I love Puritan Valentine’s Cards.
They are the perfect sardonic blend of a sappy, obnoxious, sentimentality with stark, draconian, utilitarianism. Rarely does an attempt at humor so perfectly highlight the absurdity of both.
Valentine’s Day is complicated for many people. One response is to be puritanical. Desire becomes the enemy. We find assurance in a kind of piety that condemns desires, turns our self-pity into martyrdom, or reduces human connection to mere practicality. Another response is to lean into the expectations or hype of the holiday. Couples can harbor a lot of anxiety over serving up the right amount of romance. It becomes a litmus test for how "successful" your relationships is. If we do not come up with a gift or experience that is "good enough" (again) we wonder if our partner will become unsatisfied and drift. Or if expectations are not met, we wonder if our partner still thinks we are desirable.
Those who know me are aware that my husband and I do not celebrate Valentine’s Day. Every time this fact resurfaces, there is someone who attempts to defend the merits of “a day that celebrates love.” As if that is what Valentine’s Day is.
I have a backlog of posts and blogs that cover the historic and social fallacy of this assumption (you’re welcome). But this year, I want to target the complexity at the heart of this holiday. But gentle readers, this is not an attack to ruin your Valentine’s Day; it is a rescue mission to save it.
You see, Valentine's Day is not a day that simply celebrates love. But it does throw a spotlight on how we distill, diminish, and distort the reality of love.
Love has a Hierarchy
There is a reason why Friendsgiving and Galentine's Day will always be the "alternatives" and never the norm. Friendship is not considered an intimate relationship. Sure, friends are important. But I write in my upcoming book, Knowing and Being Known: Hope for All Our Intimate Relationships, about how media consistently reinforces the hierarchy of romantic partners over friends. Friendship is always relegated. Our loneliness, our desire, and even our definition of intimacy is set on the goals of romantic/sexual relationships. Even if we are surrounded by good friends, it just doesn't cut it on Valentines Day. If I am single, then I am alone.
This is Romance Idolatry. Valentine’s Day exposes a lie festering in our identity, that romantic/sexual love is the penultimate of our humanity. We have narrowed all love to romantic love, squeezing out or relegating any other kind of love. Other intimate relationships like friendship or family cannot simply be other kinds of equally important relationships. You cannot take stock of your intimate relationships and say, "Well, I'm divorced and alone on Valentine's Day, but that’s okay because I have healthy friendships and a loving family." These categories are not allowed to bear equal weight in our lives. And there is an important reason for this.
Romantic Relationship Status = Your Worth and Value
In her book, The Significance of Singleness, Christina Hitchcock writes: “Secular America has marked sexual activity not only as a sign of true adulthood but, more importantly, as the sign of true humanity.” Somehow, our romantic relationship status has become the standard by which we measure ourselves and each other on having "succeeded." The pressures of Valentine’s Day for single and coupled people alike are a mark of this distortion.
Valentine’s Day highlights how much our Romance Idolatry warps our sense of self. Like any form of idolatry, it exposes our good, true desires, and longings, and it aims them at a false hope. People consent to all kinds of things on Valentine's Day that they do not want to do (as a college chaplain, I could tell you some pretty awful stories) because the pressure of this day is connected to fear that accosts our malleable identity. Idols never deliver on their promises, but our age-old response to this is always, "I must be doing something wrong." Whether single or in a romantic relationship, this distortion tethers a noose between the “success” of our romantic status and our sense of self and self-worth.
But I told you I was here to save your Valentine's Day.
This holiday does not have to bear the weight of a lie that uses a false standard to measure our worth. Our romantic relationships, friendships, and even our family are ways we experience intimacy. These are the people who know us and are known by us. Wherever you have healthy relationships with people who see you and care about you, you have access to intimacy.
But the lie of romance idolatry often keeps us from pursuing, developing, and deepening non-sexual/romantic relationships. This Valentine’s Day, you don’t need an excuse to take stock of the relationships in your orbit that are actually good and can be celebrated. And for those in romantic relationships, we can free our expectations from the pressure of shaping our sense of self-worth. A committed romantic relationship is strengthened by the presence of other healthy, non-sexual/romantic, intimate relationships. Flattening the hierarchy does not diminish any intimate relationships. It, in fact, links them together to equally bear the weight of challenges that come with every relationship.
No matter the status of your romantic relationships, you too can have a Valentine's Day that does not leave you with fear or doubt about your value. Our identity and value comes from God through Christ and the Holy Spirit. But we are gifted with human relationships that channel that truth through the grace of the gospel stewarded in intimacy.
How? What makes a relationship godly? Blessing our food in public? Reading the Bible together? These are not bad practices, but I offer some other considerations:
Do your relationships consist of intimacy that regularly draws you to the truth of who God is and who you are?
Are those you are closest with inspire you towards Christlikeness?
Do you do the same for them?
Do the words and actions, the accountability and the grace, the reciprocity, respect, self-giving, and healthy boundaries embody the truth of God’s personhood and your identity in Christ?
Our closest relationships should be marked by patterns of the gospel. They should regularly draw us out of our shame and false sense of self and into truth and love. Like Meg in A Wrinkle in Time, when she feels helpless to dislodge Charles Wallace from the grip of the IT, it is her relentless love that defies all entangled deception to free her brother. She calls him back to who he is through the truth of love and the power of their relationship. Who are those people in your life? This Valentine’s Day, let’s remember that our identity and value is secure in Christ. But let’s resolve to be the people who remind others of this and not take for granted anyone in our life who faithfully does this for us.
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