i love to watch british detective shows. i remember growing up with several american detective series on television, shows like mike hammer, peter gunn, seventy-seven sunset strip, dragnet, and columbo. as a pre-teen, i read every hardy boys book i could lay my hands on. when i was older in my teens, and later as an adult, i devoured sherlock holmes stories. there don't seem to be any great american detective shows on tv any more, except the law and order offshoots. there are a couple of pretty good police series, but the british seem to have a corner on the market for quality detective shows. i could sit and watch midsommer murders, the oxford-based police collection that follows inspector morse and his successor inspector lewis, grantchester, vera, and shetland for hours. it's not so much the ingenuity of the plots, though those are always good, as the interesting leading characters that have me hooked. they are real human beings with quirks and faults, often living messy lives that are sometimes uncomfortably close to home.
i'm particularly fond of sidney, the detective-priest in grantchester. i feel for him as he tries to interpret his role as a clergyman in a time of changing social mores in the period following the second world war. his assistant, leonard, is a gay man who is under pressure from his superiors to marry and avoid the stigma of being homosexual in an era where being gay is considered not only immoral but illegal. sidney is in love with a friend of his sister who has been forced into an unhappy marriage by her father. after leaving her husband with their small child, she moves to grantchester, and sidney struggles with his love for her and hers for him when divorce is not permitted by the church of england. they both know that he would have to give up his vocation in order for them to be together, and, at the point in the series where i now am in my viewing, their love relationship is an on-again-off-again affair. sidney's partner in crime-solving, police inspector geordie, is having an affair with a woman who works in his police station, while his wife stays home raising their family. trying to maintain their friendship while prodding geordie to end his dalliance with his co-worker, sidney is having difficulty figuring out how to counsel his friend without coming across as a judgmental member of the clergy.
by now, i've become so involved with the lives of these characters that the mystery-solving aspect of the show has become secondary for me. while i can't condone geordie's behavior, i feel for him as he tries to sort out his feelings. he finds that he loves both women and can't bring himself to break off the affair with the younger woman or to admit to his wife that he is being unfaithful. my heart aches for sidney and the woman he loves, knowing that to give their feelings for one another full expression would end his career in a vocation that he enjoys and is good at. i watch with sympathy as sidney's assistant tries to deal with his homosexuality in a small rural parish where his every action is under scrutiny, as sidney counsels him with a sensitivity that is lacking in most of the others in their society.
life can be so messy, and i am grateful that there are some television shows and writers on whose stories these shows are based that remind us that there are real people out in the world struggling with difficulties that are hard for many of us to understand. it's easy to condemn the geordies of this world for having affairs outside their marriages that end up hurting all those around them, but these geordies are human beings with complicated emotions that it's hard to fathom from the outside looking in. it's easy to say that leonard should be true to himself and live life as a gay man but there are so many leonards who feel trapped in roles that don't allow them to express their homosexuality openly because doing so would cause great hurt to their families and careers. it's easy to say that sidney should abandon his position as a member of the anglican clergy to be with the woman he loves, but there are many sidneys who love their vocations as much as they love another person and who cannot figure out which is the more important love for themselves or how to reconcile the two.
may we accept the messiness of life and love the human beings who cause that messiness. may we not be so quick to judge and condemn. may we learn to deal with the suffering that is a part of life as we stumble down the path. may a deep sense of lovingkindness, compassion, and respect for the difficulties that others experience fill us, and may we extend the same to ourselves. shalom.
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