Am I Weak to Mourn for One I Never Knew?

In my last year at Moody I worked for a professor as a grading assistant. I see it as a great benefit that I was able to sit down for lunch once a week with him and discuss life, classes, relationships, and anything else that was particularly pertinent for whichever week it may have been. At the last week of the semester, after we finished our lunch, we went upstairs to the campus coffee shop for some caffeine and to sit in the large, purple, overstuffed chairs. Once there, the conversation drifted from the papers to be graded and the remaining lessons to be taught to books to be read and movies to be seen. And in this conversation the question was posed: What is the value of a story?

Humans are communal creatures at heart. Although many of us in the west have been living for some time as loosed-off units, merely pieces of sentient driftwood that bump into each other amidst the confusing stream we call society, we are communal. Unique: yes. Separate: no. All connected. All intertwined. Simultaneously distinct yet familiar consciousnesses of our species, of nature, and everything in between. But we forget. Quickly we forget. Our society does not operate this way. Often it seems a thick stoicism, a social aloofness, has hijack our corporate nature. And we become alone deep down inside. But since this aloneness has received a status of normalcy, there is seldom a way to express it. There is barely a way to even recognize that something is functioning outside of the natural parameters of the soul.

And then we hear a damn good story.

For the many writers, readers, actors, singer, painters, philosophers, and theologians— whatever—for the whole lot of us who are working and creating and consuming: we seek to belong.

A good story sneaks up on us. It subverts the isolating barriers we have either latently or openly allowed to encase our souls. And the connection takes root again, that powerful community that is ingrained into our very substance. In a story, whatever the medium may be, we laugh and weep with the characters. We have no choice in this. We have never had a choice in this.

In a class I took on Bible teaching, Spring 2008, our professor showed us a clip from Dead Poets Society. I was in the middle of an eight month depressive streak which left me on good days going from class, to bed, to work, and back to bed again. I had slept through near every session of this class up to that point. I felt alone. As a 17 year old kid in a school full of much more confident and adequate theologians I could scarcely find the words to admit that I was desperately, quietly wondering if truth would just always…leave my feet cold. But when the professor hit the lights and the film began to play, I was instantly captivated by the “Sweaty-Toothed Mad Man” scene. And for the first time in months I did not feel alone.

Immediately afterwards I went out to buy the film and have watched it dozens of times since. Those of you who know be better may be interested to know that before this movie I had no desire to teach, to tell stories, to study history, or to scour languages. I was largely apathetic about everything. All of these aspects of my life stem from this one moment.

And this brings me to the title of my post: am I weak to mourn for one I never knew? I feel that I am. It feels childish, and this childishness is an unshakeable feeling. Like something inexpressible for fear of being judged. I have read and reread the above text and still do not feel confident in anything I am writing. I know many will read this, or skim the title, and dismiss it as silly melancholy. But as I've thrown out feelers, I have found that I am not the only one who is shocked and grieved beyond what would be expected at the death of Robin Williams. Many have not been able to accept it as merely another celebrity death. Perhaps for many of us it is because we subconsciously thought he would live forever. But more likely, it is because of the stories that he told to us. We are indebted to him. For if a story can make us remember in our darkest times that we still belong, that we are not alone, then how much more so the storytellers?