Tears

(Warning: There are plot spoilers for three films in this blog. If you haven't seen, and don't want to know about some details of, "Young at Heart", "Cranford" or "Lars and the Real Girl", then skip this blog.)

“Tears. You never know what may cause them. The sight of the Atlantic Ocean can do it, or a piece of music, or a face you’ve never seen before. A pair of somebody’s old shoes can do it. Almost any movie made before the great sadness that came over the world after the Second World War, a horse cantering across a meadow, the high school basketball team running out onto the gym floor at the start of a game. You can never be sure. But of this you can be sure. Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where you should go next.” — Frederick Buechner

Recently Sharon and I found ourselves crying, almost uncontrollably, at movies that are certainly poignant, but in most other seasons would not have touched us the way they did. The first was an independent film entitled, "Young at Heart". (BTW, friends in SLO, we have finally found the "Palm" in Orange County. It doesn't have the same ethos, but it shows the same films.) "Young at Heart" is about a group of seniors who sing together. They started with Broadway tunes and have shifted to rock and roll in their more than 20 years together as a group. The film lets you into their personal lives where you see that while they have nothing much to offer each other, by our culture's standards, they forge a wonderful friendship and community. In the course of the documentary, several of them die, leaving us weeping for the loss of the group.

The second was a five hour Masterpiece Theater entitled "Cranford," based on several books by Elizabeth Gaskell. The small village of Cranford is changing because of the cultural and transportational changes of the late 1800's. The story is inhabited by the usual assortment of colorful characters that reside in every town, but especially in small towns. They all have a role in the community and they all make sacrifices to maintain the community despite the cost to themselves. When several of the key characters die, we again sobbed openly.

The third was a movie entitled, "Lars and the Real Girl" (which we rented but will purchase before the week is out). Lars is a person who carries such deep hurt that he cannot cope with life as it is and therefore resorts to life with a life-size, anatomically correct female doll (I know the premise sounds strange, but in all the places it could have gone wrong, it didn't.) The power in the story is the way in which the family, and the larger community, lives with Lars in an understanding (rather than condescending) way and are able, by their love, to bring healing to a wounded soul. When the doll "dies" near the end of the film we handed each other the kleenex box. (That sounds so unbelievable, but call me after you've seen it.)

Being familiar with Buechner's quote, Sharon and I asked each other, "Where are the tears coming from?" For those of you who know us, the answer is not far from the surface. We value community and we value people. We know the great joy and utter frustration of living with people who are so dear to us because of our shared life over so many years. During the past two years (almost) we have both been putting our heads down and powering through the pain of our transition away from Santa Margarita, both the place and the people. We are, it seems, finally able to allow ourselves to feel the enormity of the loss. This freedom to feel the depth of our loss comes, we believe, in great part from the people and community we are establishing here in Orange County. In order to more completely let go of our past (without letting go of our people), we had to have someone on the other end to grab hold of. That takes time. It isn't that people here were not ready to catch us. It just means that being enfolded into a new community is not an easy process and will not be rushed.

My guess is that we are still not through transitioning. But we are further along and we have our friends, old and new, to thank for walking through this season with us.