I’ve been designing some courses I’d like to teach lately.
Musing on Joan of Arcadia prompted my thinking of Mulberry. It’ s a bitter
sweet BBC TV series from the early 1990s.
Mulberry, the Cockney son of De ath
and Springtime, appears for a household job one day with no references.
He sweet talks his way into the home of the dour old Miss Farnaby.
Instead of immediately taking to “the other side,” as Mulberry has been assigned, he and she manage to develop a unique kind of love over several months.
Despite the consternation of her staff, Miss Farnaby manages to blossom like spring under the tutelage of the mysterious Mulberry. She in fact becomes an embodiment of Springtime, Mulberry’s mother, in the near-death body of an old woman, a human bridge between life and death, just as Mulberry is a spiritual bridge between the two—a key paradox that has characterized life on earth from the beginning.
Again I am fascinated by the profound theological and psychological implications of this series and its lessons about learning to live, and love, even though death is ever-present.
If we fail to grasp this paradox, we fail to live fully. And, we fail to embrace death. Learning to balance both aspects of being is key.