We’re back. Back on the comfy side of the border. We spent a week and a half driving to Florida, having some fun and driving home. Bye bye palm trees, hello snow. Bye bye grits, hello plum sauce. Bye bye Waffle House, hello Tim.
It was a lot of fun. Sort of my first experience with doing what normal people do on vacation. Winter sun, January sun screen, white sand and pelicans. Being amazed by things that others take for granted.
While we were away, we had a chance to spend a day at what is billed as (probably truly) the happiest place on Earth. Had a great time. Went on one ride I should have skipped. Although, having actually had the experience, I’m wondering whether I may have eliminated a recurring nightmare. Time will tell.
Family consensus is that the scariest ride was the one where you go boating on a serpentine path through endless rooms filled with frightening smiling animated dolls singing a happy-happy song over and over and over and over… Near the end we found ourselves in a holding pattern while the boats ahead unloaded and the song just kept looping and starting again. I had one of those weird disconnect moments where one is waiting for the dolls to attack. Very Twilight Zone.
Nightmare therapy aside, we had a great time.
How can you not in the land of wish fulfillment? Amid an extravagant celebration of imagination, of creativity, of dreams and hopes and potential coming true? Of happiness and all good things?
Of magic. The magic of wishes. Who hasn’t wished for something more? Something better? To be someone else? To become who we believe we ought to become? To imagine a better future, a better life, a better self and to see it magically happen just because you deserve it. You deserve to be a princess. To be a real boy. To fly, to win, to be King. To never grow old.
Magic is a funny thing. There is something in all of us that knows that it exists. That what we see and touch isn’t all there is. That physics can’t explain everything. That we are more than the sum of our senses and experiences. Magic runs deep through the human psyche, at the same time comforting and terrifying us.
Have you seen The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe? One of the foundational ideas in the Narnia series is that of “Deeper Magic.” Deeper Magic is the power that runs through creation, shaping and choosing as it wills. The Power to make things happen, to make people change.
The thing is, this Magic doesn’t care whether you deserve it or not. Or whether you necessarily want it or not. Once you open the door, even a crack, it pours itself into your being and starts changing things. Challenging your priorities, judging the things you want, and telling you that you can become more than you could dream, but only by surrendering what you want. By surrendering your wishes.
The magic of wishes and the Deeper Magic cannot exist in the same heart. They are contradictory. Wishes are fireworks. Deeper Magic is the sun.
Every ad you watch on TV or read in a magazine, every porn site, every get rich quick e-mail feeds the wish; the sense that, whatever you’ve got, you deserve better.
The God of the Deeper Magic whispers to your heart through the Bible, through your conscience and through creation that you deserve nothing. But that he wants to give you infinitely more than you can ask or think.
If you will only let go of your wishes.
It was a lot of fun. Sort of my first experience with doing what normal people do on vacation. Winter sun, January sun screen, white sand and pelicans. Being amazed by things that others take for granted.
While we were away, we had a chance to spend a day at what is billed as (probably truly) the happiest place on Earth. Had a great time. Went on one ride I should have skipped. Although, having actually had the experience, I’m wondering whether I may have eliminated a recurring nightmare. Time will tell.
Family consensus is that the scariest ride was the one where you go boating on a serpentine path through endless rooms filled with frightening smiling animated dolls singing a happy-happy song over and over and over and over… Near the end we found ourselves in a holding pattern while the boats ahead unloaded and the song just kept looping and starting again. I had one of those weird disconnect moments where one is waiting for the dolls to attack. Very Twilight Zone.
Nightmare therapy aside, we had a great time.
How can you not in the land of wish fulfillment? Amid an extravagant celebration of imagination, of creativity, of dreams and hopes and potential coming true? Of happiness and all good things?
Of magic. The magic of wishes. Who hasn’t wished for something more? Something better? To be someone else? To become who we believe we ought to become? To imagine a better future, a better life, a better self and to see it magically happen just because you deserve it. You deserve to be a princess. To be a real boy. To fly, to win, to be King. To never grow old.
Magic is a funny thing. There is something in all of us that knows that it exists. That what we see and touch isn’t all there is. That physics can’t explain everything. That we are more than the sum of our senses and experiences. Magic runs deep through the human psyche, at the same time comforting and terrifying us.
Have you seen The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe? One of the foundational ideas in the Narnia series is that of “Deeper Magic.” Deeper Magic is the power that runs through creation, shaping and choosing as it wills. The Power to make things happen, to make people change.
The thing is, this Magic doesn’t care whether you deserve it or not. Or whether you necessarily want it or not. Once you open the door, even a crack, it pours itself into your being and starts changing things. Challenging your priorities, judging the things you want, and telling you that you can become more than you could dream, but only by surrendering what you want. By surrendering your wishes.
The magic of wishes and the Deeper Magic cannot exist in the same heart. They are contradictory. Wishes are fireworks. Deeper Magic is the sun.
Every ad you watch on TV or read in a magazine, every porn site, every get rich quick e-mail feeds the wish; the sense that, whatever you’ve got, you deserve better.
The God of the Deeper Magic whispers to your heart through the Bible, through your conscience and through creation that you deserve nothing. But that he wants to give you infinitely more than you can ask or think.
If you will only let go of your wishes.