The Lady in the Van

It's not often  a film is still  percolating in my mind well into the next day but 'The Lady in the Van' , a 'comedy-drama' about an ageing woman who lived for 15 years in the driveway of London playwright Alan Bennett, is such a film.

If you've seen it you may have been affected by it ; if you haven't seen the film, I hope that you'll glean something of its emotional complexity as you read through this list of significant elements which  affected me:

• the 'not in my backyard' attitude of those living near Alan
• the cantankerous unpredictability of the 'odd' woman, not given to gratitude or cleanliness
• the playwright's needy mother sliding into senility 
• the old woman's brother wracked with guilt, and deferential to his inhospitable wife
• the threatening figure who extorted money in the darkness of the night 
• Alan and his alter ego debating the limits of his compassion and the ethics of exploiting the woman as subject matter for his writing 
• the kindness of the helpers - ambulance man, doctor, and day care worker who were not afraid to touch her dirty hands
• the patient priest who repeatedly assured her of the limitless forgiveness of God 
• the stigma of homosexuality in London at that time 
• the awful blunder of those who could not see that playing the piano was the young nun's way of praying, of giving herself as fully as she could, to the God who gave her that talent ...

There is more of course. 

There is the uncomfortable realisation that I may well have reacted as those who lived in the street did - instead of being  the Good Samaritan' I would have tried to avoid her and wished she were somewhere else. And that's not a 'good look'  - this part of me that holds back from reaching out.

I would have been discomforted by her 'difference'. 

Perhaps you would too.

It's not easy for us as human beings to learn to welcome and love those who seem 'other',  to get to know them enough to find beneath the veneer of dirt or disease or ethnic diversity, the fundamental humanity which connects us all. It's only when we begin to share our stories, that we begin to discover our similarities and build relationships that  can sustain us as we venture through this life and prepare for the next...

It's worth a second viewing this film - a second round of battling with my own 'alter ego' - the part of me that wants an easy life even though I also want to grow more like Jesus. He opened his arms wide for her - just as he did for us all two thousand years ago on the cross.

Now through his Spirit, he challenges me -and you -  to risk opening our arms wide and see what happens ...