by Loretta Murphy-Birster

Created on: December 11, 2006   Last Updated: May 02, 2007

Why WE GROW OUT OF BELIEVING IN MAGIC

Do we grow out of believing in magic?

My favorite scene in Peter Pan, is when Peter asks the audience to help save Tinker Bell by believing in her magic. It is the quintesential moment of truth in theatre, a point of no return, when we must suspend our disbelief in order to stop Tink's light from going out forever.

For several generations, science has made it a mission to take the magic out of modern life. Ho hum...we are traveling to a new plant. Yawn, we have discovered how to cloak ourselves in invisibility. Boring...we can tell the gender of babies long before they are ready to wear either pink or blue. As adults, we are made to feel foolish if we believe in superstitious folklore. Children no longer are read fairy tales at night to help them learn how to fight dragons and fend off evil. We are a matter of fact, down to earth, stodigily scientific breed these days.

Imagination is a lost art. Why dream? Dreams are the country cousin of big city data driven research. Dreams involve thinking and wishing and hoping. Who wants to waste all that time thinking when we can google the internet and find the answer - or many answers - to anything we want? Who wants to wish when we can go down to Walmart and buy whatever we want to fill our every void? Who cares about hope? We have Mastercard and Visa.

Magic involves a sense of wonder, a desire to find the lost chord, a wistful pursuit of hidden treasures, lofty ideals and keys to kingdoms that shimmer in the distance. Magic is Disney dwarfs and Sleeping Beauty castles, Merlin and Gandalf, and Jack's Bean Stalk. Who needs it in today's real world? Why teach our kids to believe in such silliness? Why believe in it ourselves?

We grow out of magic because we let ourselves grow out of touch with our inner selves. We disbelieve in magic when we stop seeing pictures in the clouds and the Little Folk behind toadstools. We shun magic when we decide that having the newest electronic gadgetry and watching Sex in the City is more important than pursuing the shimmering beauty of self actualization. We run from magic when we stop hoping and wishing and accept reality as more than it is. We abhor magic when we lose the little girl and boy wonder we are born with and take on the grumpy old view that dreams no longer come true.

But do not dispair.

Magic is making a come back. Harry Potter proved that. So did the recent success of movie the Lord of the Rings. J.K., in her Potter series, though a new story, gathered many pieces of old magic into her tale and captured the imagination of several generations. Not just children...but many adults.

Where there is imagination, there is magic.

The remake of the time honored TLOTR proved this as well. A magic starved public wanted to believe. Tired of science's in your face explanation for everything, the world public stood up and said, Enough! We believe! Gandalf and Aragorn, Tree Beard, Frodo, the Woods of Lothlorian! Elves! Evil versus Good. We want to see the Good Guy win again. We want to imagine talking trees and larger than life heros. It gives us hope. It gives us strength to believe that we too can be bigger than we are.

Why do we outgrow magic? Oh, but we do not! We may fool ourselves into thinking we do, but it only takes a moment...a dusting of fairy dust...a plea from Peter to stop the light of magic from going out...

Tink doesn't die. Go visit Peter Pan and you will see for yourself. Her light burns bright because no one will ever allow it to go out.

Magic lives. It will always live. Why? It is simple - because deep inside, we never stop believing.

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