This Sunday is Valentine’s Day: February 14th. That one day when love is offered and so often rejected!  All those cards we hope for and rarely get. All those romantic expectations we nurture – yet so often experience aloneness.  All those treats others get so freely – and we so rarely.  When the whole world is in love and no one sends you “that card” … it stings (I know!!).

And then I was in a relationship …

All the “guess who” – the (unspoken) “you better not get any other cards!” – the (spoken) “you did get another card – who is that from!!!”  And all the hype and the expense – all the “are we as in love as everyone else?” It’s great fun really – it’s all about love!

But is it love … ?

This Sunday is the first Sunday of Lent …

And yet … embroider the two together – bring “out there” … “in here” … and vice-versa … could you entwine both in love … because it’s all about love …

Isn’t it?

Love is love.  How far will I go?  How brave will I be?  How much will I hope and how much will I be rewarded?  How far would I go for the special someone I desire from afar (as tradition and romance would have us believe)?

Love is love. How far will I go for my soulmate?  How far would I go – how much would I give … ? My partner, our children, our family, our friends, those we touch and are touched by. Those with whom we create life, for whom we protect life, those we nurture and grow their own lives … ?

Love is love. How far will I go for my Lord?  How far would I go – how much would I give?  Or do we focus on the thorns, the injustice, the nails, the scourging, the pain, the anguish the blood, the unfairness, the death, the spear, the vinegar, the “it is over”?

Church over … Valentine’s Day resumed.

I am not mocking the cross, the gift, the life He brings. I mean no offence. I simply see a wonderful weaving of our love and His love. A perfect timing this February 14th. Our rituals and His. Our tactile symbols and His.  Love is love. Love is life. Love is a gift. The gift of life to be lived!  Bringing outside inside and inside outside!

A few days ago I wrote a note to Jack Sonni. I have never met Jack. I know his name from a band. Jack was the “other guitar” in Dire Straits at one time. And one particular YouTube concert has been on repeat in my office as I work: the “end of tour concert” in Sidney, Australia, Tuesday 26th April 1986 (I checked). I wanted Jack to know how much joy he still gave me thirty years after that concert. How his sense of fun and stage presence in that video had touched me – warmed my heart – brought a smile.  Jack has his own website.  He has his own phrase for living …

And I wondered as I typed out a note for Jack … does he like that one moment from 30 years ago still defining who he is (for me)? How many other thousands of us do that?  Drop Jack a note and remind him of a detail 30 years ago?  Would I enjoy that? Would that not diminish who I had become since, what I had done since, where I had journeyed since?  Would I smile or frown …

I don’t think God Soft Hands Jesus has any such hang-ups. Not in my experience. But I do wonder if we focus on His leaving rather than our living.

“Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “The wedding guests cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.” Matthew 9:14-15

So this Valentine’s Day and Lent … will you “Live Well. Live Now. “?  Will your Lenten journey be one of love and life – or loss and mourning?

As He and I sit here this morning, I look at Him … He looks back …

“You never went away at all Lord, did you?”