My mind is on the death of Robin Williams, and some related things. I hear there was a tribute on this year's Emmy Awards. I didn't watch it. I am unaware of any other tributes, online or on TV; I have been spending time with my own thoughts. I haven't even logged onto Twitter. I don't know why, except that, for some reason, I haven't been ready. I've even held back this post for a bit, even though it was written over a week ago.
When Michael Jackson died, I wrote somewhere (Newsvine?) about how when someone dies, an era of your life ends. These days, I thinks I would not say it ends, so much as transforms. I think that’s that really is all death is--transformation. But transformations can be challenging, too, God knows. And I think one reason why its that sometimes we don’t know how much someone else’s existence has woven itself so inextricably though our own until they have left this physical dimension. Amazing how people you have never even met can do that.
Of course, he’s an artist whose work has left it’s indelible mark our consciousness and therefore, our lives. Thank God for modern technology, and it’s wonderful gift of preserving a such a legacy as is left by genius, which most definitely includes Robin Williams.
So this set me to thinking once again about the awesome and invaluable art that is comedy. Which I insist is the work of God, and comedians, the priests of the church. And I hold a bit of a special place in my heart for stand-up comics. When I was a teen, and cable was the new thing (yeah, back in antiquity), I remember how awed I was at how much of the world those 36 channels (I told you--antiquity) brought into one’s living room. Among the less wholesome things, it brought Neil Simon movies and stand-up comedy. At least, for me. (Back when the A&E channel was actually about ‘Arts and Entertainment’ and one of it’s offerings was “Night at the Improv”. Oh how we have come to take the Comedy Channel and it’s ilk for granted.) And my perception of life, the world, and myself, changed forever.
Watching stand-up comics in particular, and listening to their stories, hearing their thoughts, I came to k
now myself as fully human, that I was not alone in how I experienced so many things, that I was living a real life, and I have stories, too. And of course, how to find the funny in them. Possibly the most invaluable skill for survival on this planet.
What I admire most about comics is the utter, raw bravery. Before anything else, they must be brave enough to even walk onto the stage and give it a try. The other thing, is the honesty. They emerge and proceed to open up, to lay themselves bare for our entertainment, identification, and possibly, a raging storm of very personal criticism. In the process, they offer us everything, covering the spectrum of human qualities and frailties and strengths, from the utterly neurotic to the completely divine, and back again. They open themselves up for dissection, and despite whatever aspect of self in the form of whatever character or persona they may think they are hiding behind, reveal all, and in them, we see ourselves. In showing us the beauty of the Picasso they are, we see our own. That we are not really that different, much less alone. That we all have a lot of the same internal experiences and responses. How much we have in common. And of course, how to find the the silver lining--the funny--everything. And in all of that, we are find our own innate wholeness, and we are healed. Over and over.
Is it any wonder that somewhere in the middle, in the process of rescuing the rest of us, time and again, making trip after trip through the waters back to shore, they might sometimes get caught by the riptide, and not be able to break free one more time? But the life, the Spirit, remains. Perhaps in leaving the confines of the physical body, they are free to be ever more with us, and in new ways. I see no death as a failure, even by one’s own hand. Who knows how a particular individual’s present incarnation is meant to begin or end? Much less the trajectory it should take in between? The life that came before in hardly invalidated, and should be celebrated as the hero’s journey that it was, and still remains. The gifts of one who has given theirs to the world, whether indirectly or as directly--and potently-- as a a Michael Jackson or a Robin Williams, are no less meaningful, nor are they tainted by the method that one has chosen to exit the stage.
We were blessed by the physical presence; we are still blessed by the Spirit, because they were--are --so much more than a hunk of physical matter. We all are.
All I can think to say at this point, is thank you. Oh, God, thank you.
One of the ways He uses to remind us?
You guessed it.
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