For the love of a song

Sometimes when I am stressed or at a loose end I forget that playing the piano normally chills me out and fills the time. Today was one of those days, but as I started playing my fingers wouldn't move in the right direction for Beethoven - think they had seized up - so I turned to my trusty All Woman song book to have a play and sing. The advantage of living in a detached house is that I can play and sing as loud as I'd like.

The thing I noticed in these songs today is that firstly they are all about love, and secondly about pining after lost love (apart from diamonds are forever which is about stuffing love, having diamonds because love is too much of a hassle).

Since when have we got to the point that all we can sing about is love? The content of the songs speak volumes about how women approach love - there us an air of dependence, a hint of 'lose love, lose yourself'. I wonder if it speaks of a tradition of submission and in that needing to be needed. In the songs the woman pines for the man's affection and hopes not to be let down.

'Anything for you, but you're not here'
'Baby how I miss your love.... I need you'
'Love, soft as an easy chair'

OK, maybe the last one is not so needy - but, seriously? If love is soft as an easy chair I wouldn't want it.

This morning I read that classic description of love from 1 Corinthians 13. It speaks not of a needy love, not of a love that is soft and squishy but of a love that is strong, deeply grounded and challenging. If we were to love with all of the qualities of that chapter we would be some sort of love superhero.

Patient, kind, not jealous, not boastful, not proud, not rude, doesn't want its own way, not irritable, keeps no record of wrong, does not rejoice about injustice, rejoices in a truth win, never gives up, never loses faith, always hopeful, endures through all circumstances.

Well hard.

I've seen too many of my female friends strive after the song descriptions of love (and, I have to admit I've done this myself) - a needy love, a love that keeps you hanging on, a love that is soft and squishy and..... Well kind of lovely.

But I wonder if that degrades us as women. As we seek this kind of love we miss the depth of unconditional love - love that lies its foundations on the description of love that speaks of God in 1 Corinthians 13 - love that gets so agitated about injustice it has to do something about it. Love that never fails.

As broken humans to love in that way is hard because stuff lies around - insecurities, failed relationships, barriers (like diamonds that are forever) and a need to be needed. But.... In love for family and friends, for stranger and neighbour, there is a description of love to work towards. Then we might have something different to sing about.

Back to the Beethoven. It's safer.

Another Year

I just finished watching 'Another Year'. I don't why but I thought it might be a comedy. It wasn't, and if I had thought about it I would have known that it wasn't.... the end of the film came at a point I wasn't expecting but contained a glimmer of hope in the unhappiness of one of the characters lives.

It tells the story of a happily married couple and their relationship with family and friends. The couple are very much a unit who love one another and who are the sort of people who you want to spend time with because they radiate that love and make you feel good about yourself just by being with them. They attract and look after people who need to be loved and who need to be wanted and treat them with great gentleness and care.

It was one of those films that felt like it could be real life, because I have met people who are both like the couple and their unhappy friends, with similar problems and difficulties in life. I've met people who care for people so much they deal with any intrusion on privacy, rarely showing their irritation. It was like real life because you ended up not knowing what happened to some of the characters the couple met, but you knew that by knowing the couple that they had had some sort of light brought into their lives. It was like real life because you knew the story hadn't ended - that there was still stuff to work through, but there was something to look forward to, even for the most unhappy of characters. 

The title, 'Another Year', implies normality - this year isn't unusual for the couple, different things happen, but it feels very normal. Sometimes life can feel a bit like that - another year, another day the same, same old same old. 

Life can sometimes make us tired, yet this couple showed that despite tiredness and same old same old, the impact that loving the lost can make is longer lasting and penetrates deeper than we can ever imagine, and in ways we often don't notice. 

When Jesus calls us to love our neighbours as ourselves, it's this kind of unconditional love he calls us to. Love that makes a difference, love that crosses all irritation, love that provides a glimmer of hope in the darkest of situations. 

"If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love. Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn't want what it doesn't have. Love doesn't strut, doesn't have a swelled head, doesn't force itself on others, isn't always "me first", doesn't fly off the handle, doesn't keep score of the sins of others, doesn't revel when others grovel, takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, puts up with anything, trusts God always, always looks for the best, never looks back, but keeps going to the end. Love never dies.'
                                                                                          1 Corinthians 13:3-7 (The Message)