I Believe!

Do you believe in magic? As for me, I say with a resounding ‘Oh My Gosh, YES, I believe!”

There is so much wonder and magic in this world that even with a million life times, we would not experience it all. I am a Christian so you might be asking, ‘Ok, if you are a Christian, how can you say you believe in magic?” With a smile I say to you…I believe because magic is just another word for wonderful, for miraculous, for glorious, for ‘Oh My Gosh!, for spectacular! And where do all these things come from? God, of course. So, for me not to believe would be anti-Christian. Let me explain….

This weekend, I watched two of the best movies I have seen in a long, long time. First I watched ‘The Golden Compass’ and second, ‘Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium’. I simply fell in love all over again.

With ‘The Golden Compass’, people of that world had animals who shared their lives with them, felt their pain and when something happened to one of them, animal or person, the other felt it. These animals were called demons. Now rest assured, they were far from what we associate with the word demon! In fact, these animals were symbols of the spirit/soul of the person. In this movie, children were the most important character and though many adult stars were in the movie, it was their purpose to play second fiddle to these children, the main character especially. I will try not to give too much away but, there was this ‘group’ of adults who were experimenting on the children and what they were doing is, ripping a little cut, as they called it, between the child and the demon. What entailed after that was simply hideous!! The child then lost their imagination, their wonderlust, their ability to be a child. They were forced to ‘grow up.’ They had no more child like wonder, no more wanting to pretend, no more playing, they became in essence, lifeless souls. Another word for it, they became adults in little bodies. This broke my heart. To see the glory of a child, the spark of life, the magic, ripped away by a person that is supposed to be the caretaker, the nurturer, the teacher of children…it was a nightmare. Imagine it. Children are born of the miraculous, they are born filled with all the magic of the universe, they are the magic of God brought to earth. Children are innocent and always see the magic in the world. We all have seen it, in their faces, in their eyes, in the preciousness of their faces while they sleep. We’ve seen their magic as they gaped in awe at the dinosaurs of long ago, in their fierceness as they played superhero chasing down the bad guy, we have seen it in their tender worry over a hurt animal and we have seen it in their eyes as they look up at us, when they don’t feel good, knowing a simple kiss from Mommy or Daddy will make it all better. You can not tell me that there is no such thing as magic in this world for I see it every day in the faces of my children and grandchild. Perhaps truly, children are God’s greatest magical gift to us!

Where ‘The Golden Compass’ scared me with nightmarish fiendishness, ‘Mr. Magorium’ made me cry as if my heart were surely breaking and would never heal again. It was simply a stunning movie, beautiful and so simple that I believe the majority of viewers will miss 99.9% of the truth, and absolute magic, in this ‘story’.

Mr. Magorium is the curator of a toy store…I stumble at those words as they simply can not describe Mr. Magorium! His toy store is magic and it is alive with, and of, magic. Malory is the store manager and Eric, who is about 10, works with her there. Mr. Magorium is going away. He wants things to be in order for Malory to take over, this is something she knows nothing of. Mr. M hires the Mutant…an accountant from ‘the agency’. He says that account-ant means really a mutant, and they call him Mutant right from the start. :O) When you know the fullness of the story, the name Mutant for the accountant is even richer in meaning! I smile so hugely as I recall this movie and my feeble attempt to fill you in on it.

Mr. M promptly advises Malory that he is going away and he is leaving the store to her. She is quite confounded by just what he means by ‘going away’ and 10 year old, wise beyond measure, Eric, fills her in. “He means he is going to Heaven and leaving you the store.” No fuss, no muss and that is the correct order of things, making perfect logical sense to this wonderful, wise 10 year old. Malory is however stunned and promptly refuses any such thing. He can’t go away, she can’t run the store, she was getting a ‘real’ job and on and on.

Malory is a pianist as well as the manager of the store and she is a pianist who has lost all faith in herself and in her music. As the ‘last day’ of Mr. M is swiftly ending, we begin to share in the finding of the magic once more by Malory for she truly has not lost that magic at all, she only lost the belief in herself. Losing the belief in ourselves is such an utter tragedy and something we do every single day if we don’t take care of that belief, nurturing it and keeping it healthy and alive! Malory takes Mr. M on an outing to show him all the wonderful things he will miss if he goes away. Instead, we get to see the magic of Malory that Mr. M has seen all along and it is wonderful and inspiring! We also get to see that perhaps Eric will be the one to run the store after Malory for Eric is indeed a wonderous, awesome soul. Eric is someone you instantly fall in love with despite his quirky look and manner, or maybe, because of it. Maybe I fell in love with Eric because I saw in him a little of myself AND the person that I always wanted to be. We even get to fall in love with the Mutant as he grows up to be a child and learns what it means to believe again.

This movie is….there are no words. Simple and in that simpleness, a wonderous, glorious, stunning, reminder that there is magic all around us, in every piece of our lives AND within us. We simply stop believing in magic when we stop believing in ourselves for we are Gods creations and thus, magic.

As for Mr. M…he dies… I say that and I smile, laugh and cry, tears of loss and tears of joy, all at the same time. You will have to watch it to understand this last tribute to Mr. M.

Times are hard!

Greetings All....

With gas prices soaring and thus, ALL other prices soaring, things are really getting rough out there. And, it feels like there in absolutely nothing we can do. Sure, we can change some habits that we have, clip more coupons, drive less, cut out un-necessary purchases/bills but, what about people that already do those things and STILL are being swallowed up by this never ending monster!? What do we do? Cry? Pray? Shout? Scream? I just don't know.

Today, I plan to search for more coupons and pray some more. I simply don't know what else to do! I believe there have to be work at home things that are legitamate and I would love to check into that but, how do you find them, knowing for sure you are safe and they are legitimate. I haven't a clue.

I just feel so lost in this madness right now with NO light at the end of the tunnel!

Till next time.... God keep you!

Mental