sleepless in seattle

We spent the evening in front of the fire, indulging in that timeless, deep and profound activity. A charming way to spend an evening. Rapture. Complete and utter absorbtion "watching the screen". Now ask me what Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Sleepless and Seattle have in common? Definitely not Meg Ryan, Tom Hanks, blood sipping vampires or stake brandishing cuties. .

I asked myself will I ever walk into a zillion floored building and find a teddy bear AND the love of my life? Or for that matter be slaying demons and monsters AND having the love of my life rescue me with passionate kisses inbetween the slayings? I mean - what am I doing with my life? Where are the demons? Where are the teddy bears? Not to mention *anything* else!

I see the men sticking their fingers in the wind pipe, rolling their eyes and saying "uuurggh S in S? blerk...chick flicks" as if a "chick flick" is the most abnormal shameful activity they can indulge in or as if they never went absolutely stupidly in love and did the most idiotic things (Ok for "love" there read "stupidly in sex"! But still...)

Anwyay to return to topic, "Is there destiny" - in real life I mean? Is there that "magic"? From where did Hollywood and writers and poets through the ages get this picture of love? Is it just "fiction"? Is it fantasy? Has it *ever* been a real thing this "falling in love" and "magic" and "growing in love"? You see, for me one of the moving things in the film, is what love can mean, the fact that it can be magical, that it can be meaningful for many years. Annie is not a stupid bimbo just chasing any man! (ok she *was* chasing cute looking Tom Hanks and not all of us have the privilege!). She was chasing a man who had known how to love deeply!

I don't know - so many people limp through life and relationships like grim fighters, It makes one wonder what love is all about. I have watched friends who fell so madly in love. We rejoiced and sang "oh perfect love" at their weddings all misty eyed. Then a few years later - "bang", it was gone. Just gone! Scary. Love just died. Over. Tears, pain, anguish. They stayed together but actually in reality they moved on. Love, was a silly passing madness, and Sex, they tell me is over rated; a chore; boring; even a nuiscance. Passion? It dies, they tell me, and so does love. I sit there watching them sadly, sometimes thankful I have not had this terrible thing happen to me.

But something inside refuses to be fatalistic about the magic and the power of love.

Love is instinctive, primary and one of the most compelling of human desires. If love is created by God, and we are created to love and be loved, surely it is meant to be the most eternal and profound of experiences. There "abide faith, hope, love, these three, but the greatest of these is love". God couldn't have got it wrong. Right?

Maybe we have got it wrong. Love is not overated, neither is sex. It is underated by us, Maybe that is why people take it for granted. Maybe that is why they let it die. Maybe that is why they are fickle and indifferent. Maybe that is why they look for constant sexual excitement. Perhaps love IS this wonderful, mysterious thing - that thing which makes us most like God. And we have forgotten that.

We live in a money driven, success hunting, soul destroying, images loving, excitement seeking, power hungry, fulfilment demanding, busy generation and society. Christians, yeah you heard me, often Christians take the most profound vows of love that someone can make and turn it into grim duty and bondage. As Christians we are duty driven, grimly faithful, super spiritual, ultra-Godly, praying, bible study going, preaching, ministry fixated, worshipping people. We church talk, smooth talk, smile talk, platitude talk, cheerfulness talk, solemn talk, hallelujah brother talk and spiritual talk. Meanwhile we forget the wonder of love and get through life like zombies.

And in all of it we have forgotten how to love. We have forgotten the power of love. We have forgotten that it is in loving that we are most like God.