Thoughts on Love 2: Luvvou

“Now, as this suggests, Mike is not what makes your heart skip. I mean, you love him, but you’re not in love with him. That’s why you can’t say it. I’m right, aren’t I?”

Miranda S3 E5, ‘Three Little Words’ (2013)

Thanks to Vampirelover19 on the Miranda Hart Wikia for this delightful, if perhaps prematurely festive, image.

‘Three Little Words’ was definitely a highlight of the third series of Miranda Hart’s eponymous sitcom: the unnamed customer-turned-emotional-workshopper continually explaining Miranda’s problems to exactly the wrong person; Penny attempting to accost Raymond Blanc by disguising herself as a coat-stand; Miranda finally overcoming her pushy-mother-itis and acute Englishness-ness-ness to admit to Gary that she’s head-over-heels in love with him.¹

Reaching this conclusion takes something of a process. Miranda realises she is unable to tell her boyfriend Mike that she loves him: in response to his ‘I love you’, she stammers: “Well, I, um, I, er, I – eyes are to see with, noses are to smell with,” before throwing a look of horrified confusion – what am I doing?! – at the audience. Workshopping the issue with her best friend Stevie and the Unnamed Customer, she is forced to admit that she isn’t in love with Mike after all. However, later in the episode, she is easily able to say casually to her old friend Gary as he leaves her shop: “I wouldn’t laugh; it’s one of the reasons I love you.”

“Er, what did you just say?” interrupts Stevie.

“I just said ‘I love you’ – but, I mean, just flippantly, like I say it to you,” replies Miranda.

“Well, that’s where you’re mistaken, my massive friend²,” returns Stevie. “We say it in a silly way. Tell me you love me.”

“Luvvou,” says Miranda.

I suspect we all have our own ‘luvvou’ equivalents. I sometimes go as far as ‘wuvvou’ with my sisters. Even sticking some kind of plural addressee on the end of the statement – “I love you all,” or, “I love you guys,” seems to make the phrase stick in the throat less. I happily write, ‘lots of love from Anne’ in birthday cards or at the bottom of letters, but ‘I love you’ looks odd on the page. And I do wonder whether Miranda might have struck something rather significant as to the reason: what if, sometimes, when we find it hard to say we love someone, it’s because, to some extent, we don’t really believe we do? Or, at least, not in the way we feel is expressed by the statement.

Last week, I suggested that, when it comes to saying that I love something, changing the object of the sentence can imply a change in the meaning of the verb: the statement, ‘I love peanut butter milkshakes,’ doesn’t, or rather, shouldn’t, suggest the same relationship as the statement, ‘I love God.’ Now, I propose that another way of implying a change in meaning of the verb ‘love’ may be by modifying or framing the statement to make it sound sillier, more inclusive, or less personal. Does ‘luvvou’ mean the same as ‘I love you’? Or does it describe a different quality of love?

Of course, English is rather disadvantaged among languages in this respect: elsewhere the queen of synonyms, she nevertheless struggles to find verbs equivalent to any of the multiple meanings of ‘love’. Ancient Greek, by contrast, has three very commonly used verbs usually translated into English as ‘love. ̕εράω (eráō) refers to loving sexually, being in love with, desiring passionately; φιλέω (philéō) refers to regarding with affection, treating affectionately (often by outwards signs like kissing), being fond of; and ̕αγαπάω (agapáō), while having in many authors a similar meaning to φιλέω, is also used to refer to being pleased or content, prizing, or having regard for³ – and out of this grew a rather particular additional meaning when the translators responsible for the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures) settled on it as their favoured way of referring to loving relationship between God and humans. It’s the verb used in, for example, Exodus 20:6, Deuteronomy 6:5, Hosea 11:1, Malachi 1:2, and Psalm 146:8.⁴ This meaning was then carried over into the New Testament and other Christian texts.

So those working on an English translation of the Bible hit a bit of a sticky spot when they come to passages like John 21:15-19.⁵ It’s probably a familiar enough story: Jesus asks Simon Peter whether he loves him and Simon Peter responds, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” What you don’t see in the translation is that when Jesus poses the question, he uses the verb ̕αγαπάω – but when Peter answers it, he uses φιλέω.

I think what Jesus is essentially asking is, “Do you love me, value me, respect me, in a way appropriate to the relationship between God and his people?” And I think what Peter is essentially replying is, “Yes, Lord, you know that I … am really very fond of you.” In other words, Peter meets Jesus’ “Do you love me?” with the equivalent of “Luvvou.”

This happens twice. Then, when Jesus asks for the third time, he too uses φιλέω – at which Peter becomes upset. Bearing in mind it was only a few days ago that he publicly denied Jesus three times,⁶ he’s probably feeling like something of a failure. He can’t bring himself to use ̕αγαπάω, because it just doesn’t sound true – his love doesn’t feel good enough to merit the term – and he knows Jesus knows it. And I suspect that Jesus’ switching to φιλέω on his third asking just makes Peter’s sense of failure stand out to him all the more painfully – as if Jesus were noting that Peter evidently isn’t up to the task, and stepping down the difficulty level accordingly.

But Jesus isn’t frustrated, or disappointed, or critical – and he isn’t stepping down the difficulty level. He gives a reply along the same lines as his previous two: “Feed my sheep.” Jesus’ response to Peter’s feeling his love is inadequate, is to task him with the immense responsibility of looking after his people.

The poem I posted last week began, ‘“I love you,” and, frankly, it sounds like a lie’ – and indeed, we’re not capable of love of the quality really appropriate to a relationship with God. But God doesn’t seem to view that as a problem, or something that disqualifies us from doing work for him. He’ll work with what we’ve got – φιλέω is clearly a perfectly acceptable starting point.⁷

That means that, when we realise that our love for God isn’t of the calibre appropriate to that relationship, the last reaction we should have is Miranda’s upon realising her love for Mike wasn’t of the calibre appropriate to that relationship. God knows we’re not capable of love like his, and sees it as no reason to break up. In fact, he wants our reaction to be to draw even closer to him; that’s the only way we’ll ever learn to ̕αγαπάω.⁸

Start with ‘luvvou’. Work up.

¹ Miranda Hart has actually posted the whole episode on YouTube – splendidly nice of her. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm0W2ll9_aY.

² The running joke is that Miranda is 6’1’ tall – which is, coincidentally, the same height as me. I have a sneaking suspicion that Big and Long, the fictitious shop regularly mentioned in the sitcom, may be based on Long Tall Sally, http://www.longtallsally.com/, which is the only shop I’ve found that stocks 36” leg jeans.

³ I am greatly indebted to the Greek Word Study Tool offered by the Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/search. (Ask any Classics student – we would be lost without Perseus.)

⁴ I checked these using Elpenor, http://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/default.asp. Isn’t the Internet a wonderful thing?

⁵ Read the whole passage here: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+21&version=ESVUK. Go on, you know you want to…

⁶ The episode is included in all four gospels, but John recorded it three chapters earlier: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+18&version=ESVUK.

⁷ I owe the basic idea of this explanation to a previous issue – I can’t remember which one – of Word 4 U 2Day, which is an excellent devotional magazine with a cringingly awful name, published by United Christian Broadcasters: http://www.ucb.co.uk/word4u2day.

⁸ Check out 1 Thessalonians 3:12, for instance: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Thessalonians+3&version=ESVUK.

Thoughts on Love 1: The Trouble with Peanut-Butter-Milkshake Theology

“Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. Love as powerful as your mother's for you leaves its own mark. To have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever.”

J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (1997)

Let’s talk about love.

You’ve probably already assumed that I’m not talking about fluffy romance – in which case, well done, reader, gold star for you. Nor am I talking about the whole plethora of things English-speakers say we ‘love’ without really meaning more than a casual fondness. For instance, I love peanut butter milkshakes,¹ vintage dresses, and The Fairly OddParents² – but that’s not the kind of love I’m talking about

The kind of love I’m talking about rather defies visual representation, but this photo nonetheless seemed an apt one to have on my blog.

I’m talking about the kind of love that prompts a person to die for it.

Now, that’s a big, complex, uncomfortable topic, and I’ve had a busy week, so to kick off what I intend to be something of a miniseries over the next few weeks, I’m afraid I’m going to subject you to more of my poetry. In fact, this is a particularly objectionable specimen, firstly because it’s one of what I call my ‘deep ones’, and secondly because, when I wrote it a few years ago, I bestowed it with the ludicrously pretentious title of ‘This One Spilled Like Exhausted Tears’ – so do feel free to get out while you can.

Still here? Why, thank you. How encouraging.

Here’s the thing: I use the exact same vocabulary and syntax to say, “I love peanut butter milkshakes,” as I do to say, “I love God.” Subject, verb, object. Yet, there is infinite difference between what I actually mean by these two statements, or at least there certainly ought to be. The following poem was born out of a concern, essentially, that I treat God rather too much like a peanut butter milkshake:³ I expect to enjoy him on my own terms, and so the love I profess for him acquires the woefully small and superficial peanut-butter-milkshake meaning of the word.⁴

I hope you like it; it’s rather a personal one.

“I love you,” and, frankly, it sounds like a lie,

Like a sugar-spun shell that’s got nothing inside.

I, naïve, carry on as if nothing’s awry,

But love’s not just a feeling, but something applied,

And, while your love is bursting, impassioned and bright,

An unrestrained, all-quenching flow, meanwhile, mine

Is a flickering signal, an unsteady light.

I’m complacent and weak and I hate it. Confine

Me to prisons I built, I’ll deserve it precise-

Ly, deserve sanction fitting and full for my crimes.

Most detestable is that it’s not once or twice,

But again and again and again, countless times.

I give up. I stay down. I don’t bother to try.

Though I know you’re worth everything, all of my life,

I surrender. I flee. God, it sounds like a lie,

“I love you,” when my hand was holding the knife,

When I was the crowd shouting out, “Crucify!”

I was wood. I was nail. I was spear in your side,

And I think it’s beyond me why you chose to die

At what should have been my execution. I’ve cried

At the glory and love of it all, time to time,

And I’ve hated my weakness, distraction and pride.

One cannot trust the words of a traitor, and I’m

Sometimes almost in love with the monsters inside,

But you know me from here to forever; despite

Everything, I’m considered not traitor, but child,

And I cling to this truth: you and I, we’re all right.

You gave everything so we might be reconciled.

You, Creator and King of the universe, died,

And it seems that you did so with me as your prize,

So you’ll hardly let go of me now! I decide:

I love you – for how could I do otherwise?

Footnotes

¹ My university Students’ Guild runs an American-style diner that does rather good ones. https://www.exeterguild.org/grovediner/

² If you didn’t know, it’s a cartoon about a ten-year-old boy who secretly has a pair of fairy godparents able to grant his every wish. Hilarity ensues. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCA8OH52te7LLg_O9T7lZFEA

³ It occurs to me that that sounds extremely odd out of context. Indeed, it sounds fairly bizarre even in context...

⁴ Only upon re-watching this Blimey Cow video from some years ago,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Iv62bxFTW0, did I realise how much of what I just expressed is included in it. I can only assume Blimey Cow has had a more penetrating influence on me than I thought. Still, I think this acknowledgement and the link to the video should clear me of accusations of plagiarism.