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In the 2004 movie “Finding Neverland,” author Sir James Matthew Barrie, played by Johnny Depp, strikes up a friendship with the Davies family, while in a local park. He is invited to perform for the boys of a young widow. So, he sits them down, takes command of their dog and, for their amusement, pretends that he is a trainer for a dangerous bear.
He says to his little audience of boys and mother, "I want you to pay particular attention to the teeth." Barrie says some bear trainers only work with bears who have had their teeth pulled out. Others, he says, work with a bear only if they can use a muzzle, but he is brave and will work with the bear as is.
Young Peter complains that the animal is not a bear at all, rather, "it's just a dog!" Barrie playfully explodes, "Just a dog!" He tells the other boys to pay no attention, that the animal dreams of being a bear, and Peter is dashing its hopes by saying, "It's just a dog.” He remarks, “What a horrible candle-snuffing word. That's like saying, 'He can't climb that mountain—he's just a man. That's not a diamond—it's just a rock.' Just!"
Peter challenges him, "Fine then. Turn him into a bear, if you can." "With those eyes, my bonnie lad,” replies Barrie, “I'm afraid you'd never see it."
Great writers like C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, and J.R.R. Tolkien claim that stories baptize the imagination. A hallmark of childhood and childlikeness is the ability to believe in what you cannot see, cannot explain, to relish the gift of Mystery.
As a child I was told that thunder is the Voice of God. I loved to hear that Voice. Then, I lost that belief, even as I lost the innocence of childhood and childlikeness. Now, I understand thunder is the Voice of God, but in a different way. I am learning to live a second childhood, one graced with the intervening years. And, I can hear the bird song, the breeze, the cry of a little infant, and the weeping of a grieving person, … and so much more as that same Voice. Yes, I am becoming a child, again, by the Grace of God.
Possibly, this ability to engage imagination, what Christian theologians have seen as one of the innate capacities of the person in the Image of Divinity, is implied by Jesus:
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About this time the disciples came to Jesus and asked him who would be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Jesus called a child over and had the child stand near him. Then he said: I promise you this. If you don't change and become like a child, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 18.1-3, CEV)
Little Peter had been deeply changed by the death of his father. With the loss of his dad, he had lost his childhood. His eyes no longer looked like the eyes of a child, and his eyes no longer saw the Beauty and Bliss that children are to see. The wound of the loss cut him deeply.
Likewise, we as adults get wounded, and scars, so to speak, can build up over our eyes. Beyond being wounded we are subject, often, to an educational process that is mechanical and does not stress the imagination. We hear and memorize and report back cold facts, so we can master enough data to get a degree, then a job, and make a living, but not necessarily a life. Then, many us of go to Worship and get the same demystified, unimaginative diet. We might get a religion of hard facts, a Sunday School lesson that could be a prescription for amnesiacs, sermons with three points and little sense of passion, and none of this with much to tantalize the imagination and keep alive our sense of Mystery and Beauty.
Therefore, yes, we do move onward to grow in our experience of the Love of God. However, salvation, likewise, is a going back, what the Authorized Version rendered in the above passage “except ye be converted.” This can be rendered, simply, “unless you change” or “unless you turn back” or “return.”
“Heaven” is all around. “Angels” are everywhere. “Beauty” shines through every creature. “Love” announces its longing for us. “Mystery” sparkles in the night sky. “Joy” dances in the wind. “Peace” is a watery drop on a green leaf after a spring shower. “God” looks out the eyes of your love or beloved one, or your child, or your friend, or that stranger who smiles at you as you walk through the store. Do you see it? Are you childlike enough to believe it?
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