man flu

I’m currently feeling sorry for myself. I have a very sore throat, runny nose and headache on top of the usual headache. Some of you will be able to diagnose the problem as ‘man flu’. Others will suggest rather disparagingly that it doesn’t even qualify as a cold. It is entirely probable that the diagnoses will be split along gender lines. Women will trivialise the illness whereas men will realise the potentially life-threatening nature of the ailment and how debilitating it is. If you have any doubts, watch this video www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXLHWmjA5IE&feature=related  and it will explain how serious the situation is.

It is interesting how the different genders see the same things from different perspectives. Before we were married Sally and I lived about 200 miles away, which led to lots of letters and visits to the phone box at the bottom of the hill (so I did not rack up a massive phone bill at home). After we had got over the awkwardness of the first time I said ‘I love you’ on the phone and Sally did not know quite how to respond we descended into levels of mushy romanticism that would make a Mills and Boon author cringe. One one occasion I wrote ‘love you loads’ at the end of a romantic letter. Sally wrote back with ‘heaps of love’. But which was bigger? (Harry Hill would say there’s only one way to find out…) I maintained that loads was loads bigger than heaps while Sally insisted that heaps was heaps more than loads.

How do you resolve a thorny question like that? Who backs down and concedes? Logic would suggest that it depends on the size of the load or the heap as they are not designations of quantity but descriptions of the distribution and conveyance of a number of objects. It is therefore a futile argument. (Not that we argued, we simply wanted to show the other that we loved them more than the other).

I can’t remember who came up with the diplomatic solution but I like to think it was me. ‘I love you heaps and loads.’ Simple. (How many of you Brits are now imagining a meerkat?)

Do we sometimes have the same problem with God? We try to use language in a way that is inappropriate or irrelevant to try to define and describe the supreme being of the Universe who is indescribable. We may imagine God the Father as being like the Cocacola Father Christmas – a jolly old man with a white beard. We may suggest that God would not or could not do something because it breaks the laws of physics (well since he designed them why is he not entitled to set them aside from time to time to make a point?) We might even decide that God is like us in the way that he loves.

I remember hearing a sermon once when the speaker relayed the story of a Father who had come home from a business trip and was greeted by a chocolate and snot-covered child who wanted to embrace him when he was wearing his £400 suit. The father gathered the child in his arms and hugged him anyway. “…and God is like that,” we were told. He loves us even though we are not perfect. Yes, but that seems to trivialise and limit the love of God to being like that of a human parent. We cannot fathom the depths of God’s love for us. Being able to embrace us cost him far more than a dry cleaning bill. He even loves us more than heaps and loads!

At the end of their first date, a young man takes the girl home. Emboldened by the night, he decides to try for that important first kiss.

With an air of confidence, he leans with his hand against the wall and, smiling, he says to her, “Darling, how ’bout a goodnight kiss?” 

Horrified, she replies, “Are you mad? My parents will see us!”

“Oh come on! Who’s gonna see us at this hour?”

“No, please. Can you imagine if we get caught?”

“Oh come on, there’s nobody around, they’re all sleeping!”

“No way. It’s just too risky!”

“Oh please, please, I like you so much!!”

“No, no, and no. I like you too, but I just can’t!”

“Oh yes you can. Please?”

“NO, no. I just can’t.”

“Pleeeeease?…”

Out of the blue, the porch light goes on, and the girl’s sister shows up in her pyjamas, hair dishevelled. In a sleepy voice the sister says: “Dad says to go ahead and give him a kiss. Or I can do it. Or if need be, he’ll come down himself and do it. But for crying out loud tell him to take his hand off the intercom button!”