Notes on a funeral

My aunt died last week and I went to the funeral in Sherman, a modestly sized town in north Texas. Funerals always make me notice things more acutely, and the strange things you notice when your powers of observation are attenuated are worth writing down.

Several people were weeping for the grief of loss, but I was not dealing with a sense of grief personally. She had battled Alzheimer's for some years, and though I have the regular familial affinity for my aunt, I haven't seen her much in the last 15 years, and I was not having trouble with my emotions. However, at times my throat tightened because I saw other relatives much closer to her in their grief. Weeping, like laughter, is contagious.

I noticed an odd level of drama in the 18 hours I was there. Interestingly, in our very Christian family, I learned of behavior and heard words that were certainly born out of the great stress of the event, but would have seemed impossible previously. Feelings left over from old wounds, criticisms for minor issues, highly impassioned expressions of anger. It reminded me of deaths of other family members in the last 10 years - always so much more than bereavement going on. All the past comes back with it.

I could have identified only about 8 people at the event, but was introduced to many cousins once- and twice-removed. How easy it is to find your own flesh and blood oafish or wearing too much perfume or laughing too loud or uncomfortably shy, unattractive or overly devoted to appearance. Either I am just like them with my own off-putting mannerisms or else I am as I see myself - appropriately groomed, cultured, and sophisticated, with elevated mental clarity and mature tastes - and am therefore especially called to account before God for snobbery or condescension or failure of humility or gracelessness.

During the funeral we sang "In the Garden" and "It is Well with my Soul." Of course, In the Garden has been one of my favorite hymns to hate for some years - an attitude taught to me by my Presbyterian teachers. We love to hate In the Garden for its sappiness and 1912-vintage smarmy pietistic solipsism. After all, verse 1 says,

I come to the garden alone
While the dew is still on the roses
And the voice I hear falling on my ear
The Son of God discloses

This is world-class sap. The chorus is just as bad, talking about how each Christian's relationship with God is unique, and how God has a me-shaped vacuum in his heart, and how he just loves those pastel-colored walks where he gets to woo me like some cheesy romance.

However, I know that many Christians experience true religious sentiment through this song, bad as it may be. And I also know there are people who view my preferred type of church music as hopelessly banal. "How can you sing in English?? Feh! Latin is the language, the superior culture used in the historic church etc. etc." I have long thought that the music wars and their eloquent defenses on either side neglect the fact that even the best music is crap before God, made acceptable only through Christ. So whether it be doggerel or a 9th Century Latin Mass, all is sanctified and made acceptable to God because Christ is our mediator.

Lars and the Real Girl

When I heard the premise of this movie, I was very reluctant to see it. The last thing I need in my head is a bunch of visuals and Hollywood-psychobabble granting viability to the latest fetish to spring from the salacious and creative retailers of the internet. Who wants to see (or admits to wanting to see) a movie about a man’s attachment to an inflatable sex doll? Why did this movie see the light of day? And why is my wife suggesting we watch it? The reason is because I am going to tell you that this movie is actually deeply human and beautiful.

I know. I had to be persuaded too. I had to get in the mood for something on the level of Idiocracy. I thought this movie would either float along on a stream of predictable naughty school-boyish sex jokes or else would be a deflating lesson in tolerance, a battalion of sociologists to lecture us about accepting those who have chosen a different blah, blah, blah. Boy was I wrong.

Lars and the Real Girl is a film about community, the power of love and sacrifice on the part of many to help one man in need. We learn early on that Lars is a victim of mental illness and his defense mechanism takes the form of an inflatable doll that he orders from the internet. He is painfully shy, living with his brother and sister in law, in a separate garage apartment. When his new girlfriend Bianca arrives in the mail, he is suddenly able to function socially. But to the horror of his brother Gus, Lars treats the doll like a real girl and expects others to do the same.

Filmed in Ontario, Lars and the Real Girl was nominated for many awards, including a Academy for Best Original Screenplay. One of the pleasant surprises of this film is the fact that the producer (Nancy Oliver) and director (Craig Gillespie) are newcomers to major film.

My first alcoholic drinks

I can't remember what age I was, but when I was young, I occasionally would sneak into the closet under the stairs where my dad kept all of his liquor bottles, and I would take a swig of something. They all looked the same to me, sitting there on the shelf in that little closet, all half empty, all decorated like no other bottle in the house. There was something secret and adultish about those bottles. Soft drinks and fruit juices were all tamely adorned. And they were not forbidden. But there they were tempting me on that little shelf.

When my parents were out of the house, only on a few occasions, I went in and took a sip of a bottle. Nothing bad happened. But I did discover the taste that was warm and wild like paisleys in the mouth and sent fumes up the nostrils. But it was not interesting enough to make me try again the next day.

No, a child has no interest in alcohol unless led to it by some influence. Strong drink is only meaningful to those who have seen the dark side of life. This I believe: a person has to be brought to a point of bitterness in some major aspect of his/her life in order to understand strong drink: marriage, job, failures, personal inadequacies, tragedies. They must look back on a point or points when, as an adult, they carried an anguish that surprised them, in which they said to themselves, "I didn't know this could happen." That black moment leaves a stain, but it is the stain of truth. Upon the soul. The rose-colored glasses are removed and one has the brokenness of the world set in their laps.

With this background, one can drink liquor and experience something like confirmation. The powerful punch speaks to the soul, and in response the souls says, yes.

Suicide

Does anyone else see the poignancy of the "spiraling number" of suicides among American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition to being profoundly sad, it also makes me wonder if suicides are happening on the other side. The answer is yes - we know them as suicide bombers, mainly Iraqi women lately.

So. Insurgents and Taliban are killing Americans. Iraqi women bombers are killing Americans. And Americans are killing themselves. The odds seem not to be in our favor when both sides of the conflict agree on who shall be killed.

Sickeningly, Army Secretary Pete Geren said this week, according to MSNBC, that "officials are stumped" at the number of cases. Maybe being stuck on the other side of the world, facing death daily, being separated from loved ones, dealing with sand and military rations and foreign culture every second of the day, for repeated tours and no end in sight, maybe it just gets to a fellow.

Little girls love kittens