Pineridge Blog

As the stay at home orders began, TV stations were still running commercials that suddenly were from another time that was slipping away.  People not wearing masks or maintaining proper physical distance, sitting too close and, God forbid, laughing together in restaurants!  What about the invisible, deadly droplets?!?  I cringed. 

The new ones made since the lockdown are accompanied by only a single, somber piano or quiet strings.  A voice assures us, earnestly that “we are all in this together.”  And then at the end they drop in their company name, just to make sure we remember that they will still be there to sell us a car or a pair of pants “when this is over.”  But when it will be over, no one seems to know.

It makes me think of the Wizard of Oz.  Remember when the four friends return to the throne room after defeating the Wicked Witch to discover that the all-powerful Oz is really smoke and mirrors controlled by a funny little man behind the curtain? 

I know what that feels like.  All my life I have wanted to believe my parents, then doctors, politicians and even stuff I buy to have the power to fix a lot of situations or at least make me feel better.  But in the end even the supposedly all-powerful are just human, and no amount of stuff can fix it.  Now is a time the curtain is pulled back to reveal that the ones we want to believe know for sure, really don’t.

When Dorothy and the others make the discovery of the true identity of the wizard, they are angry at having been tricked.  But what the true wizard gives them is not magic but the recognition that they never really needed him in the first place.  He only cites the evidence of how they have proven that they already have a brain, a heart or courage because they have used their unique gifts for the others on the journey.   The Buddhists say, “When the student is ready the teacher (or wizard) will appear.”

And then Glenda, the Good Witch, comes back and says to Dorothy, “You've always had the power to go back to Kansas.”  The scarecrow says, “Why didn’t you tell her?”  Glenda replies, “Because she wouldn’t have believed me.  She had to learn it for herself.”   They ask Dorothy what she has learned and she says, “Well, I think that it wasn't enough just to want to see Uncle Henry and Auntie Em -- and it's that if I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own backyard.” 

Which is truth, not just being overly cautious.  Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God is within you.”