Yes, it is once again V-day, or as I learned to call it in high school- S.A.D. (Single's awareness day.)
Fruit bat got me some valentine's day chocolate, so I got her some at the last minute last night... >.<;
Getting up this morning, I had one real goal. Pancakes. Every year on valentines day we have pancakes in my family- pancakes cut in the shape of hearts. I got to the cafeteria just in time, and grabbed a couple of plain pancakes. It took some doing with a fork- but I managed to cut them into the shapes of hearts before actually working on eating them.
Since I'd gotten up for breakfast I had a lot of time to kill before I had to leave for church- so I went online to my home church's page and got started on one of my pastor's sermons. It felt like a slice of home to hear a familiar voice.
Church itself was pretty good- the pastor told us the story of Saint Valentine- which I had never heard.
Apparently, Valentine was a priest in the Roman empire, particularly noted for encouraging young people to get married and serve Christ together in a partnership. At this period of time though, Rome was getting ready for a war, and hadn't been having much luck in recruiting new soldiers- older men didn't want to leave their wives, and younger men wanted to get married. So the emperor made a decree that there were to be no new marriages. Valentine opposed this, and continued to marry people in secret- eventually he was discovered and imprisoned. The emperor went to meet with him, and was so impressed by Valentine that he offered to pardon the man and absolve him of his crimes, if he would only renounce his Christian faith and become a pagan minister of the Roman deities. Valentine refused, and was executed some few days after.
Before the execution however, his guard had discerned that Valentine was a wise man, and had been bringing his daughter, Julia, to learn from him. The day of his execution, Valentine gave a letter to Julia, thanking her for having been such a good student, and signed, "Your Valentine."
I thought it was interesting anyway.
