Resurrection Romance

I have so often scoffed at the "reincarnation romances" that are always sure box office successes.  For our generation it was "Heaven Can Wait" (the Warren Beatty remake--I love that movie, by the way) and "Ghost" (I despise that movie, by the way).  There is the blissful love, the tragic and premature ending, the sense of unfinished business and the miraculous "one last time" from beyond the grave, accompanied by strains of "Unchained Melody." 

How I understand the longing, that desperate hunger, for one last touch or kiss or smile!  I have begged for that very thing in the wee hours of several dark mornings.  At those moments I would do anything for that "just once more."

And then what?  Would I have Anne die all over again--fading into some indeterminate light as the movie credits begin to roll?  I would simply want her one more time...and just one more time after that...and just one more time after that...until I hated her for leaving again.

The movie makers know how to sell tickets, but they know little about such loss.  Thirty-one years were not enough--and yet, they were.  Thirty-one thousand years would not be enough to enjoy all our love and life and longings.  Yet thirty-one seconds would be more than enough to be filled with all Christ has given me through Anne.  After all, the Lord does not revoke such gifts at death.

On my own I can only conjure up my images of Anne, as Jack Lewis realized about Joy Gresham.  The reincarnation romances do much the same thing.  They conjure up two-dimensional images that might salve one-dimensional points of pain.  Then they are gone.  Those images are not people.  My Anne will not tolerate being reduced to a self-help technique or a pain-relieving tablet.

"How wicked it would be, if we could, to call the dead back!"  This is the conclusion, the punchline, to Lewis' essay.  Wicked, indeed.  I could only recall a cartoon character, a cardboard cut-out, a prescription tailored to treat my own despair.  It is our Lord who has charge of this Resurrection business, not I.

And I am glad.