A Forgotten World: Part 1- The Peter Pan Syndrome.

When thinking back on my childhood, there are many things to remember:

1. One of my earliest memories is helping break my brother's arm. I say help because, after all, he was chasing after me and would have not been doing so had I not done something to provoke his pursuit of me. It was just unfortunate that that purse strap had to be hanging out to trip him up.

2. The Arizona desert. For those of you that have never experienced this thing, it can be the most beautiful but also the most terrifying and painful thing ever. For example, try getting stuck with a "jumping cactus" with its inch to two inch needles that will literally jump right off the plant to get you and try not screaming. Or how bout the various snakes and coyote that would roam around my church at night. Or even worse the tarantulas that would crawl just about anywhere and catch me off guard. Then there are the beautiful mountains to wake up to every day. And the amazing sunsets, with its rich purples, oranges, and reds that light up the evening sky. 

3. The Couch Sleeping Scenario. When I was a kid, for whatever reason, I did not like sleeping in my bedroom. Yes, the bed was very comfortable. Yes, it was nicely painted. If there were any scary monsters under my bed, my parents' room was right down the hall. So why would I then choose the "den" couch (my family have what we can a den and a living room. I have never really understood why. We sound like lions.)? It is a good question. My brothers did this as well. Maybe it was fear. Maybe we wanted our sleeping to be a family activity. I cannot honestly tell you. 

4. Last Food. My parents made a rule for us boys that 9 at night was the time for the "last food" of the day. The phrase my parents coined for themselves would be " Tyler, what do you want for last food?" While this seems to be a very general statement implying any type of food that you want, this was not so. The main food on the menu was ice cream. All different kinds. And you better believe that there was Hershey's syrup involved. 

5. Kitchen Basketball. My dad was a stud athlete. He ruled football and basketball in the state of Illinois. It was only natural that he would introduce us to these and many other sports. Countless amounts of times, we would venture to the school to play basketball, kickball, or any other sport that we felt like playing. However, since he wasn't always able to drive us to an actual basketball court all the time, we were forced to create a replacement, which is how the awesomeness of kitchen basketball came about. All you need: a tennis ball and a door frame. The imaginary basketball hoop is placed in the middle of the top rung of the door frame. the tennis ball is the basketball (Self-explanatory). Normal basketball rules applied. My brothers and I would play this for hours. And since we had our imagination juices flowing, we always acted as our own announcers and crowd, as if this was the most important basketball game in history, with millions of viewers at home and the thousands in the imaginary stands. If we scored, the sound of cheers roared from their imaginary mouths of those watching. when imitating the crowd, it was never a loud cheer, but a sort of breathy, whispery "yeeeaaahhhh" or "ayyyyyahhhh".

There are so many memories that I could go on forever, such as the many, many, many words that my younger brother and I have invented and continue to use and talk about to this  day. Or all the impromptu movies and shows my brothers and I would put on for our parents, families and friends. Or the ridiculous games that you create with your brothers and best friends when your parents spend countless hours at the church. Or the somewhat awkwardly cute story of when I first liked a girl. The list goes on and on.

My childhood almost seems like another world that I once inhabited, one I can barely remember. There will be so many times that I will be lying in bed or simply walking to class and suddenly, I will be thinking about where I have come from. I moved to Texas when I was in the sixth grade. A good portion of my life is cemented into my life in Texas. In fact, most of my crucial growing up years happened there in Flower Mound. Fine Arts competitions. Middle School. High School. First girlfriend. First kiss. Playing in basketball in school for the first time. graduation. And on and on I could go. 

Yet there was a whole other world that existed before that. The one back out in the desert. The one where I learned how to ride my bike. The one where I went to my first class in public school ever. The one where I got to know what it feels like to get a scratch on my face, knee and arm. The one where I learned what words not to say so that my mom didn't rub my mouth out with soap. The one where I fell in love with Super Mario Brothers, Sonic the Hedgehog and Mega Man. This world existed. It is still as much a part of me as Texas is/was. It is so easy to forget that. 

One thing that my family did a lot of when we all lived at home was watching tv and movies together. So many  hours were spent laughing, staring, and crying (not for me) in front of the screen. Even if we were busy about homework, cooking, or cleaning, the tv was on. i imagine this is what drew me to the arts in the end : )

I used to watch movies over and over again. I would watch a movie, rewind it, and then watch it again. And then repeat. 

One movie that I did this with: Hook. Classic. Robin Williams was in many childhood movies that I can recall (Aladdin, Mrs. Doubtfire, Jack). This movie, however, stuck with me in a different way, and I have been thinking about it a lot recently. The story is so compelling. Peter Pan leaves Neverland and begins a life in "reality" , taking on the name Peter Banning and forgetting of his adventures or origins with the Lost Boys and Captain Hook. He marries a girl and becomes a lawyer. He becomes content with the "normal life" or "real world". His grandmother-in-law, however, knows the truth about Peter's past, about this other world. She is there to remind him of his past, or the other world that really exists. That flying is real. Captain Hook is a real man. Fairies and mermaids are real. For Peter Banning, though, this world has almost become imaginary. Non-existent. Powerless. A waste of time. 

While I don't think Tinker Bell is about to fly into my room and whisk me away to some far off land, I think we share the same disease as Peter does. 

Recently, my life has been outrageously busy, filled with homework, rehearsals, and Bible study. I have had to fight to find down time in the past two weeks. Even on my days off, like today and tomorrow, I am finding my life so tightly wrapped up and less and less relaxing.

Not only this, but my material desires are like a constant growing list. Whether it is food, music, movies or school supplies, the need is always there. It is easy to get lost in this.

When I do find those moments to just sit back and think, a curious thought enters my mind. Is this all there is to life? This world of always needing or always doing busy work? While i do find this stuff enjoyable and even meaningful, I begin to think that there has to be more to life than this. There has to be something that I am forgetting about. Something that got lost in the hustle and bustle of waking up at 8:30 to get dressed and ready for class at 9:30. Something that got lost between the casual exchange of dollar bills and hamburgers between the clerk and myself at the counter of Wendy's. Something that is hidden behind the seemingly meaningless dialogue between a stranger and myself as we cross paths heading to class. There has to be another world that I am forgetting about.

And the fact is: there is a world that exists beyond my world. In fact: there is someone who lives in that world just like Captain Hook, looking to kill me and who has many companions to try and help accomplish this same task . There are beings like the Lost Boys who are there to fight my battles with me and help me find who I really am. There is a being like Tinker Bell who is there and here to help guide me into it. 

Let me me be clear. I am not talking about fairies and pirates. I am talking about heaven and hell, angels and demons, God and Satan. 

We are just like Peter. We so commonly forget that that is the world in which we came from, not this materialistic world. And when I say came, I don't mean we were transported here. I mean that we came into this world from the creative mind of God. He created us. Our desires cannot be fully satisfied here on this planet. Therefore, we must have been created for another world, as C.S. Lewis would say. 

This other world carries power. This other world carries truth tellers and liars. There are those who are there to point you away from their world so that you would forget about it. There are those that are there to point you back to it so that your soul will be saved eternally. The even scarier part may be that we live in it and yet don't even realize it. Or rather, don't believe that it even exists. Or is a part of who we are. 

Let's take a journey into it. Take a step of faith with me into what we can't see, into a world in which we are the spoils of a war, a spiritual war, into a world that will either kill us or save us.