The Wonder Child and Dr. Who

 Sunday, I spent the day with Dr. Who instead of cleaning the place up and was disappointed because I wanted to see the effects of the Discipline of Self-Esteem in my life.  But today as I was going over my past writings, I realized that Dr. Who and especially the things that made me want to live in Dr. Who's universe had a lot to do with the topic.

When Rob was little, a priest at St. Mary's told me that the most wonderful thing about being a little child was that the world was so new and everything was so wonderful to their eyes.  Looking at Rob, I could see the wonder in his eyes and I wanted that wonder to stay there forever.  As he grew older, many people became very angry with me because they felt that I was not punishing him enough.  They felt that the only way to keep kids in line was to punish them until they behaved- and if a child did not behave then you needed to punish them until they did.  In my own healing and recovery from the effects of abuse, I came to find the wonder in life myself and was very protective of preserving the wonder for both of us- and there were so many people who saw that wonder in me and felt that was because I was not being a grown-up.  One day I was so angry that I wrote another poem which I called - The Wonder Child.  Here it is:

The Wonder Child
                         
The soul is a wonder child.
It needs to be able to carry prayers to and from God.
It needs to be able to sense and feel and wonder and discover,
To release the wonder of it's potential on Earth.

We live in a world full of animals.
Full of greed and lust and self-satisfaction.
Full of taking and leaving and disappointing.
Devoid of responsibilities on Earth.

Society is a great policeman.
Full of laws, and rules, and internal regulations.
Full of put downs, push downs, and pull downs.
Devoid of the wonder of the Earth.

How do we chain the animal and not the soul?
How do we allow the wonder to be released without the anger?
We must learn the discipline of Self-Esteem.
Releasing the Power of God on the Earth.

The first verse is a powerful truth that I can feel even as I write this. Jesus said that to get to heaven, you had to come like a little child- and I believe that what he meant was that you need to keep the wonder in your life- that when you are open to God, you see the wonder, your soul is free, and it flies to and from heaven back and forth freely- carrying joy and prayers to God and bringing back grace and courage.  The thing that I love most about Doctor Who is that here is a creature who is almost 1000 years old who still has his wonder- who can still see the wonder in the world and the amazing potential of his human companions.  Dr. Who is still a wonder child- still in touch with all that is good- with a soul that carries his dreams to God and carries out God's dreams for the earth.

In every episode, Dr. Who faces the quandary in verse 2.  He wants to live in a world of peace, love, and harmony with universal brotherhood, but there is always someone who wants to destroy the human race- sometimes for very stupid reasons.  He doesn't want to kill the bad guys but constantly finds that he has no choice.  I think that he needs some prayer in his life.  With prayer in your life, you find the way to bring God's love to the world in spite of all the evil and all the bad guys.  It doesn't really apply to a 5 year old (although we need to reference Stormageddon in Closing Time- the baby who wanted to be a dark lord until his Dad overcame the cybermen and then he was glad to be just Alfie- that underneath every evil villain is just a little child who had lost their wonder). So that is verse 2.

Verse 3 was all about the people who were ribbing me.  I know that society is good and that we need to live in society but sometimes you can just feel your soul bursting with wonder and joy- and society struggling to take chains and trap it- keep it from being free and completing that circuit that makes everything work- and as your soul is struggling against the weight of those chains, you can feel the wonder dying- you can feel your soul dying again and you think that it will never live again.  Both that is just not true- all that you need to do is to open yourself up to the wonder again- and there you are voila- being a conduit for all that wonder and grace again!!  Hooray!  That's why I love being a Mary Rose- because a Mary Rose is a flower that can always get the wonder back again- no matter how many times it is lost.  Dr. Who goes through the same things- he gets lost in the chaos and suffering- but then he sees the love and courage of his companions- his faith in human nature is reborn- and he is able to save the human race again!  He always ends every struggle reborn again, free- full of wonder- off to see all of time and space.

And I guess that reflection pretty much sums up the last verse.  How do we resolve the conflict of not wanting the evil in verse 2 but not wanting to give in to the answers that society has arrived at in verse 3- we must learn to find that source of self-esteem in ourselves that is based on what is right and true and holy within us- that helps our soul to be free to carry prayers to and from God- that allows us to be the people that God created us to become- the conduit of His grace and His love to all the earth.  Then we can all be free- even without a Tardis!