Clergy from left, Deacon Cynthia Biddlecomb, retired; Pastor Nicolé Ferry, Assistant Rector Lynn Finnegan and Pastor Deb Church. Courtesy photo

By DEACON CYNTHIA BIDDLECOMB aka Cinema Cindy
ELCA

Thanks to the new business in town, SALA Event Center, I was able for the first time in a couple of years to watch a first-run movie in this town where I live. I am grateful. Coincidently, that film, “A Man Called Otto,” is about gratitude. It’s also about neighborliness and the family we create around us. It’s what this town has been for many folks over the decades, when your own family might live in another state the people around you here can become your family.

Tom Hanks plays Otto, who lost his wife six months ago and today was forcibly retired from a job at a company where he worked for many years. What is left for him now? Every day he walks around his block of row houses to check on things, the recycling, the parking situation, where the throw away paper is being thrown on each lawn. He does it every day even though he hasn’t been in charge of the Home Owners Association since they voted him out years ago.

Today, though, a light begins to shine. Marisol and Tony, a young couple with kids, are moving into a rental across the way. “Idiot,” Otto says as he watches Tony fail several times to park a U-Haul hitched to their car. Otto makes him get out and parks it himself. “In one try!” they exclaim, watching him. To thank him, Marisol brings over her famous Chicken in Mole Sauce. Otto grumpily accepts the container; when he eats it, alone in his kitchen, he grunts, “Hmm!”

And so, begins this story of a despondent, lonely and suddenly purposeless older man who is forced by circumstances, over time, to take notice of and help his neighbors. Although the film doesn’t come with a warning at the start, we are made to witness Otto’s several attempts to commit suicide, each attempt failing miserably, or failing due to interruptions. His loneliness and grief are never examined. Wordlessly, he tries different ways to end it all. But life itself has, it seems, other ideas. The world apparently still needs him. If he were still a church-going man, I’d say God was redirecting Otto’s attention, showing him a new purpose in life.

Otto’s gruff reticence while teaching Marisol to drive reminds her of her own father. She doesn’t let Otto shrink away from being welcomed into her family. Her daughters start calling him Abuelo Otto. Eventually, the neighbors are helping each other out, showing up for each other. The story is told as well as was the original, a 2012 Swedish novel “A Man Called Ove.”

Think of the many ways we serve each other in our community, and the ways we might. Religious faith or commitment to local groups may lead us to help others. But, sometimes, it takes the Marisol’s in this world to coax the helper out of us. Is there more one can do besides offering the friendly wave to the neighbor? Some neighborhoods have figured it out. One block I know of on Barranca Mesa is always celebrating milestones with each other and helping one another out; they’ve been doing it for decades! It’s what we’re meant to do beyond our daily work … be there for each other in the joys and the sorrows of life. Look up and down the street … see a need there? Someone who might be lonely or despondent who just needs to feel needed? Each of us might answer the call to help or to invite the neighbor.

Editor’s note: ‘All Shall Be Well’ is a semi-monthly column written by local women clergy (pastors and deacons) including, ELCA Deacon Cynthia Biddlecomb, M.Div., retired (czoebidd@gmail.com); Nicolé Ferry, Pastor, Bethlehem Evangelical Lutheran Church (pastornicole@bethluth.com); Lynn Finnegan, Assistant Rector, The Episcopal Church of the Holy Faith, Santa Fe (rev.lynn@holyfaithchurchsf.org) and Deb Church, Pastor, White Rock Presbyterian Church (pastor@wrpchurch.com).