|
|
Christian Indie Radio
GetChristianMusic
Solid Walnut Music
|
|
|
|
|
|
Devotionals
|
|
Cartoons
Culture
Family
Games
Health
Homeschooling
Humor
Inspiration
Kids
Men
Ministry
Parenting
Poetry
Teens
Women
|
|
Statement of Faith
Contact Us
|
|
|
|
Culture Watch:The Wisdom of 'Tuck Everlasting'
by Lee Warren (Lee's bio)
Send this page to a friend
[Caution Spoilers!: This article contains movie spoilers.]
If you could choose to live forever (here on earth), would you? That's the question that the trailer for the new movie “Tuck Everlasting” asks; a movie adapted from the 1975 novel of the same name written by Natalie Babbit which is set in the 1800's.
Winnie Foster must answer that question by trying to decide whether living forever—just as she is now, a fifteen year old girl—is blessing or a curse.
Winnie is the daughter of wealthy parents, complete with a huge house surrounded by a large fence. A fence that in Winnie's mind, keeps her from experiencing life.
She couldn't help but sneak out and see what life was like beyond the fence. In her exploration of the woods behind her house, she happens upon a seventeen year old boy named Jesse Tuck drinking water from a brook at the base of a tree.
Mysteriously, the boy won't let her drink out of it. When his brother shows up, he reminds Jesse that their secret can never be divulged. Jesse's brother takes Winnie against her will back to the Tuck household.
At first, she just wants to return home. But after she realizes how well she fits into the Tuck household because of their simple, but close family life, her attention turns toward their secret. When it becomes obvious that she is falling for Jesse, he tells her the secret. The Tucks have eternal life here on earth because of a brook they drank out of many years ago. They had no knowledge about it providing eternal life when they drank from it.
Winnie contemplates drinking out of the brook so she can spend forever with him. But the Tucks want her to understand that living forever in her present state won't be all that she hopes it will. She will stay exactly as she is for eternity the moment she drinks out of the brook. Her perspective on life, her maturity level and physical characteristics, will all stay the same.
Along with her unchanging characteristics, would come isolation. How could a person who never changes, especially in appearance, ever have friends without telling them about the brook? And the more people who found out about the brook, the more unnatural life would become on earth.
When someone from the Tuck's past finds out where they are, they have to pull up roots and hurry out of town on horse and buggy so their secret isn't found out. That leaves Winnie in a tough predicament. Drink of the brook and spend forever with the one she loves, but never get to experience any other stage of life or let him go.
She painstakingly lets him go. As they part, Jesse tells her to drink from the brook and he'll return for her when he is able. The movies flashes ahead to modern times to a still unchanged but hopeful Jesse, who pulls into Winnie's town on a motorcycle—only to find her tombstone.
As Jesse looks down at Winnie's tombstone, he discovers that she was a devoted wife to another man, a fact that that says a lot about her decision to not drink from the brook. She had the power to have everything she always wanted; a family she fit in with and a man whom she loved. But she walked away knowing that her desires mattered little if it meant she had to go back to living inside of a fence. Which is exactly what would have happened if she had chosen to live a life void of cycles.
While we don't possess the same control that Winnie did concerning the future, what would happen if we did? Would we jump at the chance to meet our desires or would we, like Winnie, contemplate the consequences of our actions? Are we so attached to our comfortable life that we would pass up the opportunities to grow in wisdom and experiencing the cycles of life such as marriage, having children, becoming grandparents and growing old just to avoid death?
Winnie chose to live a natural life, one filled with the pain of not having the one she loved and knowing that she would never have him since he would live forever and she would not. She chose to press on in spite of her pain and in the process she found another that she could love. Such is the cycle of life.
I understand the appeal that living forever here on earth brings for the unbeliever because of the uncertainty of where they will spend eternity. But for the Christian, we ought never to fear the cycles of life—for they are all God-ordained and after all, we've already been promised eternal life.
Copyright 2002, Lee Warren. All rights reserved. Used with permission.
|
About Lee Warren: Lee Warren is a freelance writer from Omaha, Nebraska. He has written for various publications and is currently working on a novel. If you are interested in reading more of his work or in receiving his column via e-mail, please go to his website: www.leewarren.net or drop him an e-mail: LeeWJunior@cox.net.
|
Send this page to a friend: