October 7, 2024
Happy Monday, my friends! If you need a lesson in love or a reminder of how much you love someone, take a five-year-old to dinner at a restaurant with a near sensory overload environment. On Friday evening, I join my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew at a conveyer belt sushi bar with touch screens, conveyer belts running next to each table, robots delivering drinks, random videos, and lots of noise. Into this environment introduce my sweet, hyperactive, five-year-old nephew, Jack, who does in fact like sushi. He spilled his lemonade, grabbed far more sushi than he should have—granted so did his dad and his uncle (me)—and generally created chaos. Despite the chaos we love Jack far too much to be angry for long, even when he picked squid off the conveyer belt for the second time with no plan to eat it and made a bigger mess under the table than on it.
With my mom going through health issues and my family struggling with our own emotions, expressions of love have increased among us. We’ve always been a loving bunch; hugs and saying “I love you” are very common among us. However, it seems like the hugs and the statements have increased. Situations like these put into perspective our relationships with one another and remind us just how unpredictable and fleeting life can be. Reflecting on how we tell and show love, my dad considered how he never heard his father say the words “I love you” and only heard them from his mother in response to someone else’s statement. His parents were older, members of the generation who were teenagers and young adults during the Depression and then fought World War II. Their way of expressing love looked different than that of younger generations. I grew up hearing “I love you” from my parents multiple times a day, but I also grew up in a culture which told boys to limit the ways in which we showed love, particularly to other boys.
There was a time—I hope it’s passed—when a boy could say he (platonically) loves another boy, but only if he changed the words to something like “love ya bro” or, much worst, “love you! No homo!” Our culture had policed love to the point that boys couldn’t feel safe and perhaps still do feel unsafe saying they loved each other. This past week I was watching the new season of Heartstopper on Netflix. Based on the graphic novels of the same name by Alice Oseman, the series follows a group of friends as they navigate being teenagers and being Queer. The main characters, Nick and Charlie, meet randomly, develop a friendship despite their differences—Charlie is the classic nerd (if you know the books or shows, pun intended) and Nick is the jock with the disposition of a Golden Retriever—and eventually their friendship becomes much more as Charlie lives into his identity as a gay man and Nick comes out as bisexual. It’s a lovely TV show which tends to make its audiences cry (me included). What I took away from the most recent season of Heartstopper was how casually and without effort the characters expressed their love for each other. That love was not just in the context of their romantic dynamics, but as friends and indeed as a family of misfits and marginalized people.
I’m still caught off guard when friends say “I love you” to me. It doesn’t matter how long I’ve known them, what identities they hold, or who they are to me. I’ve scared off at least two potential partners because I said the dreaded “L” word too quickly. While my culture has taught me who you can say you love, it failed to teach me how long you must know someone before you can express your love for a person.
Who tells you that they love you? Who do you say “I love you” to?
Let us pray: God, make our expressions of love as effortless as our breath. Help us breakdown those places opposed to love or the expression of love by anyone at any time. Grant us tenderness—love personally—and grant us justice—love publicly. Grant this because you are the ultimate source and model of love. Amen.
Blessings on your weeks, my friends! Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you.
Faithfully,
Ben
Comments