When Covid-world started last March there were rainbows – in homes, supporting NHS staff…
We remembered the ‘Wizard of Oz’ and Dorothy singing:
Somewhere over the rainbow skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true
Times may be tough, but we’ll pull together. Rainbows meant hope.
The world has moved on. We have loneliness, suffering, anger, fed-up-ness, conspiracy theories. The Christmas bubble may bring a little relief, but for many it’s a sad, gloomy world.
Some of us have tried to stay positive. We’ve counted our blessings, had weeks of gratitude. We’ve been appreciated health, friendship, family, home… and now the vaccine!
Returning to Oz… At the end of the story the Lion gets courage, the Scarecrow a brain, the Tinman a heart. Glinda, the good witch, returns:
Dorothy: Will you help me? can you help me?
Glinda: You don’t need to be helped any longer. You’ve always had the power to go back to Kansas.
Dorothy: I Have?
Scarecrow: Then why didn’t you tell her before?
Glinda: Because She wouldn’t have believed me. She had to learn it for herself.”
Tinman: What have you learned Dorothy?
Dorothy: I think that … if I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again I won’t look any further than my own backyard…
Scarecrow: But that’s so easy. I should have thought of it for you…
Glinda: No, she had to find out for herself…
It’s a story about developing – even through difficult times. Whatever the future holds we need the Lion’s strength and courage; we need the Scarecrow’s brain and thinking-power; we need the Tinman’s heart of compassion.
Dorothy teaches us that we have the potential to find it out for ourselves through our experience of life.
And those of us with faith will look to our God, who will encourage, enable and empower positive growth in and through good and bad times.
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