Valentine’s Day is named for two early Christian martyrs who shared a common feast day — February 14 — on the old church calendar. Coincidentally, ancient legend held that birds always began to “pair up” around February 14th. Over time, of course, it seemed appropriate that women and men should also celebrate their togetherness on February 14th. Because of the church calendar, the custom of sending signs and greetings of love to a chosen beloved came to be known as the sending of “Valentines.”
But what are greetings and signs of love — true love? Much has been written on what love is and isn’t, but British author Henry Fairlie long ago identified three essential ingredients which I think sum up the signs of true Christian love better than most. I have come to call them the “CIA” of love:
1. Continuance. True love is constant and lasting and runs like an unbreakable thread through all seasons, ups and downs, and ins and outs. As Fairlie puts it, true love wants to enjoy in countless other ways the human being it has enjoyed in bed, and it never thinks of leaving in the darkness of the night, literally or figuratively. Continuance, of course, lies at the heart of fidelity, commitment, and sometimes, sacrifice.
2. Involvement. True love is never only self-involved. It is about far more than need gratification or personal fulfillment. Its gaze, says Fairlie, turns freely from the beloved to others, and from others back to the beloved again so that each enriches the other, and both deepen and expand. True love awakens and unleashes the deepest wellsprings of humor, playfulness, creativity and compassion within us. It heals us, frees us and inspires us to give and to care more broadly than we ever thought possible before.
3. Attention. True love inspires a “constancy of gaze” so that one grows to know one’s beloved in all the delightful richness and variety of his or her own character. We cannot hope, avows Fairlie, to love a picture, or a piece of music, or a poem, without giving it our attention. We need to gaze upon it again and again, in different moods, for different reasons. We need to learn to let it speak to us, to notice that it is never quite the same, that it always has new things to tell. In this way, alone, do we come to love others deeply and selflessly; for who they are, and not merely for what they do for us.
This year, in honor of February 14th as an ancient Christian feast, take the time to send out not just hearts and flowers and candy, but some CIA Valentines — signs and greetings of the truest kind of love.
Posted by APWeb 
which is about his personal search for the face of Christ.
