Arthur listened for a short while, but being unable to understand the vast majority of what Ford was saying, he began to let his mind wander, trailing his fingers along the edge of an incomprehensible computer bank. He reached out and pressed an invitingly large red button on a nearby panel. The panel lit up with the words Please do not press this button again. He shook himself.
"Listen," said Ford, who was still engrossed in the sales brochure, "they make a big thing of the ship's cybernetics. 'A new generation of Sirius Cybernetics Corporation robots and computers, with the new GPP feature.'"
"GPP feature?" said Arthur. "What's that?"
"Oh, it says Genuine People Personalities."
"Oh," said Arthur, "sounds ghastly."
A voice behind them said, "It is." The voice was low and hopeless and accompanied by a slight clanking sound. They spun round and saw an abject steel man standing hunched in the doorway."
"What?" they said.
"Ghastly," continued Marvin, "it all is. Absolutely ghastly. Just don't even talk about it. Look at this door," he said, stepping through it. The irony circuits cut in to his voice modulator as me mimicked the style of the sales brochure. "'All the doors in this spaceship have a cheerful and sunny disposition. It is their pleasure to open for you, and their satisfaction to close again with the knowledge of a job well done.'"
As the door closed behind them it became apparent it did indeed have a satisfied sighlike quality to it. "Hunnnnnnnyummmmmmm ah!" it said.
Again, the hero of this scene for me is Marvin, with his low and hopeless voice. Especially this evening. I have been absent from blogging these last two days for a few reasons: teaching, Holy Week, and the burning of Notre Dame Cathedral. All of these things have overwhelmed me, left me speechless, and, in a strange way, they all seem bundled together. It has been a low and hopeless 48 hours.
I learned of the burning of Notre Dame as I was heading to the university to teach on Monday afternoon. I opened up Facebook on my phone and saw a news post with a picture of the cathedral ceiling engulfed in orange flames and yellow smoke. At the time, the spire was still standing, but it was a huge finger of fire pointing toward the heavens. And then I received a text from my daughter: "Notre Dame is on fire."
As I continued to campus, I felt a huge heaviness descend on me, and I can't really identify why. I have never been to Notre Dame, although it was on my bucket list. For me, it has always been the backdrop in movies and books and art. Although it was human-made, it seemed eternal. Like something God placed in the world and nothing could destroy. Not plagues or bombings or world wars. It seemed divinely protected.
I taught my first class of the day, and then I went back to my office, looked at my phone again, and watched a video of the spire of Notre Dame buckling, bending, and collapsing. I heard the crowd in the video gasp as this happened. Sitting alone, I thought about the meaninglessness of what I had said in class an hour before, the pointlessness of what I was going to say to the students in my evening class. One phrase was on an infinite loop in my mind--"It just doesn't matter"--as that 800-year-old sanctuary infernoed toward oblivion.
It is now Wednesday night. The day before Holy Thursday, the beginning of the Easter Triduum for Catholics around the globe. The towers of Notre Dame are still standing, the Rose windows still refracting prisms of light. But the floor of the sanctuary is a charred and melted pile of roof and spire. Even before the blaze was extinguished, companies and millionaires and billionaires began pledging funds for the restoration of Notre Dame. French President Emmanuel Macron said in a speech, "I believe profoundly that we will turn this tragedy into a moment to come together, to be reflective of what we were and what we have to be. We must be better than we were."
The burning of Notre Dame Cathedral is a lesson for me this Holy Week, and I tried to turn it into a lesson today for my students. In my mythology class, we have been reading Grimm fairy tales, reflecting on what "happily ever after" really means, whether or not it's even relevant in the 21st century. Or whether that phrase is just a holdover from a bygone time in history. This is what I told my class today, after we talked about the fire and destruction of Notre Dame: "I think that everyone in this room wants a 'happily ever after.' You wouldn't be here as students if you didn't believe, somehow, the world can be a better place. Even in the face of immense loss and tragedy, people come together, rally, believe that the future will be brighter and stronger. That's what I think happily ever after is all about."
Teaching. The burning of Notre Dame Cathedral. Holy Week. For me, these all reinforce the central tenet of this time of the Christian year. Becoming better, stronger, happier people. Letting go of past hurts, destructive beliefs and behaviors. Traveling through the darkness toward light. Embracing the power of redemption and resurrection.
It doesn't matter whether you're Catholic or Methodist or Buddhist or Jewish or Muslim or agnostic or atheist. Everyone deserves this chance. This hope.
Saint Marty wishes everyone who reads this post tonight a happily ever after. Amen.
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