A reasonable amount of years of experience of being loved, falling in and out of love with people and places, public and private causes, making love and attempting to teach to love, and now, for the very first time this burning desire came over me to investigate what Mr Valentine would have done to become such a worshipped man, to only find out that even the Roman Catholic Church says to be uncertain of his doings.
Valentinus would have lived before the fundamentals of canon law were first set in 325 and will have been beheaded on a 14 February, on the order of Emperor Marcus Aurelius Claudius (II) for violating his prohibition against (Christian) wedding ceremonies distracting much needed soldiers in the victorious military campaign against Germania.
Eventually the Church of England did adopt a day for Valentinus, arguably to introduce a much more individual romantic perspective surrounding the relationship between women and men in rebellion against the Roman fertility fest of Lupercalia to simply promote procreation for the benefit of a wider community. The Orthodox Church known for glorifying all saints, has come to designate 6 July as Valentine's Day.
So that's where the notion of love starts to split between different cultural perspectives, or perhaps the differences were already in place long before, but simply oppressed by overwhelming religious rules in all arenas, away from those who knew how to read and write history.
Many wars have been fought and avoided since in the name of love for someone or something. Whereas different parts of the world progress in their own pace and level of freedom, pretty much everywhere religious or otherwise community fundamentals are gradually side tracked in the manner wherein people seek to connect between each other. Some parts of the world have come accustomed to much more liberal manners in the way friendships (are allowed to) evolve whereas people in other places still appear to be struggling with moral restraints behind high and old borders and it appears to be always in the latter where legal and economic systems show to be chasing the facts relevant for individuals.
I have no intention to be a broken John Lennon or Bob Marley record and am certainly a chivalry defender of cultural sovereignty and tradition but also admire the pursuit of individual self-government. I also believe in reaching out a helping hand, maybe even turning the other cheek every now and do not turn away for the relevance of thriving love for material matters.
Let's go out more often, shall we ? There is a world out there, which can be wonderful if we want it to be.
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