the secret garden

On our most recent weekly library trip, I checked out the cinematic adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s, The Secret Garden. I had viewed this movie while attending graduate school around 10 years ago at the cheap ($1.50) movie theater on a study break. Interesting way to spend a study break, I know. I believe I even went alone to this one! The Secret Garden had been one of my favorite books while growing up a long with, A Little Princess, and I remember thinking at that time, “I wonder if the movie will do it justice.”

It had been a long time since I’d first seen the movie and an even longer time since I’d read the book for the last time, so I decided to give it a whirl again, only this time I wouldn’t be alone while watching the movie as I’d have my own very precocious two year old to to view the movie alongside me. I didn’t know how well it would work with her, as she is fairly fidgety when watching “for real” (not cartoon) movies. Unbelievably, she actually seemed to really enjoy it, or at least she enjoyed watching it with mommy beside her on the couch and was also allowed her to drink tea out of a real china cup. Her little hand made the delicate tea cup seem large and clumsy…life adds such a perspective to the superfluous matter in our lives.

Watching the movie again I recalled the times I’d spent reading the book as a pre-teen/teen-ager. I distinctly remember curling under the covers in my bedroom when we lived in Maine with the book…attempting to warm my southern bones against those cold northern winds. I loved these old fashioned stories of girls wearing dresses and pinafores, taking tea and learning how to be little women. It’s something which, sadly, our world has forgotten. Little girls don’t spend much time being innocent these days. Most Barbie-like dolls aimed at girls just a little older than my Ana look decidedly like they belong in a Kid Rock video. It’s sad in more ways than I am capable of summing up in a blog entry that is supposed to be short and readable…so back to the movie!

As I watched the movie, I thought of all the things I’d like to teach my daughter. It’s easy to look at the externals such as manners, and the “A, B, C’s” and how to pray, and think they are a road map to life. How can I look her in the eye and teach her these things and think she’ll have all she needs to make it in the world? The truth is, life and hurt happen and one seems often to coexist with the other. I wish I could tell her that I myself had never had to shut out anyone from a garden planted in my soul. I’d be lying if I did.

There are places within all of us that have been shut off from the light of day…abandoned dreams, relationships that we hope to forget, pieces of ourselves kept secret from the light offered by others eyes. At some point though, just like Mary in the movie, we have to go in search of the key to those secret gardens. For me, that key has been my faith. Unlocking the door is the beginning of the journey, pushing and shoving and then allowing the faintest bit of life to trickle in. Like Mary, who eventually let Dicken in on her secret, we have to allow others with more experience to show the way, the proper branches to prune, to see where the weeds have sprung up. We have to do the work, the hard and often painful work of making the garden what it once was. Even the deadest of gardens can be brought back to life with the right amount of work, watering and light. Indeed, they can become even more beautiful than the original.

And, again, like Mary, we can learn the joy of seeing others experience our gardens. The thrill and wonder at the possible reaction and what magic could occur therein. In sharing her once secret garden, Mary encouraged her cousin to walk and to run and to dream of a real relationship with his father.

I think the closing off of gardens in our soul is somewhat inevitable. There is a time and a season for everything, or so Solomon says. I believe him. There is also a time for sowing and planting and for some odd reason I saw this little movie as an extended metaphor of my life. I looked behind the story and saw me. Never in all my readings of the book or in viewing the movie all those years ago had I come to these conclusions. However, having a little head full of dirty blonde curls resting on my shoulder and ultimately depending upon me to teach her how to sow and reap, adds perspective to the once superfluous matter of my life.

O gladsome radiance of the holy glory of the Father immortal, heavenly, holy, blessed, Jesus Christ! Unlock the doors and shed your light on all the secret gardens hidden within our souls.

Lord have mercy…