Love, like and a ‘cherished anniversary’
It is getting to be time for America’s celebration of our festival of love called Valentine’s Day.
The British started celebrating the event as early as 1446. A columnist in an American magazine wrote of it in 1863: “Indeed, with the exception of Christmas there is no festival throughout the world which is invested with half the interest belonging to this cherished anniversary.”
The Romans initiated the celebration. In the 200s there lived in Italy a Christian named Valentine. Emperor Claudius II had him imprisoned for aiding persecuted Christians. During his imprisonment he became acquainted with the jailor’s blind daughter. His prayers for the child were credited with her recovery of sight. Claudius II was so enraged he had Valentine beheaded around 270 A.D. on Palatine Hill.
In 496 A.D. Pope Gelasius named Feb. 14 Saint Valentine’s Day; a day of celebration of love. Our custom of sending love notes and cards to people who have special meaning in our lives developed as a result. People express love for others and solicit their love with the expression “Be My Valentine.”
The little boy within me still remembers this verse from childhood. “Roses are red, Violets are blue. Your mother was beautiful, what happened to you?”
Valentine’s actions are a living definition of love. Love is not an emotion. The word “love” is a verb, an action word. Love is not something you feel, it is something you do. A strange thing about love is you don’t always have to like the people you love. Liking someone has to do with what they have done or are doing to you. Loving has to do with your nature. It is the way you relate to others. In this light we can love people we don’t even like.
We tend to like people in whom we see qualities that bring out the best in us. That is one reason opposites often marry. One lady spoke of a person around whom she enjoyed being, saying, “I like who I am when I am around her.”
The Greeks had three words for love. Eros refers to physical attraction between two persons. We get our word “erotic” from it. Philos is the Greek word meaning friendship or brotherly love. It is the word found in such words as philosophy, meaning the love of knowledge, or Philadelphia, meaning the city of brother love. Agape is the word most often translated as love in the New Testament. It referred to the willful act of self-sacrifice for the welfare of someone else. It means always acting with the other’s welfare in mind.
I can’t let this season pass without expressing thanks for one whom I like because she has been a living example of love in my life. Sixty years ago this week she became my loving wife.
We were married on a Sunday because seminary was out two days for Mardi Gras and that allowed for a brief honeymoon. I was a kid pastor serving a country church on a dirt road. She had been out of LSU two weeks when we married. She had never been to a funeral and we had seven our first week.
She has taught me, by example, what love really is. It is a blessing to be married to someone I like and love. Thanks for being my Valentine.
The Rev. Nelson Price is pastor emeritus of Roswell Street Baptist Church in Marietta and a former chairman of the Shorter University board of trustees.