Lars and the Real GIrl

This week I re-watched one of my favourite films, Lars and the Real Girl. It's the story of a patethically shy man who buys a mannequin and has a delusion that she is real, and his girlfriend, Bianca (spoilers ahead). As the story unfolds we learn that Lars' mother died giving birth to him, and that his retreat into fantasy has been triggered by his sister in-law's pregnancy and his fear for her.

And what could be a creepy and weird film actually turns out to be beautiful. Lars' family, then church, then workmates then whole small town live into the delusion with him on the advice of the town's kindly doctor that there is no way they will convince him that she isn't real.They join in treating Bianca as if she is real.

Little by little, Lars comes out of himself, and, declares that Bianca is sick, and then that she is dying. The scene of the ambulance racing to the house through the snowmelt of a Minnesota spring is gorgeous. And finally, Bianca dies. The whole town comes to the funeral. And for the first time, Lars allows himself to notice the kind and sweet young Margot  from his church who has always had eyes for him.

It's such a great story of how this community loves Lars into life, loves him into wholeness.

The film made me realise that in many ways this is what we do here at Creighton, in our tight-knit Christian Spirituality Program. We might not quite be Lars (a fairly high level of self-awareness and emotional intelligence is needed to enter the program), but we all come with our bruises, our wounds, our blindsides. This is a safe space to let things rise to the surface and to be loved, prayed for and carried as we let God do the deeper healing we all need.

Some of the classes deliberately invite people into dealing with their wounds. The Reconciliation and Mercy class is triggering a number of people at the moment; a priest whose brother priests have been murdered, martyrs for their faith, a nun born after the civil war in her country ended, but whose whole family story has been shaped by the war and its aftermath, a woman whose migration was to escape ethnic cleansing. And the more common garden variety hurts, disappointments and unforgivenesses too.

My Post-Practicum class digs surprisingly deep. In each class one person brings a case study to the group, and everyone asks evocative questions which help us to explore underlying issues. The case study is not about what our spiritual directees said or did ( confidentiality is maintained), but about our own interior response to them when they brought significant experiences to the conversation. There's been tears most days. This is such necessary work for us as spiritual directors, as it is for counsellors and social workers, because if you're distracted by or repelled by certain issues in people's lives (grief, anger, abuse, abandonment etc), you'll do them a disservice. So while it is hard work, it is transformative, and will have a lasting impact on each of us long after we leave.