I don’t how many times I have watched Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium. Apparently plenty because my kids now tell me the movie is boring, while I, still can’t seem to get enough of it. The last time I watched it, a short little scene jumped out at me that I had never taken much notice of before.
It’s morning. Mr. Magorium meets his friend Mahoney and they are off to start an exciting day, full of CHILDLIKE adventures. It just happens to be Mr. Magorium’s last day to live, and he is aware of this fact.
As he greets his friend, he slaps his legs and proclaims, “Pants!”
“What about them?” Mahoney asks, a bit confused by his enthusiasm.
“Nothing. Just PANTS!” He answers with passion.
Perhaps you have to see the movie as many times as I have to really be taken by this scene. But can I just tell you, it is obvious why this man, Mr. Magorium, is otherwise known as the Wonder Aficionado.
I picked CHILDLIKE as my word for the year, and it has been a hard word to figure out. It seems so fleeting in its appearances in my life. Much like the glittering light I mentioned in my post yesterday, just as I stick out my fist to grab at it, it escapes me. It hasn’t been as easy a word to tie into my day-to-day life as FREE or IMPERFECT were for me. But seven months into 2010, I think I’m finally getting some perspective, and I am grateful for the chance to wrestle with such a word.
There is a reason why Lee Ann Womack’s words ring so true to us:
I hope you never lose your sense of wonder
You get your fill to eat but always keep that hunger
Because, unfortunately, as adults, we do lose it. We lose wonder, we lose our hunger, we lose our rose-colored glasses and we hang up our explorer’s hat on a nail of disappointed dreams and discouraged hopes. Life becomes predictable even painful at times, and certainly there is no reason to get excited over PANTS! There is no reason to get excited much at all.
But children, children have much to be excited about. Sunflowers and dancing light on a wall and yes, even pants. Their eyes are new. They truly are seeing things for the first time. My kids are teaching me how to see again, how to recover the eyesight that I’ve surrendered in the honorable name of “maturity” and “adulthood” and “living in the real world.”
Being CHILDLIKE has felt fleeting this year because adults everywhere are saying, “Just.” They are just pants. They are just sunflowers. It’s just sunlight on a wall. It’s just a stay-at-home-mom role. It’s just a dream. It’s just a book. It’s just a blog post. It’s just a movie. It’s just a job. It’s just a Secret Club. It’s just a song. They’re just kids. It’s just a quilt. He’s just a husband. He’s just God.
“One of the main weaknesses the average person suffers is too much familiarity with the word impossible. We know all the rules that will not work. We know all the things that cannot be done.”
- Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
“Don’t reduce holy mysteries…”
- Matthew 7:6
A Wonder Aficionado is a person who likes, knows about, appreciates and fervently pursues wonder. A Wonder Aficionado inspires an affection for wonder in others. A Wonder Aficionado slaps his legs and yells, “PANTS!” at a world that has forgotten. “PANTS!” to anyone who will hear. “PANTS!” to those who will have eyes to see. “PANTS!” even knowing that many will laugh and point fingers and say things like “impossible” or “just.”
“There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.”
- Albert Einstein
As I revisit my word CHILDLIKE, I realize how closely knit it is to this word WONDER. That is the spirit I am wanting to learn from 2010. Success would be to march out on the other side adorned in my very own Wonder Aficionado pants.
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That is one of my all-time favorite movies. It’s full of inspiration for creativity and life. I can’t get over its brilliance.
i love this. i have been known for acting like a child, but that is so different than the childlike faith and wonder God desires us to embody.
one of my mama moments hit me like a sucka-punch…i couldn’t take all the noise going on on in my house, i had enough. so much noise, i ran over to my girls and looked down and started to yell….”stop acting like……..” and mid sentence God changed me words….”children!!!!” I wanted to say wild animals (interlaced with an expletive…truly.)…but God showed me they were simply being His children and how dare I try to rob them of their moment of sheer delight and joy.
(and yeah, my girls never let me live that one down….and of course, it only made them laugher harder and louder.)
Your blog posts this week have been extra-WONDERful, and I think I figured out why!
You’ve done really great at combining the abstract world (your thoughts, ideas, musings, and incite) with the physical world (the anecdotes about your kids and your life). A lot of writers, especially bloggers, usually focus on just one of these realms. But when you put them together like you have in the Wonder posts this week, it really works! It reminds me of something Don Miller wrote about recently: http://donmilleris.com/2010/07/22/the-context-for-spirituality-is-not-spirituality/
Thanks for teaching me a technique of good writing that I’d never noticed before.
Katie, this post of Don’s could not have come at a better time for me. It is precisely the words I’ve been needing and believing and searching for. It’s one of those deep sighs of the soul that I can’t explain to you. But thank you.
Sweet! I definitely thought of you when I read Don’s post. I’m so glad it was what you needed.
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