Last night I dreamt of my brother David, a rare appearance of someone whose presence in my life was, for many years, tangential. I can remember years ago, when I briefly mentioned David in a story I was recounting, a parishioner said “I didn't know you had a brother.” Although I inwardly winced when she said it, took it as some kind of a commentary on my ability to care for others (or at least for that particular one other), I could easily understand why she would say that. In the decades of my storytelling, I'm not even sure I could say that David was a bit player. In my personal Casablanca he was no Peter Lorre to my Humphrey Bogart; he was instead like one of the almost faceless German soldiers singing Die Wacht am Rhein, or even one of the patriots who stood to sing La Marseillaise after I had given the band the nod to play.
Why did David get so little space in my storytelling? I suppose a superficial answer would be to rely on the We were never really close line, five small words which speak volumes in themselves. We had almost nothing in common. David was all boy – rough and tumble, sporty, a rule breaker – and I clearly wasn't, taking far more comfort in the keys of the piano and the words in a book than in stereotypical boy things. I was observational and he had little energy or desire to look beyond himself. Even in the midst of tragedy I was always grateful for what the world had to offer me and he seemed perennially annoyed that he wasn't given more. I was a joyful child and David was sullen and angry, so, so angry.
I think David would have said (for he was deeply intelligent and could be possessed of a razor-sharp insight) that there was no room for him in my stories because there wasn't much room for him in life in general. My mother was obsessed with making sure I could read and write and appreciate the beauty of a world that she knew would seem monstrous once she died, and as David was three years older and in school already he had less need of such personal tutelage. My father and I always had a very loving relationship and, for whatever reason, he and David struggled to connect in the same way. And, of course, Kathy and I were inseparable from the moment Mom and Dad brought me back from the hospital in a cardboard box. I was her babydoll who came to life and would go on to become her best friend and co-conspirator. One could understand David feeling left out in so many ways.
But, more than any of this, David didn't have much space in my storytelling because my stories with him were not easily translatable. I tell stories for a variety of reasons – to remember, to entertain, to provoke feeling – but mainly they function as revelational vehicles. Stories reveal who I am, how I see the world, what's important to me. And in the realm of the stories of Scripture which make up such a large part of my life, my stories also reveal a connection, an illustration. Even if the point of some of those larger God stories can be murky or confusing or even downright painful and enraging, seeing glimpses of them in my own life can begin to shed some light on a God who, though he can be murky, confusing, or even downright painful and enraging, is also loving and caring. Through personal stories the Word was made fleshbecomes not a nod to an historical event, but rather a running dialogue which continues in us and through us. The story is clearly not over yet.
The overwhelming majority of my stories of David don't easily fit into this milieu, aren't as readily translated into incarnational lessons. When I was seven years old David told me that I was the direct cause of our mother's death. When I was nine years old David broke my nose by hitting me in the face with a baseball bat. When I was thirteen years old David stole the money I had been saving and broke my nose – again – when I said I was going to tell Dad. (I didn't.) When I was fifteen years old and suffering from depression David gave me a hand gun and encouraged me to kill myself. It's difficult to present such stories as illustrations of Gospel love and joy.
And yet, it must also be said that such stories do not encompass all of who David was. None of us want to be remembered for our worst words and actions. David wasn't some kind of a cartoon villain, and just because most of my stories with him are not as easily translatable into incarnational revelation, it would seem a grave underestimation of the shocking power of God's inestimable imagination as shown in that Incarnation to seek to limit it to only those things that move me or appear more in line with things that make me feel good or comfortable. Because there are also stories which make me feel good or comfortable. When I was seven David hugged me when the ache of our common loss was overwhelming. When I was ten David told his friend Jimmy that he thought I was an actual genius. When I was eighteen David helped me get a fake ID. When I was twenty and had totalled my car, David took me to the cinema so I could see Pretty in Pink even though he hated every minute of it. It would not be right for me to ignore the pain David caused me (and so many others) but nor should I gloss over these glimpses of light that rather improbably were able to burst through a life that was in large part sadly dark. The story is clearly not over yet (as much I can, at times, want to have it finished).
Back to the dream. We are in a hospital. David is dressed in white, not in a hospital gown, but rather in a blanched version of the Benedictine habit that I used to wear. Around his neck is a cross made out of emeralds – our common birthstone, both having been born in May. He is calm, not possessing the tremors that constant drug use produced when he was alive, and bestows a smile on me that shows ordered, white teeth, not those of years of addiction and neglect. His hair (always his best feature – how envious I was of that mane!) is long and clean and windswept. With that hair and his trimmed beard he looks a little like a storybook Jesus (or Barry Gibb).
From within the folds of his gown/habit he pulls out a sheet of paper which I recognise. (I found it when Dad and I were cleaning out David's house after he died, a sad excavation of the detritus of life. On it David had written a piece of fiction of a deranged man who had thrown a hand grenade into the basement of the Christian Church where Vacation Bible School was being held. It is a disturbing story of graphic violence and carnage, and when I found it I quickly put it in my pocket so that Dad wouldn't see it. There was already too much sadness and destruction around us in that house – I didn't want to expose him to this as well.) In the dream David places the paper in my hand – gently, like a benediction – and smiles, a smile that I find incongruous with the horror of the story that is on the paper.
I then woke up.
Did this dream mean something? Do dreams have to mean something? I don't know. But I decided to get out that paper (somehow I couldn't bring myself to throw it away) and I read once again what David had written. It was as shockingly graphic and violent as I had remembered. But also buried within that story is an image of a nameless woman who is gathering up the survivors and trying to calm them and tend to their wounds in the midst of the chaos. David wrote: The children were sitting around her in shock. With bloodied hands she was gently removing peices [sic] of glass from their faces and dropping them on the ground. They sparkled even in the smoke. Her kindness was talked about for years to come.
In the midst of destruction and sadness of David's life there is this image. In the midst of the destruction and sadness of David's story there is this woman – a bit player, to be sure – who provides the only source of anything remotely loving in the whole story. Her kindness was talked about for years to come.The story is clearly not over yet.
I guess, in the end, the dream does mean something; it is revelational. It is a lesson that I should never underestimate the shocking power of God's inestimable imagination as shown in the Incarnation. If a life of struggle and addiction can be transformed into one of light, if a forced, broken smile can be transformed into genuine joy, if the yoke of suffering can be transformed into a garment of peace, and if we can imagine sparkles of hope in the blood of violence, it's mainly because the imagination of a God who chose to throw in his lot with us here, in the flesh, even in the midst of lives which can be murky, confusing, or even downright painful and enraging. The Word was made flesh is not only a nod to an historical event, but rather a running dialogue which continues in us and through us.
There needs to be more room for David in my stories. There needs to be more room for us all. The story is clearly not over yet.
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