George Saunders' Lincoln in the Bardo and learning about life from the grave.

The Heidelberg Catechism begins with the question:

What is your only comfort in life and in death?

It gets right to the point doesn’t it? Life and death. It also assumes comfort is possible, in both.

There is a prayer in the Book of Common Worship that I often use during funerals that includes the line: “Help us to live as those who are prepared to die; and when our days here are accomplished, enable us to die as those who go forth to live, so that living or dying, our life may be in you.” 

Death and life go together. 

Near the end of George Saunders’ novel, Lincoln in the Bardo, one of the main characters, hans vollman, describes President Lincoln with these words:

His mind was freshly inclined toward sorrow; toward the fact that the world was full of sorrow; that everyone labored under some burden of sorrow; that all were suffering; that whatever way one took in this world, one must try to remember that all were suffering (none content: all wronged, neglected, overlooked, misunderstood), and therefore one must do what one could do to lighten the load of those with whom one came into contact: that his current state of sorrow was not uniquely his; not at all, but, rather, its like had been felt, would yet be felt, by scores of others, in all times, in every time…(303-304)

hans vollman, like most of the characters in the novel, is dead. Although he and most of his companions aren’t willing to accept it. In fact, the novel is told mostly by ghosts. The story takes place in the cemetery where Willie Lincoln, the President’s third son, was buried after his death from typhoid fever when he was twelve years old. The Civil War was already underway. 

The format of Lincoln in the Bardo is unlike any novel I have ever read. If you flip through the book, you’ll see it is structured more like a play than a novel. Most pages include multiple short lines by different characters. The audiobook version cast over 100 people to record the various voices. Saunders also uses quotes from newspapers, contemporary biographies, journal entries, the cemetery log book, and other original sources. 

“The Bardo” refers to the intermediate state between death and rebirth in Buddhist teaching. How long an individual remains in this state depends on how well they lived their life. The main characters in the novel have been dead for a long time. Their ghosts hang out in the Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington D.C. 

The story is based on an historical event. Newspapers report that after Willie Lincoln died of typhoid, President Lincoln made several midnight trips to the cemetery to the crypt where Willie’s casket was placed. The President even removed Willie’s body from the casket to hold him. 

In the novel, willie’s ghost is already outside of his body and so he witnesses his father holding his corpse, but he doesn’t understand why his father can’t see or hear him (Note: the dead characters’ names in the novel are spelled with all lower case letters.) It is a devastating scene of the sorrow and loss of a father and son. The father also happens to be the President of the United States in the midst of a Civil War. Young men were dying by the thousands every week.

The other ghosts in the cemetery also witness the President holding willie’s body. This startles them. They are not used to living people coming to the cemetery and touching bodies after the funeral. They assume they have all been forgotten. After Lincoln leaves the cemetery, Saunders describes the ghosts' surprise in the following conversation. This will also give you a sense of how the book is laid out. Saunders writes:

People [the fellow ghosts] were happy, that was what it was; they had recovered that notion.

hans vollman

It was the idea, the very idea, that someone - 

roger bevins iii

From that other place - 

hans vollman

That someone from that other place would deign to - 

roger bevins iii

It was the touching that was unusual. 

the reverend everly thomas

It was not unusual for people from that previous place [the living] to be around.

hans vollman

Oh, they were around often enough.

the reverend everly thomas

With their cigars, wreaths, tears, crepe, heavy carriages, black horses stamping at the gate…

roger bevins iii

But the touching. My God!...

The holding, the lingering, the kind words whispered directly into the ear? My God! My God!

the reverend everly thomas

To be touched so lovingly, so fondly, as if one were still - 

roger bevins iii

Healthy. 

hans vollman

As if one were still worthy of affection and respect?

It was cheering. It gave us hope.

the reverend everly thomas

We were perhaps not so unlovable as we had come to believe.

roger bevins iii    (page 67-70)

roger bevins iii, hans vollman, and the reverend everly thomas are the three main characters who take willie under their wing in the cemetery. They know each other so well that they finish one another’s sentences. They hope to help willie transition to the next life as quickly as possible. Something willie does not want to do. He wants to stay. His father keeps returning to “see” him.   

Now that I am attempting to summarize the story, I recognize it’s complicated. It takes time to figure out what is happening and who is who. Readers aren’t told who is dead or who is alive. But the effort is worth it. Over the course of the novel, the symphony of voices wade into some of life’s biggest topics - how do we face past regrets, loss, unmet expectations, estranged relationships, and a deep longing for hope for some kind of redemption?

There is too much to cover in this space. But I want to try to consider for a moment the imponderable weight of suffering on Lincoln’s shoulders. I realize “imponderable” means we can’t fully consider it. But somehow Saunders shows us the weight without crushing us. 

One of the historic journal entries he quotes reads:

Young Willie Lincoln was laid to rest on the day that the casualty lists from the Union victory at Fort Donelson were publicly posted, an event that caused a great shock among the public at the time, the cost in life being unprecedented thus far in the war. (pg. 152)

Lincoln’s son had just died. As the Commander in Chief he was sending young men to their deaths in an attempt to hold a divided nation together. Saunders quotes letters to the President from dozens of families. One reads:

How miny more ded do you attend to make sir afore you is done? One minit there was our little Nate on that bridge with a fishpole and ware is that boy now? And who is it called him hither, in that Notice he saw down to Orbys, wellsir, that was your name he saw upon it “Abraham Lincoln.” ( sic pg. 154). 

Young Nate and approximately 620,000 other soldiers died in a war to save the Union and to end slavery. 

I grew up in Illinois. Our license plates read “Land of Lincoln.” I touched his bronze nose on the statue outside his tomb in Springfield during our seventh grade class trip. Lincoln is typically ranked number one or number two on every “Best Presidents Ever” list. His face is on the penny and the five dollar bill and Mount Rushmore. 

But I had never really considered the weight of the war on his shoulders. Nor the fact that his son died, in the White House, while the war was raging on. We think of historical figures as real life people in the sense that they were really alive and really did things. But I don’t think we often consider that they had frustrating Monday afternoons and tooth infections and the equivalent of a flat tire on the way to work or what Mary Todd Lincoln was like as a wife on any given Thursday morning. Or what it was like to be the President during the most volatile moment in our nation’s history and also have to face the death of your eleven-year-old boy.

As I read Lincoln in the Bardo, it became clear that because the story is about death, it is, therefore, also about life. The ghosts in the novel have regrets. They are trapped between life and death because their lives went unresolved. In the world of the Bardo, the ghosts could have accepted that they are dead and move on to the next place. But they refuse to let go of life, even though they can’t get back to it.  

To be clear, Saunders is not intending to give his philosophy of the after life, let alone the orthodox Christian one. My guess is, he was fascinated by the story of the President going to the cemetery to hold Willie’s body the night before his funeral and wanted to explore the pathos of that moment in a novel. He succeeds. It is a marvel of a book. 

But it appears that the majority of the characters in the story had no comfort in life and therefore they have no comfort in death. Life and death go together. 

I have officiated six funerals in the past five months. When you add in hospital visits and service planning with family members, death has been near the top of my mind for most of this year. The attempt to care for the family, hold up mourning members, grieve myself, and put together a meaningful service is often a heavy weight. It is also one of the more sacred gifts of being a pastor. I am invited into the lives of people in their most vulnerable moments. 

Like the characters in Lincoln in the Bardo, the people I meet with at hospitals or in my office to plan services certainly have their regrets. Family dynamics, the good and the bad, are on full display. But the bad is almost always softened. There is a finality about death that often tempers conflict. Notice my qualifications - “often” and “almost always.” Sometimes the divisions continue at full force. But death is a sober reminder that if some things are not addressed, there really does come a moment when it is too late. I have seen the death of a parent, and the ensuing service planning and gatherings of the family, serve as the beginning of the restoration of sibling rivalries that carried on for decades.

The ghosts in Saunders’ novel long to return to the land of the living, and therefore refuse to accept their death, not simply because they miss their physical life but because they want to set right things they neglected while alive.

In the novel, and, I would guess, in reality, Willie’s death gives Lincoln a new perspective. He now sees more clearly that “everyone labored under some burden of sorrow. . . and therefore one must do what one could do to lighten the load of those with whom one came into contact.” This doesn’t change his resolve that the war must continue and that the cause of unity and freedom was worth the suffering to come. In fact, Saunders seems to suggest that the death of Willie ennobled Lincoln to see the necessity of the war with even more clarity. Even if that meant hundreds of thousands of young men were to die in the attempt. (Imagine that kind of pressure)   

In centuries past, pastors often framed their vocation around the desire to help their members die well. Dying well, of course, meant, living well. And I don’t mean simply being good. I mean finding your comfort in the only place where true comfort can be found. Grace. Not in your own life but, ironically, in the death of Jesus - and the true life that flows from it.

The answer to the Heidelberg’s first question is this: 

That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.

Comfort now and comfort to come. Security. Assurance. Hope. And a radically new life - by his Spirit, Jesus makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready to live for him. And living for him means living like him. 

I have been a pastor for twenty years now. I think I can safely say that the two things that have caused the most pain in the lives of the people I have served have been tragedies, like what President Lincoln experienced with the death of Willie, and broken relationships, like what most of the ghosts in the story wish they could still remedy. 

We rarely have any control over tragedies. They happen and all we can do is hold on to the promise of the goodness of God. Or dare to trust that he is holding on to us. 

But with broken relationships, almost always, we can do our part. We can seek to make amends. We can make the first phone call. We can knock on the door (even if we sheepishly hope no one will answer). We can confess our failures. We can send a card offering a truce. We can plead with God for at least the desire for the possibility for the beginning of a path toward forgiveness in our hearts - which might lead to forgiveness in the relationship. We have no control over how they respond or if they are willing to engage, but we can make the first move. In my experience as a pastor, we rarely do. The suffering this causes in families, churches, friendships is incalculable.

Tragedies often have the power to soften hearts. Broken relationships tend to harden them.

The uncomfortable state of the ghosts in Lincoln in the Bardo was a reminder of why the power of reconciliation offered in the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is so central to the Christian life described in the New Testament. At some point, reconciliation with others is no longer possible. But this doesn't have to be the case. In the Holy Spirit we have the greatest mediator in history. 

“Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”

Colossians 3:12-14

September Read - Roy Jacobsen's The Unseen