I was working on an amusing post for today. Because it’s Valentine’s Day and it’s the day after Ash Wednesday, I was going to talk about the idea of corporate sponsorships for Lent, inspired by Valentine’s ads.

We would expect that a weight-loss chain would approach the fasting from a personal benefit perspective: “please God AND get a healthier colon.”

Or we could imagine a time-share company: “Need to get away like Elijah or Jesus? We give you forty days in the wilderness, in luxury cabins a prophet would have died for. And our desserts will be fiendishly tempting.”

Or an Internet security provider: “We’ll deny service attacks way better than you can deny yourself.”

But the crossover between the two holidays is a little more subtle. 

Nancy and I have had 30 Valentine’s Days. Actually, we missed our first because it was a month before our wedding and I was in grad school in Texas. But what we’ve learned during our years together is that we don’t spend a lot of time talking about what we are giving up for each other. I don’t say, “I’m giving up an hour a day of eating alone.” I eat supper with Nancy. I don’t say, “Nancy will like me better if I give up this and if I don’t do that and if I remember to do that.” And Nancy doesn’t make that kind of list either.

Instead, we try to spend as much time together as we can. We listen to each other as well as we can. We look for ways to help each other. We pay attention.

But I just realized something.  We thought more about those lists 30 years ago, when we were just getting to know each other. Maybe Lent should be sponsored by a training wheel manufacturer.