The Nature of Love

 


The day we flew to the Azores two weeks ago we stopped in downtown Toronto to take in the Toronto International Film Festival premier of Tell It To The Bees, starring Anna Paquin and Holliday Grainger. It;s the story of a single mother who moves in to the home local doctor with her son to serve as housekeeper. The doctor has returned to her hometown to take up the practice of her late father, and we learn that she left as a teen because of her harsh reputation as a "dirty dyke." 

The two women develop a passionate relationship which is eventually "outed" in the small British community of the 1950's. Needless to say, folk are unkind and there is both sadness and hope in what unfolds.

The doctor is a beekeeper and tells the boy, played brilliantly by Gregor Selkirk, that secrets can be told to bees, and the hives are important characters is the story...nuff said...

It's interesting that this novel of the same name has been developed into a film a year after the acclaimed Call Me By Your Name, which is the love story of two men, set in the 1980's. In both stories the love is transformative but illicit according to the mores and values of the culture. Call Me By Your Name is a much better film but Tell It To The Bees is still moving and thought-provoking. 

I may have written before about the minister of a congregation I served in the eighties whose woman minister in the late sixties and early seventies who lived with a female "friend" in the manse. As the discussion about same-gender relationships became prevalent and heated during my time in the congregation some folk wondered if these two women had been intimate partners but lived quietly together without identifying the nature of their relationship. This minister was much-loved by the congregation but may have been censured if people had known about her orientation.

Our society and our denomination has moved toward acceptance and support through the years and it's important that these stories are told in novels and films. Still, many clergy struggle with whether to identify their sexual orientation to congregations and there are two many incidences of homophobia and cruelty. 

God be with us as we continue to find a place of true shalom and love for all who are part of the community of Christ.