Theological Themes in "The Silk"

            “The Silk” is a short feature film, fifteen minutes long, about a man who is dying and his wife. Paco and I saw it at a film festival in March. As the movie starts, the wife is gazing out the window of their bedroom. She turns around and says to her husband that she is going to make his laying-out pajamas from “the silk.” He objects, but she is determined. The silk is a length of Chinese silk that he brought back to New Zealand for her after the war was over, fifty years ago. It is a lustrous indigo blue with an intricate design of a Chinese pleasure garden woven into it. It is so beautiful she has never been able to bring herself to cut into it. Her husband had had to smuggle it home, wrapped around his midriff under his uniform.

            The husband dies just as the wife finishes the pajamas. She takes them to the kitchen table for work on a small finishing detail, saying sadly to the nurse, “He never said goodbye!” Something in the silk catches her eye. She puts her glasses on, leans close and sees a tiny figure on a hill in the pleasure garden, waving its hand. “I’m coming, Herb,” she cries. “I’m coming!”

            What might theology have to say, in reflecting on “The Silk”? It would be a three-way conversation, with the film filtered through my perceptions and theology filtered through my level of understanding. To locate myself: I am seventy-three, was present at the deaths of my parents and sister, and have been affected by many other deaths. Paco and I sometimes talk about our last days. When the film started my feelings were engaged right away. But I don’t think you have to be in your seventies to be tugged by the question, What will it be like when I die?

            Honestly, I don’t know whether to talk about religious belief, religious experience or theology. In everyday language I see three things happening in the movie. (1) The man and woman indicate by their behavior, “I love you and I honor our marriage.” (2) The woman indicates by her decision: “Death is about to part us. Let’s make a ceremony of the silk. You brought it to me in love; I preserved it in awe and trepidation; I will dress you in it for our goodbyes.” (3) There are no goodbyes. The man and woman will meet again in paradise.

            Setting aside theological precision, I understand that (1) the couple’s behavior points to the sacrament of matrimony. The efficacious grace of the sacrament is visible in their words, their body language, and the woman’s act of sewing. (2) Her preparation of the precious silk as the man’s final garment is reminiscent of the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick, which is administered at the end of life, as well as the women’s preparations for Jesus’ body at the end of the Gospel of Mark. (3) Christians believe that the finality of death is an illusion. Loved ones will be reunited in the next life, which is a place of beauty. This is a loose and partial illustration of the doctrine of eschatology.

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