It's not all about you

St. Valentine's Day is fast approaching.  With it, come the questions from people with a sense of entitlement.  He had better get me better flowers than the rest of the girls in the office get.  I had better get a ring from a man that I see once a month for sex.  One woman in my office got a 3 pound box of Godiva chocolates, why hasn't he sent me a bigger box?  The list of what he needs to do goes on.

Ladies, I have news for you.  It is not all about you.  It is about him too.  St. Valentine's Day isn't about what you get, but it is about the love you give.  So, as you become self-obsessed and feel a sense of entitlement because you think it's all about you, you lose your perspective.  Without that perspective, he's going to go find someone who is far more giving and loving and doesn't just view him as a means to an end.

Yes, I am a bit cynical.  In my experience, St. Valentine's Day is the one day of the year where couples who haven't gotten along in forever try to be nice to each other.  It is also the day of the year that women who watch too many chick flicks, not to mention the Hallmark and jewelry store commercials feel if they're not getting the biggest bouquet delivered to them in the office, they are complete failures in life.  So what the biggest gift delivered to the office went to a woman who is married to a man who is upper-middle management in his company, while your boyfriend is still an apprentice electrician, who still has a year or two to go before becoming a journeyman?  You still deserve the best present in the office, to show you have the best boyfriend, right?  Um, no, you don't.

I know this is hard for some of the fluffier of you to grasp.  The fact that it is not all about you, that you don't deserve to be queen of the day, unless you're willing to make your man king for the day too.  It is not about self obsession.  It is about being a couple and showing love for each other.

If you equate love with material goods, you need an attitude adjustment right now.  If you can't get past your materialistic nature and how it's all about you, then you need to move on from the relationship and find someone just as self obsessed as you are.  See how much you like dealing with your own mirror image.

I know I sound like a broken record, but Valentine's  Day is supposed to be about each other.  Do you understand that?  It isn't just about you, it is about your partner too.  So while you are obsessing over how he isn't buying you the right things and gearing up for a fight, what are you doing for him?  Getting him some girly stuffed animal that he's going to have to hide from his friends, lest he have to be called a pussy for months?  A bottle of booze, that you will share with him, so you can try to pry a ring from him?  Or how about just a DVD from the $5 bin at Wal*Mart?  He's a man, that's all he deserves, right?

Instead of being hung up on the material, how about just enjoying the day and evening without fighting with him?  Swallowing your pride and anger when he doesn't propose and just enjoying being with him?  Do you want to be with him, or do you just want to be able to show your girlfriends the rock he bought you?  Is it him you're in love with, or the idea of just being with anyone?  Are you even capable of enjoying the moment?  Or is the moment a means to an end?

Mutual respect should be the phrase of the day.  So what if you didn't get three dozen roses dyed to match your outfit of the day?  If style over substance means so much to you, get out of the relationship now.  You don't love him, you are in love with yourself.  It will never work, as he is competing with your feelings for you.

If you're a woman who isn't in a relationship, don't let the commercialism get to you.  Don't do the stupid things women have been known to do, such as ordering flowers and chocolates for yourself.  You will get found out 9 times out of 10.  Then you will be the laughing stock of the office.  Besides, if the snarky women who are all about showing off get on your back, tell them the truth about the day...

How many of you even know who Saint Valentine was?  All those cute little Cupid cards that go around, well, those are actually Pagan in nature.  Cupid was not a little baby cherub, but the Roman god of lust.  Come to think of it, if you read the Bible, cherubs aren't cute little baby angels, but really vile creatures with flaming swords to cut down anyone who gets near the Garden.

But I am off track.  Oh yes, Saint Valentine.  Of which, there are over a dozen martyred saints with that name and the story gets very muddled.  But here is the rundown.

He was either a priest or a bishop in Italy, or a missionary in Africa.  No one is quite sure.  He is said to have been a virgin.  The story goes, he was arrested for helping Christians and performing weddings for Christians during the reign of Claudius II.  He didn't renounce his faith.  The Emperor liked him, it is said, until Valentine tried to convert him to Christianity, which was illegal at the time.  As a result, he was tortured and executed by beheading on February 14, maybe somewhere around 270 C.E.  Yet he wasn't mentioned in the first compendium of martyrs in 354 C.E.  Pope Gelasius made him a martyr in 496 C.E.  His feast day was the day of his execution, February 14.

Somewhere along the way, he became the patron saint of happy marriages.  Along with beekeepers and epileptics.  Not to mention travelers and the plague.  Because we all know how romantic the idea an epileptic transient beekeeper with the plague can be.

Saints are supposed to perform miracles.  The only miracle attributed to Valentine was an anecdote about how he supposedly restored the sight of the jailer's daughter.  There is no recorded evidence of this though.  However, back in the old days of the Church, martyrdom in the name of Christ was a free pass to sainthood.  Which is probably why Valentine, along with a number of other martyrs, had his feast day removed from the Church by Pope Paul VI, under his Mysterii Paschalis.  Ironically, the letter was issued on, February 14, 1969.  But don't feel too bad for Valentine, it was the same proclamation that removed Saint Christopher from the Catholic Calendar, too.

Chances are, he wasn't real, but Pope Gelasius made him up to replace the pagan festival of  Lupercalia, a three day festival of cleansing and fertility.  By the time Pope Gelasius became Pope, it had degraded into a drunken naked festival.  So what better way to replace the festival, than to create a martyred saint who's feast day is right smack dab in the middle of Lupercalia?

So, getting back on point, you ladies are getting your noses all out of joint over a day that isn't even on the calendar of Saints anymore.  Over a virgin that was beheaded and whose life details are more than a bit sketchy.  This doesn't mean he's still not a saint.  It just means that his life really can't be verified and any official veneration in the Church takes place on All Saints Day.  But he was a virgin priest, if he existed at all.  Yeah, that's real sexy.

If you want to do Saint Valentine's Day right, go to a chocolatier.  Get him or her to create a chocolate saint filled with raspberry or strawberry goo.  So when his head is removed, he bleeds properly.  He should also come in an appropriate coffin.  Also made of chocolate, of course.  Come to think of it, if your boyfriend is a horror movie fan, this would be the best Valentine's Day gift you could get him.  So if you're calling me morbid, you are missing the entire point.  Which is, it is not all about you and what you want.  It is also what your partner wants.  Which just might be a two person drunken, naked festival.

Where Is Your God Now?

I just can't wait for football to be over this year.  I've never been a fan, but this season really annoyed me.  Why?  Two words.  Tim Tebow.

OK, so he believes in God.  So does most of the world's population.  Ah, but he's a "Real Christian."  As in Born Again.  So God must be on the side of his team, the Denver Broncos.  Because unless you've been saved, you're not a real Christian.

So believes the far right Christian population of this country.  Anyone who belongs to a denomination other than Baptist and hasn't had that saved experience is a heretic.  Especially if they're Catholic.  But that's another story.

However, all these "Real Christians" tend to forget the sabbath and keep it holy, as they're worshiping at another altar entirely.  Football.  The NFL is a religion unto itself.  Tim Tebow is the new messiah.

I'm not exaggerating.  He has been elevated to godhood by his fan base.  You hear about his life all the time.  From the fact his mother was deathly ill while pregnant and he wasn't supposed to have survived birth.  To how he was home schooled, which in the eyes of the far right religious community in this country, means he was saved from the evils of a secular education in the public school system.  (Forget that being sheltered like that kills a person's ability to learn proper social skills with his peers.)  If not for a Florida law saying that home schooled students can play sports for high schools, we never would have heard of this man.

But play high school football he did and he ended up an All-American.  Every high school football player's dream.  After college, he was a first round draft pick, which would be more impressive if he wasn't ranked 25th.  That says there were 24 players more desirable than he was.  But that is a mere technicality when talking about the new Messiah.  Even ESPN was calling him, "the Chosen One."


He had a decent college career, set records, won the Heisman trophy in 2007.  He was the Golden Child.  He could do no wrong.  Until of course, Sam Bradford beat him out for the trophy the next year.  But his acolytes would rather not mention that.  OK, so 2007 was his really good year in college, his other three years were good, but not nearly as stellar.  However, he was already a god in the eyes of football fans.

He would put Bible chapter and verse numbers in his eye black in college.  The NFL prohibits it, as you are out of uniform if you do something like that.  So the Christian right is screaming that this infringes free speech and freedom of religion.  Which is pretty funny, as they want anyone who doesn't think the same way they do to shut up.  However, rules are rules and you can be fined by the NFL for wearing shoes that are the wrong color for the uniform.  If we let anyone put anything on their eye black, well, let's just say sports players aren't always the most cultured of people.  Anyone else remember that famous Billy Ripkin 1989 Fleer baseball card and "Fuck Face" written on the bottom of his bat?  Just think of the short slogans NFL players could write on their eye black.  Those TV cameras get up close and personal with players.  So there are reasons for these rules. 

So this season, Tebow was promoted from back-up quarterback to starting quarterback.  Because God obviously wanted him to be in the spotlight, the season's original starting quarterback started sucking massively and was put on waivers.  No one saw it as a sign from God when the team he was traded to beat the Broncos on New Year's Day.  God was just testing them, besides, the AFC Western Division was crappy enough this year that with a season average of .500, it was good enough for the Broncos to go to the play-offs.

Well, sort of.  As I said, the AFC Western Division was crappy this year.  They were tied for first place with the Chargers and Raiders.  The Broncos played tie-breakers and won both.  An obvious sign from God!

Then it was onto the Wild Card team of the Division, the Pittsburgh Steelers.  Who finished the season with a .750 average.  Somehow, the Broncos won.  Not by much, but they won. 

Hey, God MUST be on their side, for them to beat a team so much better than they are, right?  Nothing can stop them!  God will see them to the Superbowl!

Well, depending on how Orthodox you are, you might consider Saturday the sabbath.  God's day off.  Since this is the play-off season, there was a Saturday game.  The Denver Broncos vs. The New England Patriots.  The best team in football.  An .813 win average.  But the fans had faith in their prayers.  And New England trounced the Broncos.  The final score was 45-10.  An embarrassing defeat.  Tebow played badly from what I've heard.  The entire team did.  Which leads me to ask...

Where is your god now, Tim Tebow?

Obviously, God likes Tom Brady much better.  Tom Brady.  Who is a Catholic, not a "Real Christian."  So while "Real Christians" go on about how Catholics are Satanic, because of the veneration of Mary and the saints, well, think about this.  If Saturday really is the sabbath, which according to many it is, God was taking the day off.  But in his stead, the saints and the Blessed Virgin Mary were watching out and protecting those who believe in them.  Right?  After all, out of the 2.1 billion estimated Christians in the world, 1.2 billion are Roman Catholics.  So you can't expect God to be there for every single person every single second of every single day.  Saints pick up some of the slack.  So of course the team with the Catholic quarterback was going to win.  Forget the fact that they've been the best team in football for a while.  Forget that they're all seasoned players and quite good at the game.  It all has to do with God and who God wants to win.  Because it's football.

My question is, why do they think God cares about football?  What makes them think that they are such better Christians than any other team's fans, that God will grant their prayers for a certain sports team?  Why are you praying for a sports team to win in the first place?  There are far more important things to pray about in this world, if you're going to pray.  Pray for the economy to improve.  Pray for war to end.  Pray for the homeless.  Pray for children to have enough to eat.  But no, you all spend your time praying for millionaires to get bonuses for winning the Super Bowl.

Football has been elevated to a religion.  I am simply amazed that no one has gotten the idea to start a church and call it the Holy Church of the Gridiron.  Joe Heisman or Knute Rockne could be the God of this new religion.  Jerry Rice, who many consider the greatest football player of all time, can be a living deity, along with Tom Brady, Dick Butkus, Lawrence Taylor, Jim Brown, Joe Montana and a host of others.  We can see if Tim Tebow can maintain before actually elevating him to sainthood or even godhood.  Oh wait.  His fans are already worshiping him as a god.  Too bad his god doesn't see it that way.

So, I'm up for starting a cult church.  While I'm a baseball fan and not a football fan, I can fake it.  The Holy Church of the Sacred Gridiron.  I bet we can make a bundle, while exploiting the true religion of football fans.  Who's with me?  We still have time to get this started in time for the Stupid Bowl Super Bowl.