Okay, I’m a romantic. Casablanca is one of my favorite movies.? I’ve even watched a few “chick flicks” and liked one or two.? Don’t get me wrong, Lifetime and Hallmark are channels I religiously avoid.? Yet, I have trouble understanding how a man could forget his wife’s birthday or anniversary.? And Valentine’s Day?? Come on, there’s so much hype on that day, you’ve got to be brain dead to miss it.? Oops!? Have I offended any guys out there? If so, I ain’t sorry. So let’s talk about romance and St. Valentine’s Day.

Who was this Valentine guy and why do we connect him with romance on February 14th?? Good question.? I have no definitive answer.? There was no Valentine who flew around with a bow and arrow. looking for lovers to shoot.? However, there was a martyr named Valentine who died on Via Flaminia on February 14.? To quote Tina Turner, what’s love got to do with it?? We all need love.? Anyone who denies that is lying or a sociopath.? That means we, as a people who love holidays, need to have a holiday for love.? Holiday is a modern way of saying Holy Day, a commemoration of a saint or sacred event.? And what is more sacred than love?? But what has Valentine to do with love?? Apart from legends that I cannot buy into, nothing.? Yet, that does not negate the holiness of love.? The Apostle Paul himself wrote that without love, we are like “a clanging cymbal.”? That’s cool.

Okay, time to sum this all up.? Why is this about a massacred St. Valentine’s Day?? Because movies like Casablanca are no longer made.? I am old school.? I don’t hate sex (far from it), but think the fade to black is better for a movie with scenes that used to be X-rated not all that long ago.? Leave a little romance to what we watch.? I am no prude.? I read Playboy in high school (at least when I could sneak it into my locker), but even then liked a little romance added to my view of sex.? Lady Chatterley’s Lover over The Tropic of Cancer.? This is not a call to censorship (a poor solution, at best), but a call for us to not be sold on Hollywood’s version of romance: gratuitous sex. ? Let’s have a kiss that lingers instead of a quick hop into bed.? Let’s not massacre romance.? Let’s not massacre St. Valentine’s Day.