Ancient Romans may be responsible for Valentines Day for history records Emperor Claudius II executing two men — both named Valentine — on Feb. 14 during the 3rd century A.D.
Modern times Valentines Day and love go together like hand in glove; but what is love?
By Eileen Fleming
In one woodcut portrait of Valentine, the text claims he was a Roman priest martyred during the reign of Claudius II.
History attests that Valentine was arrested and imprisoned for marrying and aiding Christians who were at that time being persecuted for believing in one God who ruled over all empires. The martyrdom of the Valentines was honored by the Roman Catholic Church who established St. Valentine’s Day as a day for parishioners to attend mass just as they would on any Sunday.
Modern times Valentines Day and love go together like hand in glove; but what is love?
It has been written –and quoted by many Christians that:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth… [1 Corinthians 13:4-7]
Truth is the term ‘Christian’ was not coined until three decades after Jesus disturbed the status quo of the Roman Occupying Forces who nailed him to a wooden cross.
Jesus was never a Christian but he lived life as a social justice, radically nonviolent Palestinian devout Jewish road warrior who challenged the job security of Temple authorities by teaching the people they did NOT need to pay priests for ritual baths or sacrificing livestock to be OK with God:
Because God already LOVED every one just as they were: poor, diseased, outcasts, widows, orphans, refugees and prisoners enduring under a brutal Military Occupation.
Religion gives us rules, doctrines and dogmas.Spirituality connects us to the Mystery we call God for lack of a better word.
According to the 1987 classic, The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace, Dr. Scott Peck defines the spiritual life as fluid and that one may pass back and forth repeatedly through any of the four-probably more-stages of the soul.
Stage one upon this journey -that begins from within-is essentially our infancy in the spiritual life. Like a wild child, a person in this stage reflects the inner chaotic and anti-social, unregenerate soul that is interested only in its own self-satisfaction and ego, much like the stereotypical spoiled child.
Stage one people may claim to love others, but their behavior reflects they love their own pleasure, money, power, prestige, and security above any other. For stage one people, it really is all about them.
Stage two souls seek to “let their light shine” and will live virtuous lives and do many good works. They also can be judgmental of others, self-righteous, rigid of thought, cold of heart, legalistic concrete literal thinkers and may even be guilty of a lukewarm faith. They want to do right and they even may desire to love and please God, but have not yet fully opened up to the Inner Light, as Joan of Arc did when she challenged church and state and persisted that she had intuited God within -even while being fried.
Jesus said, “You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free.” -John 8:32
Stage two souls have not yet been set fully free and prefer the security of a higher human authority than themselves for guidance. They submit to institutions, scripture, dogma, ritual, ministers, or gurus. This is the most appropriate stage for older children and most adults who live busy lives just trying to keep bread on the table and a dry roof above.
The difference between a stage one and stage two soul, is that a one wouldn’t even notice a neighbor in need, while the two has awoken to the fact that we are to be our neighbor’s keepers and will often respond helpfully to a friend or total stranger in need.
Most theologians would agree that the opposite of faith is not disbelief: the opposite of faith is fear!
Stage three souls have not just fearlessly awoken, they have evolved!
This evolution has led them to the realization of what Jesus was really talking about in the Sermon of the Mount, which sound like crazy promises, but are all about waking people up to The Divine within themselves and all others… [Read more HERE]
A stage three soul may well reject Jesus as God, but will often agree with the philosophy of Jesus. Thomas Jefferson weeded out the miracle stories from the gospels and clarified the teachings and ethics of Jesus in: THE LIFE AND MORALS of JESUS of NAZARETH, which elaborates:
1. Be just: justice comes from virtue, which comes from the heart.
2. Treat people the way we want to be treated.
3. Always work for PEACEFUL resolutions, even to the point of returning violence with COMPASSION.
4. Consider valuable the things that have no material value.
5. Do not judge others.
6. Do not bear grudges.
7. Be modest and unpretentious.
8. Give out of true generosity, not because we expect to be repaid.
9. Being true to one’s self in more important than being loyal to one’s family.
A stage three soul will see that a neighbor is everyone on the planet and not just those who think and look the same and are born in the same geographical location. Stage three’s are seekers, doubters, skeptics, agnostics and frequently adults who grew up disenchanted with institutionalized religion.
Their inherent intellectual curiosity leads them to seek their own way towards the Mystery of the Divine through philosophy and the study of multiple faith paths choosing and discarding according to their “inner light.”
Stage three souls often become activists for social justice and reform and the increasing wave of humanitarian secularism verses the bondage of fundamentalist religious dogma may be the best way to change the world as we now know it.
It has been said we are all called to be mystics in the market place and a stage four, such as Thomas Merton and Rumi give voice to that experience of the curtain being lifted and seeing through the glass a bit less darkly.
A mystic can best be understood as one who is in love with the divine mystery and is viscerally connected to the unity of all creation.
Mystics are not navel gazers, they feel the pain of the world within their hearts and grieve at what humans do to the other when they have no clue that The Divine is within the other as much as within themselves.
Mystics have detached from their concepts of God-not by their own efforts, but by the invitation and action of God upon a willing and simple soul in love with Pure Being, AKA: God for lack of a better word.
The mystic fool, Saint Francis, the leper kisser of Assisi, was so head over heels in love with God in everyone and all of creation that most people of his time considered him crazed, or at least, extremely eccentric.
One needn’t be a mystic or move beyond stage two on the spiritual journey to do what is good and right just because it is good and right.
On that foundation alone people of faith, agnostics and even atheists can surely find something to agree upon and we all need -and deserve- is LOVE:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with THE TRUTH! It always protects, it always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres. Love never fails.– 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8
My Valentines Day 2019 card, hope and prayer is Godspeed on the above kind’ve LOVE to fill the days of ever one!
Eileen Fleming, Senior Non-Arab Correspondent for USA’s TADN writes HERE
Eileen Fleming produced the UNCENSORED “30 Minutes with Vanunu” Mordechai, Israel’s nuclear whistleblower
Contact her HERE
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