I have a message for you.
The message is that I love you.
This is not the point to this Valentine poem.
Though I could bore you with the story
of St Valentine, and his love, which led 
to death, even death by the lions.
Yes, welcome to the 3rd century, 
or is it the 21st century, 
when the Christians are but so much lionfodder.
Sad, really that we celebrate Lupercalia and not 
really what it was that St. Valentine was on about.
Maybe more people should be like me, and
not celebrate with so many annoying and trite 
cards and flowers and chocolates.
Nice though these can be.
Welcome indeed to this, 
the most liberal of all ages, which looks more and more like
that most liberal of ages, that age of great 
thinkers, planners, dreamers, and great
personal liberties. Where everything was
permissible, except Christianity.
Welcome to 3rd Century Rome.
Welcome to the land of the fattened calf
to the land of the heightened expectations
to the land where our dreams outreach our grasp,
where the greatest freedom is the
permission to own other people, to 
subject them to slavery, as we see fit.
Welcome to 21st Century North America.
Welcome to Indonesia, to Mexico, to 
all the sweat shops, to all the wonders we've
wrought in our never-ending quest for the 
faster chip and the rotating blackout.
This too is vanity, a chasing after the wind.
Beyond the fact that Valentine is dead
and gone to be with his Lord, we know little of
substance about his life, other than that 
he was a good man. Lots of legends abound.
I have read them, and found them to be
what I would expect a legend to be. But
what we do know is that this is a man
for whom the one love that matters was
something worth dying for.

I often wonder if this is the case for us.
When the persecution comes, will you, will I
be willing to face the lions, in whatever 
form they will take? Or will we, like so many,
bow to the face of the pressure of Decius, 
kiss the ring of the oppressor to try 
to escape in whatever situation we face, to be
excommunicated from ourselves, our faith
because we are weak? Are we the fools we 
often show ourselves to be, or has the 
double portion of Nabal fallen upon another
leaving us as the self-proclaimed nation
of God's favour, amusing ourselves to death in
the coliseums of the movie screens, showing us
horror after desensitizing horror until
the footage of Bosnia, of Sudan, of India, of Afghanistan
no longer causes any concern, wonder, or shock
but only a sigh?

Marana tha.
The message is not that I love you,
when it really comes down to it. My love
is useless, meaningless, like so much chaff
the wind continues to blow away, my love fades--
my love rusts, it wastes. There is a love I know
it does not waste; no, Sonwise in orientation
it instead pushes upwards and onwards
endures all
believes all
hopes all
trusts all.
Where there is persecution, it is the one thing
which truly can never bow the knee, the head.
May the Valentine-love, the love which Christ
alone
gives to us, be the love you and I and all of 
us who have been claimed to be Christ's own
people ever need, 
want, 
hope, 
desire.