Creative Avoidance

I've already told you about my movie-lovin' 2 year old. (That's improving, by the way--thanks for asking) His favorite flick right now is Disney's "Dinosaur." This movie came out in the year 2000 and was the first time real picture scenes were superimposed with computer animation (or so the propaganda says). I can see why he likes it; gorgeous visual images, soaring music, a baby getting loved by a family, cute lemur antics. He's mesmerized. That is, until the meteor hits and it gets scary. Sometimes he watches (especially if someone is snuggling with him) but usually he gets anxious and agitated. When that happens, he cries out "help please! help me! help me!" followed by a bunch of gibberish (his vocabulary is small right now) as he ejects the dvd and starts it over. We've seen the beginning of that movie at least a dozen times this week.

That made me think a little about the trials we face in life. How many of us would like to cry "Help Me!" when the meteors hit the water near our little island sanctuary? How many times would we like to start the movie over when we are in the middle of something scary and awful--just to see if the ending changes?

I've actually fast forwarded the disc to the end just so he could see that everything ended well. At two, he doesn't really need to know that life can and probably will be ugly at times. I'd rather he focus on the happiness of family, of babies getting their needs taken care of and being loved. And even though there have been times I would have liked to fast forward through the trials in my life, I am grateful for the lessons I've learned from them. It's a little corny, but it's true.

And that's the other side.