slayING the jabberwocky

I love Tim Burton movies. I just love them. I love the sets. I love their costuming (someday, I'm going to be a Tim Burton character for Halloween, but I better get started on that now,if I want to have it all figured out by then). I love their edgy, whimsical darkness. I love thier sarcasm and satire. They alway's seem like these artful retellings of stories we've heard, or at least feel like we've heard before.

I finally got sit down and watch Alice in Wonderland, and as usual, I was not disappointed. It. was. fabulous. It was whimsical and dark and fanciful. It made me wish there were a real place called Wonderland. I have to confess I've actually watched it more then once. It made me want to read the book, and I think, someday, I will. Someday, when I'm not in school and being forced to read things like The Picture of Dorian Gray....ugh....although perhaps it would make a good Tim Burton movie someday. ;)

Although I loved everything I've already mentioned that I love about Tim Burton movies, there was something else about it that stuck with me. Every now and again in a movie or a book there will some one or two-liner that repeats itslef in my mind and somehow makes its way into my life. When I watched The Dark Knight it was "You make your own luck." In Lord of the Rings it was something about making the most of your time....I know, I know, for something that stuck with me, I should remember it better.


What stuck with me about this movie, was the Six impossible things. When Alice was told she should stop wasting her time thinking about such impossible things, like flying, she responded with,

"Sometimes, my father believed in as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

Later in the movie she used this idea to bolster herself to gain the courage to slay the Jabberwocky (If you don't know what a Jabberwocky is, you should, its great fun. Look it up and see picture above.). She listed them all as she fought, things like "Animals can talk" and "There is a cake that make you grow when you eat it." Her final and 6th impossible thing was " I can slay the Jabberwocky."

So, she did.

While I don't have literal Jabberwockies to slay, and I'm not really all that certain about the idea of cakes that make you grow when you eat them, and I would actually be freaked out if my cat talked to me, there are goals, ideas, or accomplishments in my life that seem just as impossible. So, I've decided to make believing in six (or sometimes even one) impossible thing a part of my life.

Sometimes they can be "little", like " I can pass economics", "I can get over it if I don't pass economics." or " I can write this paper" or, on a bad day, even "I can get through today". Sometimes they can be "big" like " I can make it through this season of life" or "There is joy to be found here." There are no hard fast rules to what my impossible things could be, just whatever seems impossible for that day, week, month, year etc. Sometimes it can be things that just feel impossible at that time but aren't, like "God loves me" or "Fear not" or even "I can try something new."

Six Impossible Thing's is really more of an attitude then it is a list. It is the willingness to take risks and move forward. It's the ability to stand on the edge of some terrible, wonderful, wild thing and jump. It's the dreaming up of new ideas and saying "This could work" and then doing it. It's being creative and not apologizing for it.

It is being fearless. It is trusting. It is being free.

So, whatever your Jabberwockies, I hope you to find the courage to slay them. I would say "Good luck"...but remember, you make your own. ;)