Love is Often Not Enough – The Grantchester Series

I love the PBS series, Grantchester. It has been on for nine seasons and apparently, a lot of other people like it too. What’s not to like? Sidney Chambers, the Anglican priest of a small English town after the end of World War II. He is back from the war and is ready to tend his flock!

Sidney Chambers (James Norton) is tall, good looking, humble, sincere, intelligent and….savvy and intuitive enough to figure out who done it! His side-kick, the ever detective Geordie Keating (Robson Green) sometimes leads and sometimes follows his vicar as they investigate one murder after another. Between Sidney and Geordie, they usually catch their man (or woman) as the episode wraps up.

Sidney who is single, (and the most eligible bachelor in the county), is a contrast to Geordie; a married man with uncounted numbers of children running around. Geordie and vicarage housekeeper keep busy filling Sidney’s head with tid bits of country lore and folk wisdom. Much of it concerns romance.

Sidney’s long time ‘friend’ Amanda Kendall (Morven Chrisite,) is someone from his highschool. Whenever chums get together, the girls never stop ogling over Sidney. Amanda and Sidney spend long afternoons in the country and it is obvious how much they care for each other.

However, regardless of how many of their mutual friends are off tying the knot and how many asides and innuedios Amanda throws his way, Sidney never seems to be able to take things to the next level. There are several espisdoes when Amanda gets engaged, and is then marching to the alter, where we keep hoping against hope that the vicar will break his silence and tell the girl that he loves, how much he loves her.

But, nope, it is not to be and Amanda gets married and becomes Mrs. Hopkins. Finally, the truth comes out between Sidney and Geordie when the vicar admits “I just wasn’t in her league.” He is referring of course to the fact that Amanda comes from money and her father is Sir Kendell and they live in an exceptionally large house.

Clearly, Sidney cannot get over the economic distance between the two of them and is frozen in silence, never to confess his true feelings.

How often, in our lives, have we talked ourselves out of something with one rational after another? In the series, one of the characters remarked, “Because we are all a pack of cowards.” How true.

In my life, I have asked myself over and over again, why is it that the guy I really have my heart set on, can’t either talk to me or even ask me out for a cup of coffee. Like Sidney, men (and women) can be full of self doubt and lack feelings of worthiness. They talk themselves out of the first step in courtship “because” until such time as the other loses interest and the fire grow cold.

Self-doubt, recriminations, lack of self-worth, guilt, fear of what other people will say, fear of failure, of getting ‘hurt again’; these are all reasons people back away from relationships and even the promise of love. Both being in love and loving someone else. We let the little ‘nigglies’ invade our thoughts, poison them and deprive us of the full life we can have and do deserve. Then, instead of dealing with the fears, we act out in childish, immature and socially inappropriate ways; having affairs with married people, isolation, drinking too much, smoking too much, feeding any number of addictions, all in an effort to hide. Hide from ourselves.

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