Thursday, July 17, 2008

charlottes web and Jesus


i don't know about you, but here at our house we watch movies in phases. colby picks one movie, it has its 15 minutes of fame, if you will, and then another movie has its chance in the spotlight. these "phases" are usually 5 to 7 days long. lately we haven't really been watching anything in particular. we came off the toy story glory days and hit a ditch of movielessness.

then came charlottes web. my mom took colby and molly on one of their many many trips to the big big store (also known as wal-mart) and this is what colby picked for his "treat". according to grammie he'd been eyeing it for awhile so she finally bought it for him. i guess consistency has its perks, this one in the form of a very old and poorly animated movie.
thats right. i just knocked one of the classics. but have you watched it recently?
i must add that at one time i too enjoyed charlottes web.
i was actually looking forward to sitting down with colby and talking him through the life and times of wilbur the pig.
my thoughts quickly changed from "this will be great!" to "seriously?"
have you ever had one of those moments where you experience something that, as a kid, was super fun or bigger than life as it were, then you experience that same thing as an adult and ask yourself what you were thinking?
thats kind of where i was as i sat on my couch with my three year old singing "chin-up, chin-up" along with debbie reynolds in the form of a singing spider.
at any rate, that has been the movie of choice for the last week or so.
moving along to the point of my story....we were on our way home from church the other day and colby says to me...
colby: "mommy, did charlotte die so wilbur could live?" (hmm, not exactly...)
me: "well, colby, charlotte worked really hard so that wilbur wouldn't be killed, and that probably just made her really tired. but everyone dies (back to that again), so she would have died eventually anyway." (oh, my goodness is that the right answer?)
colby: "but wilbur got to live cause of all the things charlotte did for him."
me: "yes, thats right. she saved him."
colby: "Jesus died so we could live."
me: "wow, you totally just connected Jesus to charlottes web." (is charlottes web a spiritual metaphor? have i seriously missed this for 20-something years??)
colby: "did Jesus die so wilbur could live?"
me: "no buddy, that was charlotte. kind of. remember we already covered that? Jesus died for people."
colby: "did charlotte die so Jesus could live?" (oh no)
me: "no. charlotte didn't really die for anyone. she just loved wilbur very much."
colby: "so who died for Jesus?" (how to end this conversation....)
me: "no one died for Jesus. Jesus died for us, and He loves all of us very much.
colby: "yeah. thats great."
me: "yes it is." (whew!)
so now we're gathering spiritual conotations from random animated movies. fantastic.
well, God is in everything. i guess that includes charlottes web.


5 comments:

Shelly C said...

I love it when their spiritual journeys spill over like that... you never know what's going to spark a conversation.

Bethany said...

So I'm chiming in for the 1st time here. Thanks for the great laughs from your hilarious stories!
And I'm amazed that Colby can connect Charlotte's Web with Jesus. Wow! Either Rebekah isn't that insightful yet, or she is totally taking in things she hasn't told me yet.

Tex said...

Wait till you let them watch the remake with real people in it. The take-aways might be the same for ColbyT, but at least you will have a better chance of enjoying the movie!!

We skipped right over the old animation and went right for the Julia Roberts voiced one..she makes a great spider!

Traci said...

Colby's doing okay in my book. Rylan told me today that Jesus lives in our tummies. So we're mixing Jesus and Jonah around here. But hey, they're three, right? They'll get it.

You did well on your answers. I hate those questions where you think, "Oh no. I'm molding this kid's mind. What do I say to THAT?"

Fincher said...

I loved Charlotte's Web as a kid. I'm right there with you on the things that were mind-blowing when I was little, but now are not so hot. Have you watched Mary Poppins as an adult? That one is down right creepy. (I still love it though. Julie Andrews can sing the stars down!)