A reflection from the afternoon service of 18/10/2009, for those who have been recently bereaved.

Continuous Threads


Acts 1: 1-11


This week I found myself at the cinema. I had gone to see Disney’s new Pixar film – computer animation in 3D – the film called UP.

I confess that I had initially gone to see the talking dog. As I talk to my dog everyday and I am sure, particularly since the children have left home that she talks back to me, this would be a film that I could relate to.

There were indeed several talking dogs, a comic child and a goofy bird, but alongside this entertainment, I found a film with hidden depths, prepared to raise questions relevant to our reflection of today. Namely, what is the purpose of the work that we engage in as we grieve? How do we make sense of the past? How do we pull things together to move towards a more hopeful future? Who are we, and what is our identity to be, as we move forward into a new way of being?

The central character in the film, Carl Fredrickson, is struggling to come to terms with the death of his wife Ellie. He’s haunted by the years that they have spent together and in 1 sequence we see him literally tethered to his past, labouring, as he inches his way across a barren landscape, towing his marital home behind him.

He is convinced that his life has been a failure, not least because he did not provide Ellie with the excitement and adventure that she craved, and the journey he embarks on in the story is like an endless pointless penance – akin to pushing uphill a stone that at once rolls down again, as he seeks to find meaning and relief.

The story of Carl and Ellie’s life together is told in a montage of shared moments, compressing more than 50yrs of marriage into a 4 minute poignant slide show. We then find Carl as a cantankerous septuagenarian destined for an undignified decent into old age, until a construction company comes along wanting to demolish his house (along with all those memories) for a redevelopment project.

Instead of moving quietly and without a fuss to the retirement home, he straps hundreds of helium balloons to his home and sets sail for an adventure to Paradise Falls in South America, taking a stow away with him – a wilderness scout called Russell. And so the stage is set for adventure and fun but it never loses sight of its emotional and spiritual work. Paradise Falls encapsulates the films main theme, that life never quite conforms to our romantic ideas of what it should be and if we hold on to these too stubbornly we are bound to be disappointed.

Carl, who talks to Ellie all the time, discovers that Ellie didn’t see their life together as a failure, in spite of it not turning out the way that she had hoped. Flicking through her old photo album, Carl learns to appreciate what they had and in doing so finds himself able to let go of his romantic ideals of how it should have been and his guilt for not making it happen and takes the best of what she was and what she brought out in him, into a new future.

As I watched the film, I reflected that the grieving task wasn’t, a matter of letting go breaking the bonds of past relationships in order to reinvest in new ones. It was rather a matter of letting go of romantic ideals and cultivating continuing bonds of past relationships, in order to make sense of the present and to energise and give direction to the future.

This same process I find in our bible reading for this afternoon. It comes from the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles. This is the second instalment of an ongoing story that began in the gospel of Luke, recounting the disciples’ relationship and adventure with Jesus.

Acts begins at a point of transition, as the disciples’ earthly relationship with Jesus comes to an end and they enter a period of grieving and asking now what? Now what future do we have as individuals? Now what future for the liberative and spiritual movement of which we have been part? Now what?

Jesus seeks to prepare them for this transition by firstly disavowing them of any romantic notion, preconceived ideas that they might have had that he has come to bring a political solution to the Roman occupation of the time. In verses 6-7, he makes it quite clear that his mission is of a different dimension and time frame and they need to embark on a process of adjustment and letting go, akin to Carl in the film.

Though their relationship with Jesus didn’t work out as they had expected or even hoped, Jesus’ mission had not been a failure and he encourages them to look beyond their immediate needs to the larger spiritual task ahead.

Jesus encourages them to cultivate continuing bonds with him, through embracing the power and work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. This work, this process of grieving, adjustment and embracing the Spirit of Jesus, would eventually lead to their transformation from frightened and disorientated disciples, to resilient and purposeful apostles.

Jesus encourages them to let go of their romantic ideals; to value what they had experienced with him; find a place of peace that what was, had now past; and to find ways of taking the spirit of their relationship – his Holy Spirit into their new journey.

Jesus was encouraging them to see that whilst 1 adventure had ended, another was to begin and they would quite literally, take The Spirit of their past adventure with them into a new journey.

He wasn’t in anyway minimising their sense of loss and in fact knew how important it was that they continue to find time to remember him to sustain them as they went on their way. This is of course the purpose of communion.

In the same way it is important that we come together as we have this afternoon and find nourishment from the past for the days ahead. Whether it was the disciples with Jesus, the character Carl in the movie or us and our loved ones, God’s plan is not that we remain bound or backward looking but take from those earlier adventures sustenance for the future.

Amen.

Julia Monaghan 18.10.09