The movie, Fifty
Shades of Grey, is expected to sell $50 million dollars in movie tickets
this weekend. The world of social media has been flooded with items associated
with the book and movie – pro and con – to the point that one wonders, ”Did we
just discover sex?” One headline I saw said something like “Soft Porn Goes
Mainstream.”
It surely is no marketing accident that the movie is being
released around Valentine’s Day. Equally flooding the world of social media
this weekend has been great deals on flowers, candy, romantic destinations and
a host of other stuff that somehow “proves” love is in the air. If you believe
the message that is inundating the communications world in which we live, a bouquet
of flowers, box of chocolate, dinner out and a movie ticket to Fifty Shades of Grey, is the perfect
formula for romance.
Yet the real-world of daily life would suggest that the
faux-world of social media definitions of romance, marriage, what it means to
be a male or female, and other charades about love isn’t all it claims to be.
If it takes a bouquet of flowers on Valentine’s Day for your spouse to know how
much you love him or her, there is “trouble in paradise” as the old saying
goes. If romance in your marriage depends on a ticket to Fifty Shades of Grey, somewhere along the way you’ve missed the
point!
Don’t misunderstand. My first date with Vicki was in
December, 1972. There hasn’t been a Valentine’s Day since then that she didn’t
get a card, maybe some flowers, and some kind of gift. This year the gift was a
purple wreath to hang on the front door! I bought flowers earlier in the week
for home since Valentine’s Day was Saturday and I couldn’t sent them to
work. But I didn’t do that because I needed
to make sure she knows I love her.
Loving your spouse is more of a journey than an event. For
us, that journey has been “official” for over 41 years. I’m pretty confident,
knowing what it takes to love me and live with me, that if the only time she
knew I loved her was the “event” of Valentine’s Day, we would have never made
it 41 years! The fact that for some reason I hate to take the garbage out to
the street on Wednesday night to be picked up on Thursday but still do it no
doubt says more about my love for her than the purple wreath hanging on the
front door today. I take my turn in fixing dinner, washing dishes, doing the
laundry and cleaning the house. The lawn never looks unkempt and I plant
flowers she likes. She knows that Valentine’s Day isn’t the only day flowers
show up and that the least little health issue renders me incapable of speech.
She has known from the time we knew she was pregnant with our first child that
I would love our children and strive to be a good father.
I didn’t read the book and don’t plan to see the movie, but
I’m pretty sure that none of that is in Fifty
Shades of Grey. The idea of “soft porn” is a bit of an oxymoron in my
opinion, but that really isn’t the most troubling reality associated with our
culture’s fascination with the book and movie, and at some level our
fascination with Valentine’s Day. The more serious problem is that such
cultural approaches suggest that romance is an event, when in reality – both in
the context of life experience and biblical revelation – romance is a journey,
not an event.
I’m pretty confident that in our 41+ years together, I have given
gifts with fifty shades of purple. Purple is her favorite color. But those
gifts were a part of a journey, not an event where I was forced to act like I
love her.
1 comment:
Well said, my friend.
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