Good-Bye George

We learned this morning that George Carlin has died. I'd like to be sad, but his passing is more complicated than that. I loved the George Carlin of Class Clown, of the Hippie Dippie Weatherman, of Baseball vs. Football. But I detested the humour of the angry, bitter, frustrated old man he became.

Was it the drugs? The constant touring? The fact that society in the United States wasn't turning out the way he thought it should be turning out? How did the generally happy, somewhat well-adjusted comedian become the bitter cynic he showed us he was the last few years?

I don't have that answer.

What I want to write about, though, is a what-if scenario. What if George hadn't lost his faith in God? What if, instead, he had sought the divine? What if he had found a voice in spreading the word of God? What a powerful speaker he would have been! Had he sought guidance from the Lord, what a better life he would have had!

I try to understand why his life turned out the way it did. I listen to Class Clown and AM and FM and I hear a person a lot like myself. Raised Catholic, attended Catholic school . . . to be sure, there are a lot of differences, but it's close enough. I knew a bunch of George Carlin's at school. Class clowns. Funny guys. That completes the loop for me.

But whereas I fell deeper into faith, George fell away. He questioned, and, receiving answers he didn't like, turned his back. I questioned, heard answers I didn't like, and went looking deeper into the mysteries. But I am not the speaker he was. And whereas I find it difficult to put into words certain things I think and feel about my faith, my God and my family, Carlin never seemed at a loss to come up with a funny line, a funny story or some other hook to put into words those things he held dear, no matter what other people may have thought.

I pray that the Lord brings comfort to Carlin's family, friends and fans.

And, somewhere, I hope that George has awakened in the classroom of a Catholic school, and is in the middle of getting a good talking-to. And I pray that it's in the Lord's plan that the Hippie Dippie Weatherman finds a place in God's heaven, where all of his questions can be answered and the mysteries revealed.