it's raining

The movie tonight in the series The love of God was Monsoon Wedding. I wasn't sure why I went to see it tonight, given my emotional exhaustion of the last week and I was tired, but I was glad I stayed to the end.

This is a Punjabi wedding where Aditi, the bride, is on the eve of her arranged marriage to local but now living in America. The family relations are comedic and complex as befits any Asian family. Strangely this was presented in the context of the Ignatian Spiritual exercises' meditation on the temptation of Jesus. However I found it a fascinating study on the complexities of love. What is love? What is false or even warped love? Aditi's pursuit of her former lover still at this last moment threatens her new life. So many aspects are woven into a fascinating carpet which manages to stay aloft and not come apart. More aspects are whether love possible in an arranged marriage where the two have not met before? The love of a father for his children both adopted and birth are explored in the context of greater family obligations. The sensitive vulnerability of rejected and reconciled love is explored between, Alice the maid and P.K. Dubey, the stern wedding planner.

I will not spoil the movie for you. Rather I've been doing thinking about mistakes in life following recent conversations. I remember reading many years ago that there are no mistakes in life, only lessons. In more recent years I have learnt that God can use all our experiences, nothing is wasted. More recently in discernment if all the options or choices are sincerely made in the intention of honouring God then there needs to be no fear in the decision making process because God will not abandon us. Perhaps then this movie is about choices but rather than good or bad decisions, more about what affects consequences.

Furthermore reading discussions and reviews I realise this film presents alternative realities , rather than reflects the norm, to a South Asian setting, revealing the cost of love when it is wrongly rooted and the hope of love in honesty and a desire to follow the right path.

Away from me, Satan! For it is written: 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.' Matt 4:10