Okay, what I *meant* to say on the occasion of Annica’s membership vows yesterday was that there was this movie I saw, about a little girl in a hospital recovering from a broken arm, who is told a story by another patient, a movie stunt man, who was paralyzed in a fall. He entertains her by telling her an epic adventure, and in the movie we see how she imagines it. Characters in the adventure are imagined to be like people she knows: so her favorite hospital nurse is the beautiful heroine in the story, for example. The hero of the story initially looks like her father, who is dead, but as her understanding changes, the hero becomes the stunt man who is telling the story.

The stunt man is depressed and angry about his injury and decides to end the story. One by one the characters in the hero’s band are killed by the terrible enemy. In the little girl’s imagination, she herself has become a character, and she can’t bear to watch her friends and heroes die. “Why are you killing them?” she asks the stunt man. “Don’t make them die,” she pleads.

“It’s my story, I can do what I want,” he answers.

“Mine, too,” she corrects him.

The stunt man continues the story in its tragic direction. The little girl stands by in the story watching the hero as he loses his climactic fight with the cruel enemy. She is weeping for her friend and for the fallen hero. “Don’t let him die.”

“But he’s no good. He’s a coward. He deserves to die,” explains the stunt man, talking about himself more than the charcter in his story.

“But she loves him,” says the girl.

And at that point all I can think of is Mary in the garden, grieving for her crucified Lord.

There came a point for the little girl when she entered the story and took an active part. It was no longer just something she was listening to, it was something she was involved in. She was so strongly taken up, she even began to call the hero “father.”

This is the normal course of development for the children of the church, and we mark and celebrate their progress in making the story of the gospel their own. We rejoice to see them take ownership of their part and articulate the truth, “It’s my story, too.”

————–
P.S. The movie is now available on DVD and is entitled The Fall. Not everyone loves it like I do, so if you decide to watch it, temper your expectations.