Love Actually
I was given an Early Christmas present the other day – Love Actually (DVD) - an improvement on last year's gift from the same person – 'Life’s Little Deconstruction Book – self-help for the post-hip'.
The film is indirectly connected with Christmas because the interwoven stories come to some sort of dénouement on Christmas Eve: the prime minister (played by Hugh Grant) falls for a down-to-earth domestic help with chubby thighs - from south of the river! A little boy feels the pain of unrequited love; a smitten novelist falls in love with his Portuguese cleaner but they don’t speak the same language.
The film has a curious title - Love Actually - but it comes from the words in the opening sequence of the film which shows people hugging and greeting one another in the airport arrivals lounge. The narrator says:
“General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed - but I don't see that - seems to me that love is everywhere.It’s a common enough sentiment. It was the 25th anniversary of John Lennon's death the other day and we were reminded again that ‘All you need is love’. But at a deeper theological level as well as at ordinary human level, love actually is all around. It’s part of the deeper meaning of Christmas.
Igniting laughter, wreaking havoc, breaking hearts, daring commitments, forcing choices, catapulting spirits, forging inroads, creating risks - ecstatic, exciting, unexpected, unwelcome, inconvenient, inexplicable, inelegant, unequalled.
Love actually is all around.”
A theme that runs through the film is communication between people in love; and between people who simply love one another in the bonds of friendship -
For the joy of human love,Christmas signals God’s supreme communication of love; a communication of his very self for God is love and so ‘Love came down at Christmas’.
brother, sister, parent, child,
friends on earth and friends above...
In the words of the Bible: “God so loved the world…”
We give Christmas presents as tokens of love for one another, because God first gave us, on that first Christmas, his supreme gift of love: the gift of Jesus.
The late John Betjeman muses on the meaning of these Christmas presents and how they relate to G0d’s surprising gift to mankind:
And is it true? For if it is,The Bread and the Wine remind us, as do many of the carols, of the cost of God’s Christmas gift of love. True love is not about a sentimental feeling or costly gifts. It is about giving ourselves in love to God and then to others.
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things...
…Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was Man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.
May you have a very happy Christmas and experience the mixed blessing of God’s love:
Igniting laughter, wreaking havoc, breaking hearts, daring commitments, forcing choices, catapulting spirits, forging inroads, creating risks - ecstatic, exciting, unexpected, unwelcome, inconvenient, inexplicable, inelegant, unequalled.
