The film ends there, but I think there’s a treasure underneath this treasure—a reminder of something intrinsic to the Christian faith.
I often still see little car decals that proclaim “NOTW,” or “not of this world.” Wendy, in its own way, gets at that idea. As much as we live and work in this world, a part of us always feels like we’re foreigners here—that we belong somewhere else. Somewhere better. We hear the train whistle and rumble, and part of us longs to climb aboard. But a bigger part of us knows that we’re stuck here, living lives that partly satisfy, feeling moments of transcendence that hint at a greater reality beyond.
Many classic movies hint at that dual sense of being—feeling tethered to the ground when we know, somehow, we were meant to fly. Luke staring at those two suns in Star Wars: A New Hope. Dorothy singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” And now, Wendy chasing down a train headed for Neverland. You don’t have to be Christian to feel that we’re not of this world; I think it’s a near-universal sensation, one that God placed in our hearts to call us Home.
We are, in a sense, prisoners here—locked in our bodies and upbringings, our experiences and choices and duties.
But Wendy hints at a greater truth. Yes, we are locked in this imperfect, fallen creation, but it’s God’s creation, imbued with His divine design and beautiful spark. The secret in finding it, Wendy suggests, is seeing the world through a child’s eyes—to behold the wonder around us and embrace the joy we feel. But it’s also in seeing each other through a mother’s eyes—to care, and sacrifice, deeply. To love creation and those in it not as a child, but as a parent.
“There’s nothing wrong with being old,” Wendy tells us. “Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven,” Jesus says.
The secret, according to Wendy, is to hold this paradox in one hand. We must understand the prison we live in, and still whoop it up like a rodeo.
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