Leaving Neverland...

This summer, I found myself teaching English to a class of sixth/seventh graders in Taiwan and the book we selected was J.M. Barrie's, Peter Pan. I was excited to read this book as I thought it was a good choice for the little one's who are finding their way towards maturity in the uncertain waters of adolescence. Eventually, we all must learn what it means to grow up. I had hoped they would catch this theme, but I found myself questioning if I have ever left Neverland?

When I was younger, I remember being awed by the adventures Peter had, but cheered when the children returned home to a mother who never forgot them. It was the best of both worlds!! They had experienced the ecstasies of make-believe never having suffered the consequences of reality. Reading the book now, I found myself almost imploring Wendy, John, and Michael to not be deceived by the careless ways of a far away land. I thought for sure that my well developed cynicism had created a wisdom in me that could see through the veil of a perfect world. Only then was I confronted with another question: In all my well-lived experience, had I ever left Neverland myself? Or did I merely get lost on the way home?

I desire all the amenities of adult hood, such as falling in love, raising children, keeping a home, but realized that these fancies are all possible in Neverland. After all, Wendy found herself a band of boys to mother, and Peter was well able to play a father despite his fleeting ways. How often do we believe that the things that make us adults rests purely on the ability of balancing a check book. For a long time I've played the game of maturity, but I wonder if I've really grown, or have I forced that inner child to catch up with the slowly aging capsule that carries it like a prison?

When life gets hard, my initial response is to escape. I long for the adventures of life, but shake my fist in anger towards God when they do not "pan" out the way I expect. When things went wrong in NY, I ran to Taiwan, hoping that new life experiences would cloud my mind with unbridled happiness that I would soon forget about the misery. I found that even at the age of 27, I am no more an adult than Peter, or Wendy, or the lost boys. The only marked difference are the furrows above my brow carved by years of sadness, but my heart hasn't quite caught up. That inner child still screams to me to run...to fly....right out that window and to never look back.

It still longs for the beauty of innocence it believes it lost. If I were just happy and carefree, then I will be beautiful, my eyes will sparkle as one loved by God : these are the words it tells me. After all, this is what we learn. We idolize those who's beauty seems to rest on a pedestal unaffected by tragedy. But perhaps, we only make believe we are over comers, and hold on desperately to the appeal of youth and jolliness. But who will implore us to not be deceived? Can I trust that there is another beauty in myself to be found, one that can only be found when I can manage to "grow up'? Can I accept and weave the tragedies and realities of my life into the person I should become? Perhaps I still need to find my way home, through that window that has been left open where a loving father waits with open arms. I can not help but think as the children did in Peter Pan, that perhaps that window has been closed, and perhaps my father has forgotten about me, and I should turn right back around to avoid the pain of this....or perhaps I have forgotten...what it was like to have a father, to be loved and cared for. Perhaps I should be a child just a little longer so I can believe, not in Neverland, but in the reality that the window will never close. And once I find my way home, then perhaps I will learn to desire the life that comes with age and see the furrows of tragedies as merely God's fingers, pressing into my life as he molds the clay.