Speaking to our conditions

Somebody told me once we’d be OK if I didn’t spook the horses; years later, spooked a few writing about “Brokeback Mountain,” Ang Lee film, Annie Proulx short story. Published elsewhere as a review, dropped here as an afterthought, some were surprised. But who can remember who knows you’re queer and who doesn’t ? It’s a hard topic to drop easy into casual conversation.

That’s a roundabout way of saying I’d been there, done that, didn’t intend to go back, but then Heath Ledger died of a fatal self-medicating mix and here we are.

Ledger is Ennis del Mar in that film, stoic cowboy stunned to silence, scared of who he is and scared to death of what others will do if they find out, moving finally to reconciliation. It was a transcendent performance. Ledger crawled into del Mar’s skin and vanished. Watching that movie again, I can’t find the actor.

Brokeback did a couple things for those of us who are queer. Most of the time when we see ourselves on TV or in the movies or in others’ eyes it’s a fun-house mirror, distorted images, twisted visions. These new mirrors, story and film, held firm with honesty sometimes brutal, always compassionate, spoke in ways churches, families, friends and others hadn‘t.

How pathetic is that? It's just a movie.

The clear reflection, not easily dismissed because of its sharpness, was devastating for some, heart-breaking for many --- but transforming. It spoke of the importance of living honestly and of allowing love to take us where it will.

Well, what else is there? God’s love, the love of a parent, sibling, child or friend, the love of someone same-sex or otherwise who somehow in some way completes us?

Annie Proulx is a masterful writer, razor-sharp with the human condition. Early in her Brokeback short story, she describes a companionable night of conversation around a campfire between two young men, then strangers, both raised lonely, who had heretofore conversed sparsely: “They were respectful of each other’s opinions,” she wrote, “each glad to have a companion where none had been expected. Ennis, riding against the wind back to the sheep in the treacherous, drunken light, thought he’d never had such a good time, felt he could paw the white out of the moon.”

That is the lonely human condition, heterosexual or homosexual, and the transforming power we all have to change it for someone else.

Those rare and blessed folks who use that power to speak to our conditions are among the greatest gifts.

A priest did that on Ash Wednesday here, speaking of repentance in a homily in the noontime hush of a day that for many Christians is dark calm in a white-water life, beginning a season of prayer and penance and careful thought. It is not, he said, the past, instead turning to face God.

Those spooked by the church, and it can be an ugly scary thing, might translate this as a directive to turn from what’s been to what can be --- although that priest, being in the God business, wouldn’t say it that way.

Annie Proulx speaks to our condition, and so in his way did Heath Ledger, now fed by death into the frenzy of a celebrity’s passing. A fine young man it seems, much-loved son and brother, loving father, consummate craftsman, lost and lonely kid. Never whined, couldn’t fix it, died. Nobody spoke to his.

Thanks be to God for all who speak to our conditions. Have mercy on them.