Oh, my martyred saint....

It seems Valentine's Day cannot be ignored. Believe me, I've tried. It can't be done. It is ubiquitous, obsequious even; everywhere.

The media are full of stories on everything from the cost of flowers and online dating to finding the perfect Valentine's gift, which will win the heart of your Valentine and bring true love to your life. The stores have rolled out candy and cards to commemorate your timeless feelings. Facebook has gotten into the act by asking you to spill the details of your love story with everyone else. We are inundated with the trappings of the holiday. Cupid is pervasive, and the celebration is complete.

Except I know a number of people for whom that goal has been elusive.

Some have given up entirely. I, for one, thought I had grabbed that brass ring, but it turned out to be fool's gold. I'm not eager to be made the fool once again, and I'm not too fond of merry-go-rounds, either. Others, waiting for their own Godot, look hopefully into a future that never seems to arrive. For a few, they have loved and lost too soon, and there is no replacement for the soul mate that is gone.

Whatever the reason, there are a lot of people looking through the window at the party for which they didn't receive an invitation. It can be hard, painful even, to be left with your face pressed to the glass, invisible, watching everyone else have all the fun.

I was thinking about Valentine's Day this week, and started to wonder why the celebration got started, and who Valentine really was. After extensive research (which actually means I wiki'ed it this morning,) I have learned a few interesting facts.

Saint Valentine was a person (or possibly several people) who may have lived a few centuries after Christ, and could have been a martyr for his Christian faith. It's a little cloudy as to whether he was even real, but if so, there seems to be some agreement that he was probably beheaded. [So far, this sounds a lot more like divorce than love - after a lot of pain and anguish, you aren't sure any of it was even real.]

The early Catholic church didn't recognize him as a saint, but somewhere along the line, he was added in as a "generic" martyr. To make a short story even shorter, that means they have no idea who he was or what he actually did, but there was a legend out there, and they were covering all their bases, just in case he was real and God was especially fond of him.

Thus was born the story of Saint Valentine, who was martyred for his love of a Saviour that the world of his day didn't recognize. Even if he wasn't real as a person, he made a terrific stand-in for all the true Christian martyrs of that time, so the legend became reality.

The holiday of love that we associate with Saint Valentine today seems to be a medieval concoction. It is commonly attributed to Geoffrey Chaucer, an English writer of the 14th century. Chaucer glorified the tradition of courtly love and chivalry in his writing, and may have referred to St. Valentine's Day in his Parlement of Foules, although scholars disagree on that point. It seems clear, however, that the traditions of romantic lovers exchanging gifts came into common practice sometime during the mid to late Middle Ages, and have been in place ever since.

In the current incarnation of Valentine's Day, the expressions of love have expanded somewhat to include classmates, parents and children, friends, and co-workers. We decorate our homes and desks with hearts all pink and red, and the flower industry goes into overtime to provide the tributes that will be exchanged. There are classroom parties, private dinners, and valentine cards and candies traded all around. The cynic in me believes this expansion of the holiday is more about a love of retail than a love of people. But the net effect is that the window to the party has been thrown open, and everyone who loves someone is free to join the festivities.

There is a movie, "Love Actually," which the director has attributed to a delayed flight. While he sat in the airport, he watched people arriving and departing, and he made the interesting observation that love is not the stuff of fairy tales and glamorous moments. It is not elegant, and often not eloquent. It is messy and raw and real. Love is experienced in the moments when one person needs another, and finds someone there for them.

Whether you have A Valentine, the soul mate of fables and dreams, or many valentines in your life, as Hugh Grant said in the movie, "Love actually is all around." In a cold, hard world filled with grim reminders of how evil humans can be to each other, I think that is something worth celebrating.

Happy Valentine's Day to one and all! Enjoy your celebration of love, whatever it may be.