Amy Lu's View

If you had asked me a month ago to sing the theme song to the X-Men cartoon from the mid-90’s (and I don’t know why you would), there’s no way I could have. I couldn’t have remembered it to save my life.

But when Chad and I recently watched the newly released updated version of the X-Men cartoon that featured the same theme song from the original 90’s series, I got chills. Chad and I both teared up and grabbed each others’ hands. 

Turns out, I DID remember that song. It was buried in my bones, and hearing it unlocked the memory. More than a memory, I was transported back in time almost 30 years, to the dumpy but beloved little house Chad and I rented in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. 

“That’s our courting song,” Chad said. “Well,” he amended, “we were already shacking up by then.” 

Nostalgia aside, this moment made me realize that we’re not the young geeks in love that we once were–and yet we are. It made me ponder how each individual is actually a plurality of people–not just across time, but at any moment in time. 

Or at least that’s how I’m going to craft the anecdote as I think about our monthly worship theme of pluralism and our service theme of love, and think about how I can connect the two. 

Certainly there’s value in loving pluralism, or loving different things and different people in different ways. But I find it most interesting (at least right now)  to think about loving the plurality of the same person or thing. To acknowledge, and maybe even accept and embrace, that there are aspects to every person that we will never fully understand or know, or like. This plurality applies to everything–from the natural world, to our jobs, and our church communities. And not only is everything a plurality right here, right now, every person and thing is constantly changing. 

Of course, that includes us. Each one of us is a big old mess of complexity. To quote Walt Whitman (and yeah, I can quote Walt Whitman and reference the X-Men in the same piece; that’s pluralism): 

“Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)”

So we’re all a pluralistic multitude, and loving anyone or anything means we’re loving another multitude–so what? As Chad and I often ask ourselves and each other, how does this little nugget of wisdom change how we move in the world? 

On an interpersonal level, thinking about plurality and love might make me more compassionate and curious, about others and myself. It might make me more present and appreciative. Instead of just getting annoyed that someone gives me unsolicited tips about doing strength training, I can recognize that someone is both a nagging self-appointed personal trainer AND a loving spouse who wants me to be as healthy as I can be so I can be around as long as possible to watch superhero cartoons with him. 

And that makes me realize that there are a plurality of ways to love and be loved. We can love boldly and quietly, with ways that delight and annoy each other. It’s popular to talk about the 5 love languages but I think there are more like 5,000. No wonder things so often get lost in translation. 

It also makes me appreciate how fleeting and mysterious every moment of love is. Our messy multitudes will never come together in quite the same way ever again. I don’t think even the X-Men or any superhero could make that happen, no matter how awesome their theme song.