Cheer the f*** up!
Saturday, January 4, 2020 at 12:55AM I watch a lot of TV series and my vote for the best one this year goes to Unbelievable. That’s the name of the show, although it could just as easily be its description. Based on a true case, it tells the story of a teenage rape victim, the system that let her down and the two detectives who took her seriously and eventually cracked the case.
Sounds grim, and it is, but it’s also funny and tender and ultimately hopeful, and one of the best things about it is the relationship between the two women who solve the case. One is a sassy, mouthy atheist, the other a Christian of the thoughtful, decent, non-loopy variety. Chalk and cheese, they come to accept and treasure each other.
My favourite scene comes towards the end of the series, when our two heroes are sharing a quiet beer after gruelling weeks, having caught the rapist. Christian detective looks gloomy. Sassy detective asks why she’s so down in the mouth, given that they have satisfactorily closed the case.
‘Well, muses softly-spoken Christian detective, ‘Yes, we caught the guy. But how many other bad dudes are out there, doing unspeakable things? We’ll never be able to catch them all.’
‘We’ve got the job done,’ sassy detective shoots back, ‘So just cheer the f*** up!’ To which Christian detective responds with a great, glorious, goofy grin, and they clink their stubbies.
These might not be the exact words of the interaction, but you get the gist. The four-letter word was certainly a direct quote, and I want to take this line as a new mantra.
My entire life has been spent wasting a lot of energy beating up on myself for not being perfect – an affliction I share with many, particularly women, particularly Christians. I want so badly to be good. At the end of each full, committed day, I tally up the things I could have done better, combing through my endless list of sins of omission and commission. Instead of revelling in God’s unconditional love, I spend part of each day pondering how many times today I have disappointed God and everyone else I can think of.
A more traditionally religious mantra I use is ‘I praise you for the wonder of my being,’ a line from Psalm 139. It reminds me that God made me with all my gifts and quirks and humanity, that God delights in me and that at the end of each day, God probably wants, rather than berating me, to wrap her arms around me and say, ‘You’ve got the job done. Rejoice. Rest. Bask in my love.’
I never want to be complacent. What I would like, however, is to sit in the presence of God at the end of each day, and maybe even imagine loving mother God saying to me, ‘Clare, you got the job done. Now, just cheer the f*** up’.
This was published in The Melbourne Age on 29 December 2019
Reader Comments (2)
Clare - I loved the series too - it was based on a story broadcast on a weekly show "this American life" out of Chicago Public Radio. Actors and series up for a few awards this weekend on the Golden Globes - interesting to see if any of them win.
Love the sentiment Clare. "Freedom" is one of the most neglected and most important of the Christian virtues and the gift that enables us to be free from the perfectionism that blights so much of what we attempt (and even achieve) in human living. But I've never liked the F**K word. To me it carries a violent taint that corrupts every sentence it inhabits. But it so explosively expressive that it is hard to think of a substitute in your instance. "What the hell" doesn't quite cut it. So I'll take your gift but as Sam Goldwyn said, include me out of those using the expletive.