Valentine's Day Massacre

Another Valentine's Day has come and gone, and I am unfazed. For most of my life Valentine's has meant exactly nothing romantically; however, there was a year (1984 to be exact) when I really let it get to me. Valentine's rolled around and all the women I knew were talking about it. But the day after Valentine's reached a crescendo. My newlywed status seemed to generate a lot of interest from other women wanting to hear about my husband, still in the idiot honeymoon stage, manifesting his love in gifts of chocolate, flowers, jewelry and other products marketed to be the zenith of love expressions. But the women were to remain unsatisfied because frankly, nothing of that sort happened. It was just another day at our house.

So my pout started about half way home from work. By the time I walked through the front door, I was pretty frustrated. All those years of never celebrating Valentine's and now that I had a great guy, I still didn't get to celebrate it! Never mind that I had never thought about celebrating it. All of a sudden something was wrong with the universe, and I had to ask myself why I wasn't worth some chocolate and flowers or at least an expensive card. Didn't he love me enough to do that? I was so hurt, and I worked myself into a real snit by the time he got home. It took him about an hour to figure out what was going on, and then he got mad at me! After getting over the shock, he called me a fraud and asked what happened to the girl he married? The girl who was not like everyone else? My response was to say that she was a woman, so why was he so surprised? I just dug in my heels and let him know that I wasn't settling for less than other women got. I'll never forget the stunned look on his face. It really shook him up that I had such a visceral reaction, but he dropped it.

We went to bed mad that night and didn't talk about it again. February ended and the first two weeks of March came around. I was eating lunch in my office when I got a call from the receptionist in the main lobby. "You need to come down here!" she said. Even a couple of my co-workers coming back from lunch had mentioned something unusual in the lobby. I was so busy that day I didn't really pay attention to them. But as soon as I rounded the corner from the elevator bank on the ground floor, I could see what all the fuss was about. There in a gargantuan vase were five dozen roses. The thing was almost as tall as I am. It was absurd. As I got nearer to it, everything seemed to slow down. There was a kind of buzzing in my ears, and I don't remember the receptionist saying anything. She just grinned (along with others standing there) and pushed the vase toward me. I hoisted it up and kind of held it in front of my face as I made my way back to my office. I thought for a moment about taking the stairs so I didn't have to run into anyone. Since it was quite a few floors up, I realized I wasn't that embarrassed. Somehow I made it back to the office without being stopped, and I shut the door and fished out the card to see who it was from. No, I did not know. Then I read the words, "Why does it have to be February?"

I'll never forget laughing. I'm laughing as I write this. Those words flowed over me and reminded me why I am so in love with my husband. He is clever. Oh, is he clever. Even more than that, he is sincere. No marketer can sell this. It is priceless. I am so cynical, and even was at that young age, that I would have never believed my husband if he had celebrated Valentine's. I would have chalked it off to obligation. My husband was clever enough to realize that and not succumb to its power, and I have long since gotten over my succumbing. But it really did make me miserable for a few weeks, and this was in the face of my husband often expressing how he feels about me. He has written me love letters and poems and taken me on trips and sat and listened to me and just generally been a great guy, and that started before Valentine's 1984. And yes on occasion he's given me flowers and candy. But never on Valentine's.

I respect him so much for flouting the marketers -- for smashing those false notions of love to hell. I have thought often about the power it had over me and what it produced, and I hope I never forget that it was hollow. So here I sit on the 15th. Glad to have something much more important.

Now if we could just break the power of Mother's Day.

Jesus on Aisle 6

The consumer mentality is such a part of Americans that we can't check it even when considering God. For many of us (yes, including some who name themselves Christians), He is like any other good or service, i.e., how's it workin' for me? is it hassle free?

Man, nothing is new. I can't help but think of this:

19...their god is their stomach,.. Their mind is on earthly things. (Philippians 3)

May I always heed the Holy Spirit with respect to my "stomach."

I love this blog post I found this morning: Leave Us Alone Jesus

We Need More Mel

Does this guy look like he's having a good time or what? I can't stay upset about anything when I listen to him. He's a joy. One of my disappointments is that I did not get to see him and George Shearing when they came to my hometown years ago. At the last minute something came up, and I couldn't go. Thankfully, I've got YouTube even if it can't really equal a live performance.

If you read my blog much, you realize you're going to get posts like this. I'm serious so much of the time that music is a wonderful outlet for me and especially swing. This has been true for most of my life, and I don't see it changing any time soon. So I hope you enjoy the music!

Be Who You Are

Q IDEAS | Ted and Gayle Haggard from Q Ideas on Vimeo.

This video is only an excerpt. Hear the rest. Frankly, I couldn't listen to this without crying.

Man, we need to hear more of this! When will we get real? When will we let perfect love cast out fear? Believe it or not, it really is okay to be who you are in Christ even if that means you're not perfect yet or even far from perfect, which frankly, most of us are.

Even the Apostle Paul said he had not reached perfection but pressed on to take hold of that for which Christ took hold of him. I commend Ted Haggard for doing just that. It is a testament to the Lord in his life, the power which the Lord can truly bring to make us more than overcomers. How edifying to see someone who is this honest. Where is that in the church? We desperately need more of it, and the way to get it is to forget about protecting our backsides and focus on the Lord.

I hope that any Christians reading this who feel alienated from the church and the Lord because he/she thinks that the sin is too great, realize it is a deception. Yes, some other Christians may be participating in the deception. But the Lord is not. He loves you, and He does not hold your sins against you. None of that means that someone should keep walking in darkness. In fact, it means it is okay to come into the light and have something exposed that is harmful, so that you can begin to live. It doesn't matter if the world or even some Christians condemn you. The One who matters does not. That is the good news.

Obama Doesn't Get It

Tax the bankers? If he is able to levy this tax, do you really think it will not be passed onto the rest of us?

Where was I?

Oh yeah, I was talking about the dynamics of what happens on the web with social media, and how that's changing the nexus of ideas. If you think it's boring, then you need to realize that this isn't about some highbrow professor speaking gobbledygook about something that will never affect you. It's ultimately about how many acquire truth.

So in that interest I've embedded a playlist below of David Weinberger where he broadens the discussion. I hope you will watch. His comments raise very interesting questions, and the most fascinating is how man is changing his frame of reference. Suffice to say that I have lots of thoughts on this, but I'm still thinking about it in terms of scripture, in terms of what I believe to be truth. Thoughts in a later post.



I will make two comments about his comments. First, I agree we're in a renaissance and I embrace it heartily. Second, I could care less about his political views -- at least with regard to this subject.

Another day

I wanted so badly to make a really snarky post about why I don't like New Year's day or a lot of holidays really. Frankly, I'm becoming enamored of the Jehovah's Witness idea of not celebrating holidays. No, I don't embrace anything else of the Jehovah's Witness; I'm weary of holidays. Grandparents Day?

But I'm going to keep this post edifying -- I hope.

I was reading John Piper's website, as I have for years, and I guess I missed today's commentary when it was originally posted in 2007. So glad he posted it again. The resolutions are wonderful. I won't list them all here, but I do want to mention one:

3. I shall not fall into the falsehood that this day, or any day, is merely another ambiguous and plodding twenty-four hours, but rather a unique event, filled, if I so wish, with worthy potentialities.

I have a friend, Tammi, who thinks holidays are wonderful, but then just about every day is a celebration to her. She loves life and people in a way that I just thought I did. Her door is open to anyone and she embraces all comers. I admire her big heart. We should all be this willing to love people. But most people aren't like Tammi. Most people don't hang out with the Lord. For most people the holidays are about a show that makes them high so they can affirm that they're good people, worthy people, good sons or daughters, or husband or wives, or mothers or fathers, or lovers or whatever. Or it's to forget how boring their lives are. Or both. I think one reason I am so put out with holidays is not just that so many people do this (yes, I've been guilty of it too), but that somehow we're all supposed to act like that's not what's really going on. I hate that. I hate game playing. I hate it when people pretend.

So where's the edifying part? Well, I could have written about how I hate New Year's resolutions. Seriously, the edifying part is that we need to hang out with the Lord more. When we hang out with the Almighty, everyday is a holiday, my friend.

Read more of Resolutions for Mental Health