The Land Before Time

Two nights ago I was trying to find something for Henry and I to do. He was getting to that point of pure insanity and I had to come up with something or we were going to be in bad shape! (parents of toddlers all know what I am talking about) He had gotten a lot of movies for his birthday so I got out "The Land Before Time". We curled up in his bed and got out his little DVD player. He was immediately intrigued by the dinosaurs and the adventure they were on. 

As I lay there with my son I started to realize that this movie I had loved so many years ago actually has a lot of really important life lessons that as adults we really need to pay attention to. It talks about grief and loss, friendship, segregation and in the end offers hope. 

When Little Foot loses his mother she tells him that she will always be with him even he can't see her and to let his heart guide him. Grief sucks. It is one of the hardest thing a person can go through in their life. I am beyond grateful for my faith and that I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that my father is always with me and that a love like that can never be broken, not even by death. In the book of Ruth she demonstrates this kind of love to her mother in law, Naomi. She refuses to leave her no matter what happens, even death. 

"Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.”

Human connection is something we all long for and being able to experience that connection even beyond death is what true love and the Kingdom of Heaven on earth is. 

The movie also touches on the issue of diversity, inclusion and segregation. When Little Foot meets Cera he just wants to play and is told by their parents "Three horns don't play with long necks". Little Foot doesn't understand and his mother explains that they stick to their own kind. 

We do this to our own children. We teach them that they shouldn't play with kids that aren't like them, that other people are different than us and then we try to argue that racism, discrimination and exclusion does not exist. I believe the best thing we can do for our children is talk about it from the beginning. Yes we are all different on the outside but what is under our skin is the same and that our job as followers of Christ is to look beyond what we see in front of us and to really see the person. I could go on and on about white privilege, the oppression of people of color in our world and how it is our job to break those barriers to divide us. I will probably do that in another blog but my point is simply that we could learn a lot from Little Foot and Cera. They come together, solve problems and in the end build a community together.

The end of the movie offers hope. When they make it to the great valley, Little Foot finds his grandparents and they are all able to live happily, together. Hope comes out of our suffering. If we allow the Holy Spirit to enter our day to day lives we will never truly be alone. The Holy Spirit is there to offer that support and hope that good things do happen, that suffering is a part of life but in the end it will all be okay b/c we believe in the power, love, grace and mercy of God. 

Henry keeps asking to watch the dinosaur movie. I can only hope that as he grows to love it more and more he will see the true messaging in it and not just another dinosaur adventure! 

God Bless this beautiful life and the messages that we now see as adults in the things we loved as children.