What Bishop Greenleaf & Lady Mae Taught Me About True Love
I’ve not met a lot of TV couples whose love story mirrors real-life romance to a tee. Sure, real couples and their struggles inspire the love stories that are told on TV, but I find that after developing them into movie-worthy stories, a lot of them are impractical. I mean, how many real life couples bond over fighting drug lords or planning a heist?
So, when I came across the Greenleafs, I was impressed by the show’s audacity in telling a very imperfect love story. I don’t believe it was the writers’ intention to distinguish any couple’s love story in the series because it’s centered on themes like church politics, scandals, sibling rivalry, etc. Yet I couldn’t help but notice the dynamic in the relationship between Bishop Greenleaf and Lady Mae, patriarch and matriarch of the Greenleaf household respectively.
If you’re familiar with the Greenleafs and the deceit that characterizes much of their relationship, you might disapprove of their relationship being worthy of mention, much less being inspiring, but that’s what makes their relationship interesting. You can see the multi-dimensional sides to the characters, which you might not find in romantic movies where protagonists are unconsciously presented as ‘likeable’. Greenleaf didn’t feel the need to dress up anybody’s flaws, so you’ll find characters that are annoying, deceitful, insecure, and controlling; traits we hate to admit in ourselves.
In seeing imperfect characters being loved, however, maybe we can make peace with being loved despite our flaws and open our hearts to love when it comes knocking without feeling the need to push it away until we become perfect or deserving of it.
One problem I have with romantic movies is how they portray their protagonists. Their women have an amazing sense of style, are self-confident or awkward in a cute way; they are all these things that are subtly presented as a prerequisite for being desirable (as are the men), which leaves me wondering: what about men and women who are none of these things? Are they damned to a loveless life? That’s why I appreciate Apostle John’s words that “Perfect love casts out fear” because it presents a reassurance that perfect love — among the other things it will do — will eliminate the fear of not being worthy of love.
Sarah Jakes Robert echoed that by saying, “You’re not supposed to be perfect to be loved.” You’re just as deserving of the greatest love story if you sometimes lie under pressure or enjoy gossip or are quick to hold a grudge (as can be seen in people like Cleopatra who was temperamental and Joseph Stalin who has been described as ruthless).
You are not called to be perfect as a prerequisite to receive love.
Of course, your ability to sustain said love is heavily dependent on your character. So this is not an accept-me-for-who-I-am declaration without any sense of personal responsibility for your actions.
You might be wondering why I’ve rambled this long about the misrepresentation of romance as something that exists between perfect (or at least near perfect people).
My reason is simple: flawed people are the ones who consume romance novels, movies and songs, and they need to see what’s possible for people like them. They need to see that in their tendency to be easily angered, their cowardice, or their selfishness, love is possible for them too.
This knowledge, I believe, is pivotal for people who desire romantic love.
Bishop James Greenleaf and Lady Mae are not your regular romance movie protagonists. They are old, not particularly big on physical displays of affection, and because modern love stories revolve around youthful characters — who were in Greenleaf — one could’ve easily missed what they shared.
In today’s world of online dating, I think we snob aged love as a valid kind of romantic love. When we do recognize it as one, it’s not with the same excitement with which we regard young love, perhaps because we’re all too familiar with the responsibilities of adulthood. But I digress.
Somewhere around the second season of the series, I started to notice the Greenleafs. Something about the way they carried out mundane domesticities together; how they came to agreements on issues concerning their church or family (even if Lady Mae often insisted on her opinion); the quick kiss or palm squeeze they’d share before parting ways; the way they looked out for each other and, most striking, how well they knew each other got my attention. And I couldn’t help but appreciate the steadiness of their love despite their tumultuous experience as lead pastors and parents. The more I watched them, the more I learnt about romantic/marital relationships from their robust and sometimes complex love story.
Here are my relationship lessons from Bishop Greenleaf and Lady Mae.
- Love doesn’t have to be electrifying to be worth celebrating.
There’s a stability to aged love that I quite like. Confident in what it has become, it doesn’t feel the need to entertain drama or experience emotions in extremes in order to validate itself. It’s steady and secure.
You’ll probably feel that electrifying zap in your tummy every time you see your new lover, but you cannot expect to keep feeling this way throughout the lifetime of your relationship. Like Daniel Gilbert rightly pointed out in his book, your brain simply cannot handle an eternal high. But even after you’ve come down from that high, your love can still be all the things it’s always been for you.
Perhaps you’ve settled into a predictable rhythm in your relationship and you worry that it means an imminent end. You might in fact be wrong, and if the predictability is not a result of you and your partner outgrowing each other, you’ve probably just gotten very comfortable around each other.
Bishop and Lady Mae didn’t celebrate their wedding anniversary with a trip to Caicos or some exotic island. Most of their days were spent either in the church or their family home and it didn’t make their love any less worthy of celebration.
2. Love is not about perfection.
You will appreciate this better if you’ve seen some of your least favorite people experiencing love deeply.
Ironically, you might possess all the qualities that make you a good catch but still find yourself without romance. That’s how you know that romance, like oxygen, is not the exclusive right of good people; it’s the right of all mankind.
If you’ve been telling yourself that you’re still single because you’re not perfect or good enough, please kill that idea. There are many people in history who found love despite their imperfections — even some as despicable as Hitler found love!
Perfect love casts out fear; this includes the fear of being judged for being who we are.
3. In relationships, you have to play to each other’s strengths.
Gender roles will have you expecting a certain list of strengths from men and women, but in real life strengths are not allocated based on gender. You might find a woman who’s much better at managing finance than her man or a man who’s a better cook than his woman, and that’s great as long as both parties recognize and accept their strengths for what they are.
In the Greenleaf’s case, Lady Mae displayed a high level of perceptiveness and ability to confront people which Bishop didn’t have. Rather than insist on taking on this role in their relationship, however, he allowed her to do so, saving them numerous times from unpleasant surprises.
I find that men feel pressured to be the wisest party in a relationship, which can be a problem if they’re with a very wise woman and have a fragile ego. But dumbing down someone’s strength to protect another’s ego is ridiculous, so it’ll be in everyone’s best interest to allow a full expression of everyone’s strengths.
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If you look closely enough, I’m sure you will learn more from this couple who displayed the kind of love that stays to one another; through the loss of a child, age and its associated illnesses, personality weakness and secrets, they maintained a love that persists, which is what I wish for you and I.
