"When You Group Up You Should Be Just Like You"

Everyone of us has childhood dreams, wishes and ambitions. As we look at others as to what they have, who they are, how they look or what have they become, we find ourselves dreaming or in wishful thinking.

A little girl tells Lucy: "When I grow up, I want to be like you." Lucy replies coming from in front of the dresser's mirror: "When you grow up you should just be like you." That was a scene in the latest movie of Narnia, adapted from C.S. Lewis' literary masterpiece.

I remember that after watching the first Narnia movie, I was so fascinated with C.S. Lewis in his skillful use of symbols that signify his religious belief. Like Lucy, who got tear a page from the book of incantations, I took out a book from the stack books left unread in a store room in a parish. Huh, I am guilty, because I took a book C.S. Lewis wrote and I haven't returned it yet.

The book was not about Narnia, but some short writings of Lewis, his life-story, his beliefs and some words about his works. Now I realized what Aslan told Lucy. That there are thoughts and things in this world that can take us away from how we value ourselves.

When I was kid, I wanted to be a doctor, an architect, an engineer, and artist. But I found myself teaching and enjoying it. Maybe that is me... simply fulfilling my desitiny. Just like how those Kids, Peter, Susan, Lucy and Edmond will find their selves in Narnia out of their will, from since the earlier movies. While in this movie, they have to fulfill their choices without losing connection from the past experiences of Narnia.

Narnia is a different world from that of those children. Its environment may be surreal and so are the creatures there, but it is so human. What captivates me the most to this piece of literature in a movie, is that of the creativity in fictionalizing religious and moral constructs without losing their sense.

Narnia, its world, its life, its creatures, its virtues and values exist as figment to a child's imagination of dream-world. A world that have struggles but with aspirations for peace, justice, liberty and integrity for all creations. Such world is what is missing, although possible to happen in our world.

Although I was watching the movie with a voracious appetite for images, I could not hold myself from thinking while I find myself a witness and a participant to the world of Narnia. I was thinking of its representations of our world and the Christian faith. While I was wathcing as mature adult and a critique I could not help myself wanting to be a child again and hoping that that child's dream world would never end or at least realize in my life.

In life and in our Christian growth, when we grow up, we should really be just like us. Just like a child. Wanting and believing. Dreaming and wishing. Creating and enjoying. Imagining and not worrying of anything. Never envious of other's, never anxious of ourselves, and never bound to time. Always believing that there is something to hope for and to look forward to.

I have grown up, and I am just like me. Nobody made me as who I am now, although others and many things must have contributed to who I have become. Yet, I still know that most of who I am happened to be my personal choice. I am still growing to maturity...but I don't want to lose my connection to that wonderful child I was. And, that is for now and for the time thereafter that I will have in my life. That I will have no regret in living the life and everything that goes with it as gift from above.

In the latest Narnia movie, I got a surprise that there were alot of viewers in the movie house on a weekday. Probably it was due to the holiday season, or maybe Narnia is really a good movie to watch. For me, it is a wonderful fantasy movie to see and to learn from, a classical literature of the 20th century.