I don't normally do this sort of short post midday thing, and if I had a Tumblr, I'd put this there. I have just learned that Nora Ephron, who wrote and directed such marvelous films like You've Got Mail and the adaption of Julie and Julia, who penned some of the best memoir and op-ed you could dream, died today.
When someone so wonderful dies, someone you don't know but feel you have known in the smallest of fractions over the course of your small life, a lot of questions coming tumbling out, about God, the afterlife, the people that we're going to want to see someday but maybe won't get to.
Well, when it comes to Nora, I can't shake this passage from Forward, The Jewish Daily, an interview Ephron did a year or two. Here, the journalist's question in bold:
When I interviewed you for my book “Stars of David,” you said being Jewish probably would not rank in the top five most important things about you. Can you talk about why, since we’re at the JCC?
I very much grew up in a home where my parents were anti-religion. Did I tell you the story of when I wanted to be an Episcopalian? They always said, “We don’t believe in anything, but if you ever decide you want to have a religion, you can.” So when I was about 11, I went to camp one summer and read a book called something like, “Charles and Mary Lamb’s Bible Tales,” and I… decided to become an Episcopalian. My parents said, “Why?” and I said, “Because I believe in our Lord, Jesus Christ.” And they both fell on the floor, laughing. They thought it was the funniest thing ever. So that was the absolute end of my Christianity.
And I wonder.
What was it Paul said?
"That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."
I'm putting in the DVD copy of You've Got Mail, and I'm wondering.
Absolute end?
Well, I guess we'll see.