The Age of Grief and Fear

Jane Smiley in Salon.

I liked The Secret Lives of Dentists when I saw it, but I've grown to like it more since. Some movies/stories/performances are like that. They resonate.

I hope that Campbell Scott reads Smiley's essay. She talks about how intensely personal and autobiographical her novella The Age of Grief was, and how strange and revelatory it was to see it reenacted there on the screen. And she talks about what she "learned from watching Mr. Scott play the strange amalgam of himself, the character in the script, and the character in the book, which was my husband as myself and also as a dentist …" I can't think of a higher compliment for an actor.

And but so anyway, Saturday night I read Smiley:

That's what jumps out at me about the movie and my life 20 years ago — I was afraid; my husband was afraid. We were afraid separately and we were afraid together, and we didn't have any method for easing our fears or even sharing them. Our lives seemed fragile in every way — financially, physically, emotionally, geopolitically (remember the evil empire?). We had no faith, even that another day would dawn, and so we were easily startled, easily panicked.

Then Sunday morning, here's the text we get hit with in church:

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. (1 John 4:18)

For the rest of the day Sunday I felt like I was two cards short of an epiphany.