Atonement

Well, after several false starts, Jan & auntie & I finally saw Atonement last night. Jan had already read the book. And she had warned us it has a sad ending. Then an hour or so before seeing the movie a friend suggested as I go in to the theater to recall that line from Truman Capote, which goes something along the lines of “The only unforgivable sin is betrayal.” Of course I delighted in such a layered saying, coming as it does from someone for whom betrayal was stock in trade. Although in this case, as someone who is somewhat more inclined to light romantic comedies those two, how can one say, warnings, gave me some pause…

I really, really liked it. A rich and layered movie. Well worth, to my mind, the accolades, the Golden Globes, and no doubt Oscar nods to come.

And it did set me to thinking about betrayal and memory and healing, or not. All of it wrapped in that lovely word “atonement,” with its English language pun of at-one-ment.

The first precept in Buddhism is the radical call to not kill. The dilemma for us is, of course, that’s it is not possible to live without killing. The original double bind, if you will. Like unto it, I suspect it may not be possible to live without betraying others, as well. And being betrayed. Which, I suspect, has a bit more immediacy than the fact we’re also food for others, even in our antiseptic era where our bodies are denied their natural decomposition. Still, in the killing and being killed, along the way between cradle and grave we feed numerous little critters. We remain, however much we might wish otherwise, part of the great circle of life and death, eating and eaten.

Betrayal is a constant fact of life. Betrayal and memory. Usually we cut our memories to serve our egos. In memory we rarely are the betrayer, at least I find I am. In this particular area we tend to prefer (okay, I tend to prefer) the martyr role. Sigh…

But actually the great circle happens here, as well. Who hasn’t betrayed? And how small has that betrayal been, really?

And what if it is unforgivable?

Does that mean we are unforgivable?

Dear me, does this open us up to those ancient western spiritual questions of sin and grace?

Probably.

I have to admit I’ve long since decided against seeking justice, and am vastly more interested in mercy. And with this movie I find once again, my mind circling back to that mystery which is grace…

In the film, which I don’t want to ruin for anyone who has not yet seen it, there is also a question of memory, and whether memory has a redemptive element.

I suspect it does. Sometimes it is here that grace leaks in, it seems.

The consequences of our actions follow like night follows day. But how we hold things, and the grace with which we engage, even in our weakness, seems to have a quality of healing about it, too…

Not completely satisfactory. So many questions, after all, follow in the wake here. The possibility of a cheap grace and a convenient forgetting. But it still is there, grace that is, not so cheap, more like a warm embrace, like a dream of our mother washing us, or, like that closing scene of the movie.

A dream?

False?

True?

Makes one vulnerable to contemplate. (Okay, okay, makes me vulnerable to contemplate.)

But, then, perhaps that’s the purpose of art.