I am going to be very frank and forthright in my comments today, and my hope is that as I open up and share some of my attitudes and sentiments on this topic, you will all understand and hopefully identify with them and possibly even learn to better articulate some of the challenges that you face in your own lives.
Let me start by saying that of all the fake, commercialized, pseudo-holidays misunderstood and celebrated in the United States, Valentine’s Day may very well be the worst and by far the most isolating. This may be due to the fact that you, along with a probable majority, do not find yourself in a loving, requited relationship. Maybe you recently had one end, or maybe the person you are interested in (that will remain at the forefront of your mind throughout this week) appears to be disinterested or even seemingly unaware of your very existence. Even those of us that do enjoy romantic relationships this time of year get annoyed with the pomp and circumstance, the pretense, and the expectation to comply with the cliché and the status quo. Regardless of any of our present situations and the condition of our love lives, there are at least two things we all have in common. The first is that each of us fundamentally wants to love and be loved, and the second is that we have very little idea about what Valentine’s Day even is. Today I plan to shed some light on both.
- An estimated 62% of Americans actively celebrate Valentine’s Day.
- An average of one billion Valentine’s Day cards are sent and received in the United States each year.
- Consumer statistics suggest that $20 billion dollars are spent on Valentine’s Day in the United States each year.
- On average, it is assumed that nearly 6 million couples are likely to get engaged on Valentine’s Day.
If any of those numbers happen to be true, which in our world of fake news is not very likely, then Valentine’s Day processions are undoubtedly a force to be reckoned with. And a puzzling one at that. Its origins are even more convoluted.
It is said that the earliest indication of a similar celebration dates back to an ancient Roman festival called Lupercalia, which according to Wikipedia, was an ancient, annual pastoral festival observed in the city each February 15, to avert evil spirits and purify the city, promoting health and fertility. To begin the festival, members of the Luperci, an order of Roman priests, would gather at a sacred cave where the infants Remus and Romulus, the founders of Rome, were believed to have been cared for by a she-wolf or lupa. The priests would sacrifice a goat for fertility, and a dog for purification. They would then strip the goat’s hide into strips, dip them into the sacrificial blood and take to the streets, gently slapping women with the goat hide. Far from being disgusted, offended, or fearful, Roman women welcomed the touch of the hides because it was believed to make them more fertile in the coming year. Later in the day, according to legend, all the young women in the city would place their names in a big urn. The city’s bachelors would each choose a name and become paired for the year with his chosen woman. These matches often ended in marriage.
The Christians, however, in an effort to spread purity and “Christianize” Lupercalia and its pagan aberrations, decided to use the same mid-February time to pay tribute to one St. Valentine, or Valentinus, who was reportedly martyred on February 14th in the year 270. Long story short, Emperor Claudius II banned marriage for young roman men thinking that single men made better soldiers. The story then goes that Valentinus would perform marriages in secret in defiance of the emperor, in order to protect young males from having to go to war since they had wives to take care of. When Claudius II found out that Valentinus was performing these marriages, he sentenced him to death. Another story claims that Valentinus fell in love with his prison guard’s daughter, and when he would write her, would sign each letter, “Your Valentinus” or, “Your Valentine.” At the end of the fifth century, Pope Gelasius canonized Valentinus and declared February 14th a day for the “Feast of St. Valentine” in remembrance of his death. It wasn’t until the 1300s that the day came to be associated exclusively with the celebration of marriage and romantic love.
So that is a remedial history of this interesting holiday that many of you, including myself, were probably not aware of. Now, the worldly tradition and celebration of Valentine’s Day has absolutely nothing to do with anything the Church teaches and really lacks any relevance to anything that should be taught in this meeting today. Nevertheless, it promotes awareness of your relationship status and current attitude, and for some that can be a problematic. So here were are in 2019 as unmarried young adults, wondering how this applies and how to navigate the times. Because if you are like me, you have probably asked yourself the following question: Valentine’s Day makes it very clear where I fit in society as a single person, but where do I fit as a single person in a Church whose fundamental and crowning doctrine is that of marriage and the formation of eternal families?
Assuming that most of us are genuinely concerned about our “celestial status” and on the one hand are familiar with the oft repeated counsel that it will happen “in the Lord’s timing” and to “focus on developing and preparing yourself for when the time comes,” yet on the other hand are equally confronted with 1. The realities of a merciless culture of young marriage; 2. Carefully curated bridal and wedding posts from our perfect and beautiful friends on social media, and 3. People surrounding us taunting us with questions like “why aren’t you married yet?” “Are you dating anyone?” “You really should be dating more” or “You don’t know what you’re missing out on,” it is any wonder how most of us are able to carry on at all. Sometimes the person that says, “You really should be getting married” is the same one saying “but it’s all in the Lord’s timing” — carelessly and unknowingly displaying their own lack of comprehension and understanding of the complexities of living, or their own refusal to accept the realities of it. I’m telling you it’s complicated and annoying, and the more we can tune out the often asinine and contradictory voices of those who think they have our best interest at heart and instead look to the Lord for guidance and understanding, the better off we will be.
For me, the biggest challenge has been coping on the one hand with the dissonance caused by the elevated understanding of human nature and Godly potential that a lifelong membership in the Church has afforded me, and on the other hand the reality of my own longings, fears, and experiences. For example, as a 25-year-old (almost 26 on Tuesday), I have remained unmarried longer than most any other person in my immediate family and family tree for at least four generations. Like most of you, I know what the Plan of Salvation is. I know what the sealing power is and about the boundless blessings of eternal companionship. I know what God wants for me and I know what is required of me. I was taught this by others throughout my life and I, in turn, have taught this to others throughout my life. So what then is the purpose of me standing up here today? It is not to teach or expound upon something that I feel all of us are already in some way keenly aware of. The essence of my message today is that the suffering, anxiety, rejection, fear, annoyance, confusion, heartbreak, longing, and in some cases even anger you experience when considering your eternal loneliness is okay. It’s not God abandoning you or spiting you, and most of the time it isn’t even him willfully challenging you or targeting you or refining you. It’s just life. It’s okay. And I believe God wants everyone to know that it’s okay.
The bishopric provided me a few resources as I prepared this talk that I was able to take a look at, and unfortunately most of what was there were just the types of things that I just referenced — Church leaders explaining the doctrines that most of us already know. President Russel M. Nelson’s wife Wendy Nelson, who’s path through life in the Church is especially unique, was a professor of marriage and family relations for many years despite the fact that she herself had never been married until she married Elder Nelson in 2006 at the age of 55. Her best friend Sheri Dew, who is 65, remains famously single and the patron saint of singledom for unmarried, righteous Latter-day Saint women. Sister Nelson is an amazing person of course, but I can only imagine the pain and confusion she must have gone through throughout her life while being an apparent expert on marriage and family having never had the chance to bear children of her own. Not to mention the inevitable mixed emotions likely experienced by Sister Dew upon seeing her best friend marry a senior Church leader of all people. It’s complicated… The macro struggles that each of us encounter daily on a micro basis are everywhere, both in and outside of the Church.
Consider this: Having read the published biographies of most all of the Apostles and prophets that have lived at least since I have been alive, I have noticed a trend that most if not all of them experienced very little struggle in their ability to find spouses and marry as young adults. In fact, according to my best research, most of them never really dated a whole lot, found their wives quickly upon returning home from missions or military service, and were happily married very young for scores of years. Rarely if ever will you hear a Church leader share an experience of their romantic heartbreak, dejection, confusion, impatience, or the profundity of the lonely hopelessness caused by unrequited love. It seems as though things just usually worked out for them. In the reality of our challenges, who then do we look to for our pains to truly be succored?
Despite that trend of relative disconnection in the lives of the Brethren with regards to stagnant romance, there is one who experienced every form of rejection and heartbreak and every fathomable anxiety and depression that any of us could ever possibly come to experience, and that is Jesus Christ. The scriptures teach us:
11 And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.
12 And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.
13 Now the Spirit knoweth all things; nevertheless the Son of God suffereth according to the flesh that he might take upon him the sins of his people, that he might blot out their transgressions according to the power of his deliverance; and now behold, this is the testimony which is in me.”1
I testify that in Jesus Christ is our only true respite and the only lasting source of peace and contentment as we navigate the ruthlessly trying phase of our lives that is young single adulthood. The Atonement was not just for sin. It was for everything, that his bowels might be filled with mercy and that he may know how to succor us.
Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles taught:
“To declare the fundamental truths relative to marriage and family is not to overlook or diminish the sacrifices and successes of those for whom the ideal is not a present reality. Some of you are denied the blessing of marriage for reasons including a lack of viable prospects, same-sex attraction, physical or mental impairments, or simply a fear of failure that, for the moment at least, overshadows faith….
“Even so, everyone has gifts; everyone has talents; everyone can contribute to the unfolding of the divine plan in each generation. Much that is good, much that is essential—even sometimes all that is necessary for now—can be achieved in less than ideal circumstances. So many of you are doing your very best. And when you who bear the heaviest burdens of mortality stand up in defense of God’s plan to exalt His children, we are all ready to march. With confidence we testify that the Atonement of Jesus Christ has anticipated and, in the end, will compensate all deprivation and loss for those who turn to Him. No one is predestined to receive less than all that the Father has for His children.”2
I add my testimony to Elder Christofferson’s and conclude with his own closing remarks. “May we each find approval in His sight. May marriages flourish and families prosper, and whether our lot is a fulness of these blessings in mortality or not, may the Lord’s grace bring happiness now and faith in sure promises to come.”3 And, I might add, may each of us learn and allow ourselves to be succored. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
References
- Alma 7:11-13
- Christofferson, D. Todd. “Why Marriage, Why Family,” Ensign, May, 2015, 50.
- Ibid.
Dillon Boss 