Some Inadvertent Lessons from a Movie (A Guest Post)

This is Liz here, Scott's wife.  I'm sort of taking over Scott's blog today because he's been wrapped up with editing his book and now has an appointment today and didn't have time to write something.  So here goes nothing...

Last night, Scott went out to edit his book that's coming out sometime next year and I stayed home with the kids.

For the summer, on these nights when Scott's away, we've taken the opportunity to watch a movie together while we eat dinner. There are only a couple of stipulations for the movie:

1.       It has to be a movie the kids haven't seen yet.
2.      It has to be interesting for everyone (including me) to watch.

We've watched American Girl movies, Jumanji, The Parent Trap, Freaky Friday, Beethoven, and some other ones (we're basically just hitting up Netflix).

Last night was Hook (the one with Robin Williams as the grown up Peter Pan)... anyway, it's a good one and the girls really liked it, although they groaned when I told them that we were going to watch it and complained that it would be boring (as kids usually do).

There's a lot in this movie about growing up and forgetting about what it's like to be a kid.  And how grumpy and fearful grown-ups can become.

In the movie, Peter Banning the adult is nothing like Peter Pan back in Neverland.  He's scared, wimpy, unable to imagine, and can't even really think of happy thoughts.

But... to rescue his kids from Captain Hook, he's got to find a way to become fearless, strong, imaginative, and daring.

I think when people say that life didn't turn out the way they thought it would, perhaps it's because they lost these innate qualities of children.  Kids who don't really understand the ways of the world yet think that they can conquer it.

And as they grow older, they leave behind this mentality because the world seems so daunting. They have to "be realistic" and think about pragmatic things.  Bills have to be paid, dentists duly visited, meals planned and prepared. And the scary things about this world are now real, not imagined, and sometimes worse than you had imagined as a kid.

Of course dealing with all of this, it's easy to forget.  It's easy to fall into the grown-up trap of fearfulness and safety.  But it's also really boring to live a life like that has no risk or imagination.

So, search for your adventure today!  Be daring and strong!  Imagine what could be and seek it out!

Here's a quote from the end of the movie:

Granny Wendy:  So... your adventures are over.
Peter:  Oh, no. To live... to live would be an awfully big adventure.