Sunny Banana
YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/@sanibonani-y2g?si=09LymOLYjP7sE3cY
I am a school chaplain and the content is intended to encourage curiosity about Faith and it's impact on day to day life
The Sunny Banana, is a play upon the Zulu greeting, Sanibonani, meaning I see you.
As tech wrenches us from real life, we are not seeing each other. The Greek word 'idea' means to see. It is as if we have lost the idea of what it means to be human; social, communal, relational. The same word, to see, in Old English is 'seon' which has connotations of understanding.
Let's start seeing each other again, listening, respecting, and understanding each other and ourselves. After all, we are people through other people.
Sunny Banana
#36 | Is Love Love?
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What if the way we talk about love is quietly shaping us into consumers rather than companions? I take a hard look at the easy phrase “love is love” and test it with two simple images: murky “water is water” logic and a monk’s punchy reminder that loving the taste of fish isn’t the same as loving the fish. From there, we open a path toward a thicker, truer love—one that is presence before payoff, gift before grasp.
I share why presence is the truest currency of love, drawing on Metropolitan Anthony Bloom’s picture of prayer as simply being with God: I look at God, and God looks at me. That posture exposes our habit of treating people like dispensers of feelings. We dig into how attention, patience and honesty transform relationships from transactions to places of rest. Along the way, we name the cultural drumbeat of “my needs, my feelings” and show why that tune leaves us lonely, while self-giving love paradoxically fills us with durable joy.
We also face the hard edge: love costs. To love someone for their good means emptying space inside ourselves for them to live and grow. Yet those who water others are watered in return, not by a neat bargain but by the deeper law of gift. Anchored by the Christian vision that God is love—self-emptying, steadfast, stronger than death—we consider how ordinary choices of presence can heal our homes, friendships and communities. Join me to reimagine love not as a slogan but as a way of being that lasts. If this resonates, subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review telling me how you practice presence in love.
Sunny Bunani. Welcome to the Sunny Banana. I see you. Greetings, brothers and sisters on this lovely day. Wherever you tune in from, thank you so much, and God bless you. Today I have a reflection on love. And particularly the phrase or the statement that says love is love. Love is love. Now in my observations, I would say that love has in a way become very, very individualistic. It's become very, very personal. And it's got to do with what the person wants. Now I only address this issue or statement. After I saw a picture that made me think that love isn't love. Just because I love something doesn't make it right or true or good. And this picture, and I'm sorry to go to this example, however, it sort of makes it clear. Tell me, is water water? Water is water. And in this picture, you have that phrase, that statement saying water is water. And there's two people looking into a toilet bowl. Water is water. And we'll start to think to say, No well, okay, some water is good for consumption, and some water is not. Is it the same with love? I love fish. My goodness. There's this wonderful story of a monk who comes across a young man who's caught a fish. And he has caught this fish, he gutted it, knocked it out first, obviously, gutted it, taken its bones out, cooked it, fried it, and ate it, and said, Oh, I love fish. And the monk said, You love fish? I said, Of course I love fish. Oh, you love fish? You love fish so much that you caught it, whacked it over the head, ripped its skeleton out, fried it, and ate it. Is that how much you love fish? No, the monk said. You love the taste of fish. You love what fish can give you, and that's pleasure and joy and satisfaction. So let us think, my brothers and sisters, when we love somebody, or anything that is, do we just love it because of the feeling it gives us, the joy it brings us, or what we get, or do we love somebody for who they are? And we love that person, meaning we want the very best for that person or that thing. And in fact, it's just staying in the presence of that person that is enough. I get this idea from Metropolitan Anthony Bloom. He was an Orthodox bishop, Christian bishop, in his book Beginning to Pray. Brilliant book, by the way. I highly recommend it, Beginning to Pray. And he said this that prayer, a lot of us think when we pray, we just it's asking God for something, asking for a list of things that we need or want. And then he says in his book about this, he says, we want something from God. And we want to get something. However, prayer is actually about being and wanting to be in the presence of God, and that is enough. Wanting just to be with God. There's an old story of a man who goes to church every day, sits there in silence for half an hour or so, and after a while, people ask him, Why do you keep going in there? What are you doing in there? It seems like you do nothing. What's happening? And the old man says, I go into church, I sit there, I look at God, and God looks at me. So is love love? Do we love the things in our lives and the people because we genuinely just want to be with them and want the best for them? Or do we like or love what they bring us? And of course, my friends, love is this thing that once you empty yourself in love for something, the the joy is reciprocated. Yes, you get the joy of being with that person and the joy that that person brings. But love, I think, is a an emptying reality. Where it is outward, and and my needs and my feelings. Goodness, do we talk about this a lot in culture these days? My, my, my, my feelings, my that's all that matters. No. It doesn't. That's not all that matters. There's a proverb that says, those who waters waters water others, excuse me, those who water others will be watered themselves. Saint Francis of Assisi, those who give will get, will receive. I hope that we have this love, and it's this love that defeats the darkness, defeats death. Love is stronger than death. Love is eternal, and I will wrap up with this. In the Bible it says, God is love. And we know in the Christian message that that God, God our Father, became human and lost it all, emptied himself on a cross, and showed us the true meaning of love. Love is not individualistic, love is not about me, love is about us. May God bless you and keep you. Thank you. Sunny Bunani. Thank you for listening to this Sunny Banana. I see you.