V-Day: Goats, dogs, lust and love

Some Valentine’s Day FUN FACTS (originally from NPR http://www.npr.org/2011/02/14/133693152/the-dark-origins-of-valentines-day\

(with KG commentary)

From Feb. 13 to 15, the Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia. The men sacrificed a goat and a dog, and then whipped women with the hides of the animals they had just slain. (Sure, sure, it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye, or something worse!)

The Roman romantics "were drunk. They were naked," (So not much has changed really) says Noel Lenski, a historian at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Young women would actually line up for the men to hit them, (Where is that cast iron skillet when you need it??  Really??!) Lenski says. They believed this would make them fertile. (Which now explains why my husband is a November baby.  J)

The brutal fete included a matchmaking lottery, in which young men drew the names of women from a jar. (Because they didn’t yet have coke bottles for a rowdy game of ‘spin the bottle’) The couple would then be, um, coupled up for the duration of the festival — or longer, if the match was right.

The ancient Romans may also be responsible for the name of our modern day of love. Emperor Claudius II executed two men — both named Valentine — on Feb. 14 of different years in the 3rd century A.D. Their martyrdom was honored by the Catholic Church with the celebration of St. Valentine's Day.

Later, Pope Gelasius I muddled things in the 5th century by combining St. Valentine's Day with Lupercalia to expel the pagan rituals. But the festival was more of a theatrical interpretation of what it had once been. Lenski adds, "It was a little more of a drunken revel, but the Christians put clothes back on it. (Well, we do have SOME standards) That didn't stop it from being a day of fertility and love." (And chocolate and wine and flowers and….)

Around the same time, the Normans celebrated Galatin's Day. Galatin meant "lover of women." (Ok, I had never heard of Galatin’s Day, but I do believe that we should be celebrating this EVERY day – who’s with me?) That was likely confused with St. Valentine's Day at some point, in part because they sound alike.

Eventually, (those saucy blokes) Chaucer and Shakespeare romanticized it in their work, and it gained popularity throughout Britain and the rest of Europe. Handmade paper cards became the tokens-du-jour in the Middle Ages. (Can we have a collective sigh of relief here?  We have stopped beating one another with seeping animal flesh and have agreed to put some clothes back on – showing only a scant ankle,  if we are indeed feeling ‘loosey gooesy’)

Eventually, the tradition made its way to the New World. The industrial revolution ushered in factory-made cards in the 19th century. And in 1913, Hallmark Cards of Kansas City, Mo., began mass producing valentines.  

(And now, it seems, that many women do not believe they are loved or valuable without a giant, mass produced card that 50,000 other women will be opening today while gobbling down their box of Monsanto laced (sorry for that little extra stab) chocolate hearts.)

One final note from KG here – I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, Yes I do.  AND more importantly, God loves you.  Don’t’ take my word for it.  Take a moment to listen. You’ll hear him.

John3:16:

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” – Now THAT’s love.