Love Struck

It's that time of the year when roses, chocolates and cuddly cutesy toys are all the rage. Apparently on Valentine's Day, a single rose sold for about $200 in Beijing, compared to $8 on a normal day and $150 for an ounce of gold. Restaurants probably cut down their electricity bill by lighting up candles all over the tables and bakeries would have charged the moon for heart-shaped cakes. Like they say, Love is in the air....that's so.... cheeesy. Of coz everyone knows its nonsense to say I Love You to the special people in our lives, whether it's with flowers, diamonds or just the mouth only once a year on a particular date in a month. Those 3 little words should be uttered every day in case we don't wake up tomorrow to say it. Indeed whilst we still have today, we should not only say but 'do' love as often as we can.

I caught the much-touted M'sian film The Journey a day after Valentine's. As I sat watching the drama unfold of a distinctly odd couple - a misfit foreigner thrown together with a cranky prospective father-in-law - I was thinking how universal and timeless is the theme of love. The acting may not be Academy Award standard, but the story-line is excellent; with plenty of poignant moments and well-fleshed out nuances of love.....care, compassion, conflict... between parents and children, family, friends, man and woman. Above all, it celebrates love not as a flashy showy emo ting where everybody gets along just fine with each other, where life is one happy forever-after fairy tale, but a very 'real' type of love, with all the tensions of human relationships thrown in, where people come with their own particular (even weird) idiosyncrasies, juxtaposed against the background of nostalgic memories of old school days and the ever-present specter of aging, sickness and death -  grim reminders that we all live on borrowed time.

A daughter finally comes home after a decade overseas for Chinese New Year, bringing back not just a surprise fiance, but the baggage of unresolved hurt/resentment against the reticence and strictness of a conservative father which she mistakes for rejection. If anything the movie brought home the message that love doesn't need to be said in so many words. (In fact words can sometimes come out so totally wrong). Love was there when the father kept quiet despite knowing she was already pregnant. Love was there when he cut short his journey to u-turn back home to cook her a bowl of mee suah on her birthday; only to dump it into the dustbin when she didn't return till much too late. Love was there in the reluctant son-in-law being sensitive enough to note how the old man suffered back-ache sitting on his bike, and how, without a word, he traded it in for a junk-car just so it would be a more comfortable journey. Comic touches of a 'kwailo' learning Chinese culture and tradition, realizing at the end of it all, that compromise isn't a 'dirty' word when it's about love; that there's no way of getting 'ready' to be a father, except just go ahead and be one. So changed was he that he deigned to invite his own divorced parents for the wedding after years of living separate lives. It was supposed to be just a journey to deliver wedding cards to ex-school chums on the whim of a stubborn old man, but it turned out to be so much more.
 
Love. We tend to think romance is about humans. But really the first Romance was initiated by God Himself - with man. He could have stopped at creating the magnificent sun rise or be content with the thousands upon thousands of beautiful animals or flowers that He populated a whole world with. But He didn't. Instead He went on to create His most unique masterpieces - man and woman in His own image.  Whatever for? God doesn't 'need' humans. What can man possibly give to God! Besides man has been nothing but trouble to God. We sin, doubt, disobey, disregard, misunderstand, ignore, rebel against and sometimes simply hate Him. We cause Him so much grief. Honestly, why would God want to bother with us? Yet the truth of the matter is that God created man simply because He loved to, He wanted to. If you knew someone loved you that much to even die for you, despite your being totally unworthy, wouldn't you respond - how can you not respond? It blows my mind to consider and accept that even before I  knew God, or ever wanted anything to do with Him, He already had me in mind, He wanted me to exist as a significant being, crafted me as a living work of beauty, out of love, to be loved and to love. Pure love. The highest form of love divine. No other love can compete, compare or compensate.

Cynics will always find fault with the Christian God who defines Himself as Love. But the whole Christian 'religion' is premised on this single all-encompassing concept . It's not about good works or getting a free ticket to heaven (those are what I call 'by the way' stuff); it's all about this 'thing' called love. We can be cynical about God, but we cannot deny deep inside, every human heart  is somehow 'wired' up for love, to love and be loved. Science can never explain love's dynamics; it can only reduce it to a chemical reaction, but surely love is so much more than hormones.  Look around - love cuts across all boundaries of language, race and nations in songs, movies, poetry and artistic expression. We even associate the beauty of nature with love, why else would man pick a rose to represent that inexplicable special feeling for that special someone? Love is still the reason for marriages and babies - at least I think it should be. And that's where The Journey ended....a marriage and a baby on the way; a daughter reconciled to her father, a father reconciled to his son-in-law.

That really is the be all and end all of love - reconciliation. Which is why God the Creator keeps up this Romance with the humans He created, wooing and pursuing us through the generations. Jesus took the first step down to earth to invite us to take the most fantastic journey of a lifetime with Him. The next step is ours to make - whether or not we are willing to go along. What will we find at the end of it? Why, Perfect love, of course, that drives out all fear, that reconciles man to man and man to God.

“I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness" - Jeremiah 31:3