About those marbles...

Did you ever see the movie Hook, way back when?  So much good stuff in that film.  Today’s entry from Neil had me thinking about an old man in Hook, a somewhat senile fellow named Tootles.  (What did we ever do before the internet?  Look stuff up at the library?)

From what I remember – and it’s been a while – we meet Tootles a couple of times, doddering along, saying, “I’ve lost my marbles.  Can you help me find them?”  He’s a gentle old soul, but nothing makes us doubt that he has, in fact, lost his marbles.

Metaphorically, we each dodder along, looking for what we lost in the garden.  We thrill to think that a friend or a group of people might accept us for who we are; we long to be safely ensconced in loving relationships.  When we don’t know how to find those things in healthy ways, we use any means necessary, resulting in broken, unhealthy relationships. 

God designed us to recognize real love and safety; we’re unsatisfied with the substitutes, thus we keep on looking.  Or, having found the real thing, we forget the treasure we have, and fall back into our former patterns of searching.

In case you’re worried about Tootles, he ended up okay – they found his marbles, yes, actual marbles, and they were what made him able to fly. 

Some days, the metaphors just write themselves…