Always look on the bright side ...

Back in 1979 I was at theological college when Life of Brian hit the screens. Half of my fellow-students were inside the cinema watching it; the other half were outside picketing it and giving out tracts of an improving nature. Typically, being a conflict-avoiding coward, I sat on the fence and joined neither group.

Some years later I watched the movie on video and wondered what the hoo-ha was all about. The main themes of this hilarious comedy deal with politics rather than religion; and when religion is lampooned, it's the sort of religion that deserves what it gets. The person of Jesus is treated with respect. We have become a lot more tolerant since 1979.

However, you can understand why Christians might get a little peeved by the last scene, which features Brian and a group of other Jews nailed up on their crosses and singing “Always look on the bright side of life”. The title sounds jaunty, but of course, this is black humour at its best (or worst):

Always look on the bright side of life …

For life is quite absurd, and death's the final word.

You must always face the curtain with a bow.

Forget about your sin - give the audience a grin,

Enjoy it, it's the last chance anyhow.

So always look on the bright side of death,

Just before you draw your terminal breath.

Life's a piece of shit, when you look at it.

Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true.

You'll see it's all a show, keep 'em laughing as you go.

Just remember that the last laugh is on you.

And always look on the bright side of life…

Earlier this year, Eric Idle and John Cleese came to Auckland and performed at the Civic Theatre, and I had the experience of singing “Always look…” along with Eric himself. I kind of had to pinch myself.

What's it all about? I think the song is actually a complete demolition job on all that “Cheer up, she’ll be right” attitude. The Monty Python team were saying that “Look on the bright side” can be an empty awful platitude, and there are times when it’s just absurd - case in point, when you are being crucified! And they were right. Because what do you say to someone whose parents have just split up? Look on the bright side? What bright side? What about a grieving family who have just lost a child? What about someone suffering from clinical depression? There are times when there’s no bright side to look to. There are times, often, when to say “Look on the bright side” is an appallingly ineffective way to sidestep the hard reality of life.

I once worked as a hospital chaplain, and I remember a conversation I had with a patient. She was an elderly woman whose husband had died some time earlier, and she was clearly struggling to come to terms with loneliness and grief. But during the course of the conversation she kept saying “You’ve got to look on the bright side, don’t you?” And I found myself thinking, “Well, maybe – but before you do that, you have to look on the dark side.” You have to acknowledge your pain, not try to hide it. Then you can start to advance - but not if you deny the hard realities.

To look at this question from a broader perspective, the dark side is rooted within our humanity, and it won’t go away if we ignore it - it'll just flourish. I own a couple of books by Gitta Sereny, a journalist who has made a specialty of writing about former Nazis. The book that most intrigues me is called Into that Darkness, the story of a man called Franz Stangl, an ordinary Austrian cop who ended up becoming commandant of Treblinka. This was one of the Vernichtungslager, an extermination camp in Poland where over a million people literally disappeared into thin air. It was a place of nothingness, extinction, horror and insanity. And yet the strange thing is that, in Sereny's book, we meet Franz Stangl as a human being, frightened, confused, not so far removed from ourselves. Before he got sucked down into that obscene darkness, did he think that looking on the bright side would get him through? He stands perhaps as a warning that we could become what he did, if we don't maintain our vigilance, and keep an eye on our own dark tendencies.

On a less cosmic level, everyone struggles with failures, guilt, fear of death and so many other fears. Allowing ourselves to limp along with pious claptrap like “Look on the bright side”, we condemn ourselves to lead shallow or even empty lives. I think that's the point Monty Python were trying to make when they juxtaposed a crucifixion with a silly cliché. Get real, they seem to be telling us. Peer into the dark and acknowledge the harsh realities, before you turn to the light.

At the moment, part of the dark side for me is a tumour which can't ultimately be stopped, and the prospect of my life being cut short. I have to stare intently at this from time to time, and although long periods of denial can be great for the morale, to try to ignore it totally would be absurd. Only having eyeballed the darkness of illness and death can I then go on to look on the bright side, and I certainly do. There is still so much to be thankful for: loving family, friends, this plateau of time granted by medication, free health care, doctors who care, the arrival of summer - the list goes on and on. But all those reasons for gratitude are suffused with a special light because seen from the darkness.

The bright side always looks better when you come at it through the dark.

Now, I'm just off to practise my Latin - "Romani ite domum" x 100. Bye for now.