Peter Pan

Last night, my roommate and I watched the new Peter Pan movie on DVD. It was a good adaptation of it. It kept all the whimsy of the Julie Andrews version but added a little bit of edge. I'm surprised it had a PG rating.

Yeah, so the movie didn't suck.

But as I was sitting there, watching this movie, I finally got it. I got what the story was really about. It was about me. And I was afraid.

Peter Pan is a boy who never wants to grow up. But more than that, he's a boy who has no idea what growing up is. In every adaptation of this story, especially the more poignant ones, there is a point where he finally realizes that there is a concept of what it means to grow up. And it floors him. Fortunately for him, it only seems to take him but a minute or two to understand and toss aside/accept this truth (depending upon the adaptation) and rush forward to resolve the climax rosily by fighting Captain Hook.

If only I were so lucky.

I have realized that I don't want to be a boy. But growing up has so many strings attached. All of a sudden I have to worry about things. I've moved out of the halls, so I have bills to pay. I no longer have residents, so my years of being a mile-wide, but an inch-deep have finally caught up to me. I get lonely.

All of a sudden I worry about what my future holds. My cares and plans for my future have shifted from being a kaleidoscope, changing with the angle -but always different in every viewing; to being worries and plans with walls and doors and keys that must be fashioned, books that must be read, people that must be impressed and deadlines that must be met. I have to start budgeting for my future.

All of a sudden the worries about being alone for my entire life have left the mouth of my older sister and begun to ring around my own head. (And here's the scary part) the voice is not my sister's, but mine own. I all of a sudden wonder if I've met the girl I'm going to marry.

And for every time I have answer "I don't know", I feel a little bit of my confidence ebb away. The sheer reality of phrase, "I don't know", has morphed from the magic egg full of possibilities I could get in return from a mechanical rooster for a quarter, into two pieces of molded plastic formed by the hands of Malaysian slave workers and hold nothing more than a scrap of soft aluminum bent and painted to resemble, "bling".

I never used to care about "not knowing". I used to find the idea refreshing and empowering. But now, I yearn for the truth.

I want a Jesus that is real and in my hands. The closest thing I can find is at the altar when Father asks me if I care to receive the "body of Christ". THAT, my friends. Is real. THAT, my friends, is what Jesus left for ME. And while this does give me respite, it seems a floating barrel to a man treading water in the middle of an ocean. I need to take my barrel, and find my island or, if I'm lucky, continent.

I've had enough of my Castles in the Air. Fuck Thoreau. I need the foundations he said, as if in afterthought, should be built to support them. I need my earth, so that I may know which way is up.

I know God has something very important for me to do in my life. I know it. That thought defines me. It, quite literally, is what I live for. But I feel sometimes fear I'll become the man waiting on the roof of his flooding house who passes up a truck, boat and helicopter because of his faith the Lord will save him only to hear later in conversation with the Lord exclaim, after his immediate death due to drowning, "what do you mean I didn't save you?!?! I sent you a truck, a boat and a helicopter!"

I'm beginning to realize, and fear, that God has given me more power over my life than I had ever fathomed. Okay, maybe "freedom" is a more suitable word. But to be honest, I'm scared by either.

I'm no longer afraid that whatever it is the Lord has planned for me is to be the foil to someone else's rising star. I now fear most of all that I'll not make use of my "talents" while waiting for my master to return.

I'll have no more being Peter Pan. I've made the decision. My age of reason is now. To every season, there is a turn. I will laugh. I will love. I will learn. I will do so with hope. I will trust in the Lord, and hold onto my barrel, until we both find our paradise... or at least a bit of sand.