The traditional date for his martyrdom is Feb 14, 269c.e.

So Valentinus was a hero to young couples and to blind children. But what about those hearts and cards?

Well, remember that little girl who had been healed of blindness? The story goes that when Valentinus was taken away from her home to see the emperor he left her a note telling her of God’s love for her and his own, and signed it “your Valentine.”

My favorite explanation is one my grandmother used to tell. She said that while he was under arrest Valentinus’ followers would gather outside the house, hoping to see him. He wasn’t allowed to preach, or even to send them letters, but there was a vine with large, heart-shaped leaves, a philodendron (and she’d point to one that we always had while I was growing up), growing outside his window and each morning he would write a few words of loving encouragement on a leaf and send it floating down to his people. They kept them long after he was gone as reminders of his love for them.

It was another 200 years before Valentinus was made a saint, and his feast day was set as Feb 14.

Now that date is interesting in itself. The next day is Rome’s “4th of July”, when the children of the city’s founders (and later, anyone who was willing) would gather at the cave where Romulus and Remus, the founding twins, were adopted by a she-wolf, go through an initiation involving sacrificing a goat and a dog, then run through the town naked with strips of bloody goatskin, swinging it at every woman in sight. On the 14th they cleaned out houses and temples, and took ritual baths, on the 15th they ran, and on the 16th they would bed and often wed one of the women they had “lashed.” Called Lupercalia (lupus means wolf) it’s the day when, according to Shakespeare, Antony offered Julius a crown as king of Rome and Julius, already calling himself Caesar, said “no,” and so died a month later.

Chaucer connects the 2 in his Parliament of Fools, commenting that mid-February is when the birds choose their mates and so it made sense that people would do so as well.

As a result many people think that “national hearts and flowers day” is a remnant of that ancient rite of purification and mating.  

So that explains the hearts and the couples.  What about the cards?

Well, those were a French invention, over a thousand years later, in 1415, when Charles, Duke of Orleans, was in the Tower of London and wrote a loving Valentine’s Day poem to his wife. It’s on display in the British Museum.

It was a marvel that caught attention, and by the late 1700s sharing love poems with hearts, spring flowers, and references to Eros’ arrows of love was very much a part of life in upper class England. Then, in the late 1800s, a British printer began to mass produce these poems as cards…and you know the rest of the story.

Oh, chocolate! Yes, well, when it arrived in Europe in the 1500s it was obviously an aphrodisiac – so of course it had to be shared on this day of all days!




But regardless of the trappings of the day the core message is still the same: we are loved by our Creator and that love is part of us, waiting to be expressed. We express it in many ways, as children and as parents, siblings, and friends – and if we are truly fulfilling our capacity as humans, as committed lovers ever deepening our affection, appreciation, honor, caring, joy, delight, understanding, empathy, and all the other qualities of a true and mature love with our beloved.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

It’s a cool, gray day here on the Oregon coast, a bit of a disappointment after the clear, bright sunshine that’s blessed us in between storms several times this past week. We’re entering the second month of the year and tonight/tomorrow is a holy day that the Celts called Imbolc (meaning “in milk”), the high-church Christians call Candlemas, and the Irish call St. Bridgit’s (or St. Bride’s) Day.

The Christian tradition weaves all these together: it’s 6 weeks after Christmas, Jesus’ birth date, and, acknowledging the Hebrew requirement for a woman to be purified after a birth, the Roman church honors Mary’s visit to the temple pool for the purification ritual. The Irish goddess/saint Bridgit (also spelled Birget and Bride and pronounced “Breeghd”) is portrayed as Mary’s midwife, and both of them are portrayed as carrying candles to the purification ceremony, with Bridgit holding Mary’s candle while Mary is submerged in the holy pool. One Christian tradition is to take last year’s palm leaf (from Palm Sunday) and make it into Bridget’s cross.


In the Celtic/Wiccan tradition, the goddess (called, not surprisingly, Bridgit, in many lands) is in her Maiden form at this time of year. She is virginal and pure; innocent and naïve; excitedly awaiting all the delights that life has to offer. In local gatherings she is embodied by a young woman wearing a long white dress and may wear or carry snowdrops and a few tender greens, which are often the indicator of the season (which is why we call young virgin women wearing long white dresses and carrying flowers, brides). She is usually accompanied by one of the new lambs, calves, or kid-goats which are just beginning to be born at this time of year – a sign that fresh milk and cheese are now available to people who’ve been living on preserved foods from last year’s harvest.  

In all these traditions, it’s a time to wear white and honor the purification that is winter –the messiness of the earth is blanketed in white snow over most of the northern hemisphere, and the deep frost has killed off many of the troublesome insects, bacteria, and plants that are part of rural life. It’s a time to begin to connect with other people again, after being stuck inside through winter storms. It’s a time to recognize that the worst of winter is past and to look for early signs of spring.

Which is the reason for “Ground Hog’s Day” at this point in the season. One early sign is the emergence of small mammals from their dens. If they come out and stay out, then spring is definitely on its way. If they come out, sniff around, take a look, and go back in to sleep some more, then it’s best to plan for a few more weeks of snow and ice.

And that’s the indicator of whether to tighten one’s belt and prepare to fast: the annual spring fast that has been adopted by the Christians (who call it Lent as part of the preparation for the full spring of life that is Easter – more about that in another writing). This fasting may have a spiritual context, but it’s very practical in the life of a winter-bound community. If, in fact, there will be several more weeks of snow and ice, then people must make their stored food last as long as possible – so they cut back to the minimum, and carefully ration the milk the mother-critters are producing for them, supplemented with whatever fish can be caught through the ice or in thawing streams. 

Over the next few weeks, while the snow and ice turn to slush and mud, dirt roads are virtually impassable, greatly reducing trips to other homes and towns, and fields are impossible to plow or plant, so there’s not much to actively do. Waiting for spring therefore became a time of little action and more inward focus: dreaming and planning and praying, studying, meditating, and contemplating. 

Here on the coast, we haven’t had much of a winter yet, except for the early freeze in December. The pansies, daisies, and primroses that survived that continue to bloom, and my kale is just getting ready to blossom, having provided delicious greens since August. We can look forward to several more weeks of rain, with a few warmish, sunny days in between storm cycles, with typically 2-3 summery days around Washington’s birthday, the 22nd. There would normally be one good snowfall across Oregon around Lincoln’s birthday, the 12th, and often another here on the coast near the equinox in March – we’ll see if El Nino and the undersea volcanoes that are heating up the nearby ocean change that this year.

Still, there’s no signs of furry critters – no rabbits on the lawn at Surfrider in Depoe Bay; no raccoons or squirrels visible along the roadways. The ravens and gulls have stuck around all winter, and, surprisingly also, the hummingbirds. A few small birds are showing themselves – one was scratching around for dried berries under the bushes in my thicket yesterday afternoon, trying to stay out of sight while I cleaned up downed-branches from our latest storm. 

With all this in mind, tonight and tomorrow I will light white candles and give thanks for the awareness of new possibilities that this season represents, for the life-giving rain and the heartwarming flowers, and the ongoing Presence of Light, Love, Wisdom and Peace that we’re truly honoring on every holy day.