Love?

Good morning,

My favorite movie of all time has always been The Wizard of Oz. As a child, I would watch it every year on Easter. My dad actually made an audio tape of the whole movie and I would listen over and over. I had the dolls. My parents got my lovely plates of each memorable character. I loved each moment with Dorothy.

Yesterday, my eldest and I studied Wizard with a new lense. We studied the movie, screen by screen, formulating a theory of Frank Oz’s Biblical worldview. Really? My favorite childhood movie picked apart? As I looked at the Oz world, I realized how fake it looked. Yet, it was hard to let go of my childhood view. I kept moving from a critical eye to a child-like view. Wild.

Dorothy began her journey looking for love. She felt unloved and unwanted by her aunt and uncle. Her world was brownish gray, quiet and hopeless.

Someplace where there isn’t any trouble… [tossing a piece of her cruller to Toto] …do you suppose there is such a place, Toto? There must be. It’s not a place you can get to by a boat or train. It’s far, far away… behind the moon… beyond the rain.
[singing] Somewhere, over the rainbow, way up high,
There’s a land that I heard of once in a lullaby.
Somewhere, over the rainbow, skies are blue,
And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.

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She longed for a better place. And thus the dream became a beautiful world in her mind, yet to us, what does that world sound like? Oh, to me it is the longing of heaven. When my world is gray and sad, I long to open the door as she did to a world promised to us with heaven and hope.

1 Corinthians 13

1IF I [can] speak in the tongues of men and [even] of angels, but have not love (that reasoning, intentional, spiritual devotion such [a]as is inspired by God’s love for and in us), I am only a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

2And if I have prophetic powers ([b]the gift of interpreting the divine will and purpose), and understand all the secret truths and mysteries and possess all knowledge, and if I have [sufficient] faith so that I can remove mountains, but have not love (God’s love in me) I am nothing (a useless nobody).

3Even if I dole out all that I have [to the poor in providing] food, and if I surrender my body to be burned or [c] in order that I may glory, but have not love (God’s love in me), I gain nothing.

4Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily.

Now, are you going to ask me what the Wizard has to do with this part of Scripture? All of her journey she longed, she hoped, she trusted to get her to the Wizard. The man behind of smoke and mirrors was just a simple Kansas man. He wasn’t God, was he? The same actor was the fortune teller, gatekeeper, the coachman, the way to the Wizard, and the Wizard himself. He wore many hats and yet, when it came down to it, he couldn’t help Dorothy.

Mr. Oz, that’s not our God! All of my good works, if not filled with the Lord’s leading, are meaningless. O the treasures of our God! He can be trusted. He can be found. He is kind. He is good. He will always fill those who long for Him and for His heaven.

Well, I… I think that it… that it wasn’t enough to just want to see Uncle Henry and Auntie Em… and it’s that if I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own backyard; because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with.

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Dorothy learned throughout this movie that who she had to rely on her friends, hope when hope seems gone, fight for what you believe in and in the end, learned what she couldn’t hear when she entered this world. She longed for her world again.

I can guarntee when I get to heaven I’m not looking back. 🙂 This journey of mine full of apple throwing trees, fires, flowers that threaten to thwart my progress..cannot squelch my longing for heaven. And I want to love those around me, hold them up when they fall, comfort tears, give oil cans to those who have “rusted up”.

And my friends, I caught this and laughed. Remember what they did as they traveled along the yellow brick road? They sang. They sang of their hope to meet the Wizard!