Kerux: a portfolio of Calvin Theological Seminary - Volume 41.3 - 13 October 2006

Editorial: A true romance

by Christian Bell, Editor in Chief

Of all the injustices that Hollywood has unleashed on contemporary culture, none can be more damning than the popular portrayal of "romance."

While working on edits for this week's issue, an episode of the television show Grey's Anatomy was playing on TV. Like many shows on television, Grey's Anatomy has as a revolving plot element the romantic entanglement of most or all of its main characters. In the particular episode that aired on Thursday, the show's eponymous main character found herself in the company of three current or past love affairs, and in the course of the show she was forced to consider which of two of them she should "commit" to.

The premise of such silver screen romances always runs along the same basic lines: the protagonist character is involved in a "committed" (a vaguely-defined term) relationship with person A, but has always harbored secret or not-so-secret feelings for person B, and maybe also person C. Although the harbored feelings seem innocuous, they always lead to a back-and-forth battle between the romantic elements of the character's life, and more often than not lead the character away from a long-trusted relationship and into the arms of a thrilling new lover.

The unstated premise to such a plotline is that whatever relationship you might find yourself in, there's always a better one to be had. What's more, that better relationship is often lurking in the unspoken attractions of the people right around you.

Such a premise is the cornerstone of many a successful movie and television script. A script with such a premise plays well to the audience, but it plays devilishly to the heart.

Over the course of a routine lifetime, we might take in any large number of stories with such a plotline. Over time, we begin to think that such exciting romantic rendezvous are normal; if not for us, then surely for someone. But then, when our own relationships seem dull or unexciting (as surely every one of them does, at one point or another) we might find that we begin to wonder if we have a thrilling new lover just waiting to be discovered. Have we really been wasting all our time with the dull person sitting across from us at the dinner table all these years?

The story of undiscovered love may be true in some particular cases. But far more often it is the case that the love we have is better than any that we could ever hope to discover.

Earlier in the day, I overheard a resident at one of the long-term care facilities I work at talking to an office worker. The old wheelchair-bound man was laughing and sputtering off jokes in between gasps at his oxygen tube. At one point the worker asked the old man how his wife was. The old man grew quieter and more serious and said, "She was sleeping, so I didn't want to bother her. I'll probably go back up to the fourth floor later and see how she's doing."

The fourth floor of that facility is an Alzheimer's and dementia unit. The residents there are in various stages of mental degeneration. Some can still stitch together coherent sentences; others just sit making noises at the walls.

As the old man and the office worker continued to speak, he talked about being married. He said he was still married. But he didn't say 'still' regretfully; his said it with gladness.

Being married in such a circumstance takes on a wholly different dimension. Love in such a circumstance has no one new to discover, no surprises to be thrilled by, no hidden aspirations or dramatic twists. But how much more clearly can the full and complete expression of love be seen than in the eye of an old man holding the hand of a woman he is still married too, even when she has long since passed away (if only in mind and not yet in body)?

The idea of romance that we have been seduced by in movies and on television contains an essential perversion in the understanding of what it means to be in love. Searching and hoping for an undiscovered love makes each relationship a transactional affair in which the current relationship's value is inversely proportional to the number of potential relationships that might be lurking just around the corner.

But relationships are not conditional. They are constitutional.

A conditional relationship is, by definition, temporary. So long as the favorable conditions for the relationship persist, so too does the relationship. But when that long-dreamed-of lover shows up to dazzle with eloquence, care, and perfection, the old relationship can be — and by "romance" standards indeed should be &mdash cast off. Such a relationship is not, and cannot be, a true relationship of love.

True constitutional relationships will stand the test of time. A constitutional relationship means that both people are committed to each other in their very essence. It means that the absence of one person creates a void in the other. Such a relationship is symbiotic, not parasitic. Such a love is a Christ-like love.

It might be benign to spend our time watching silver screen romances that dazzle us with their dramatic twists and turns and their promises of undiscovered love. But it might also introduce a malignancy that lays dormant and undetected until a bad argument or a long absence quietly suggests that we too might be in need of some silver screen "romance."

On the fourth floor dementia unit in a small, plainly decorated room, there is no dazzling silver screen glory. There is only the quiet reassurance that, in true constitutional love, an old man and an old woman are still married.

That is a true romance.