Love Actually

My two favorite movies are Saving Private Ryan and Love Actually.   I know it doesn't make a lot of sense and I can't explain it either... but in SPR that part where Tom Sizemore says "what if the one good thing to come out of this whole, god awful, shitty mess is saving Private Ryan, well then, like you said, Captain, we all earn the right to go home"... it just gets me every time.  I always cry.

And Love Actually... I saw it 6 times in the theater.  I sent an intern to buy me a copy of the DVD at 10 AM the day it was available for sale. 

Its the best opening line of a movie that I know:

"Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaking suspicion... love actually is all around. "

I decided to watch it tonight to fall asleep and instead its started ideas a churning in my head... so I've come into the study to tell the cosmic void about them.  And hear's the rub, I just figured out that I am, indeed, surrounded by love.  That in my little life here in Houston, love actually, is all around. 

My friends who are mothers now show me love in a whole new light.  My friends who are newly weds or new couples show me the joy and energy of new love.  My friends who are new show me the beauty in learning about each other.  My old friends demonstrate the comfort of always knowing that you're there for each other - even if we aren't always around each other.

I love the line "its not particularly dignified or newsworthy"  ... how true is that, cosmic void?  The love that surrounds me here isn't newsworthy... its in my friends helping me set up for watch parties, in helping me clean up from watch parties, its in making a new Christmas wreath, its on the porch swing, its a slow dance even though no one else is dancing, its the reaction to Pumpkin ice cream, its in being called Sherbear by my Houston friends, its wall posts on Facebook, its in wanting to hold someone's hand, its in sharing secrets, its in Sunday afternoons on the sofa, its in the encouraging words when I doubt myself so often, its the hard core laughter, the belly laugh that seems to be wherever my friends are, and its in my prayers... none of those are particularly newsworthy, except to me.

So tonight, I find myself incredibly grateful for the love that surrounds me.  Incredibly grateful for seeing the love of Christ in my life again and incredibly grateful for each of you that show me daily how love is, actually, all around me.