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From Neverland to Wonderland | A Journey of Maturing Faith

They say rock bottom is when you stop digging. Earlier this year, I surrendered my shovel. 

Or, perhaps I had dug myself through the center of the earth and came out the other side, where people walk Upside Down. 

Either way, I've had quite the Adventure. 

I traded my shovel for a pen and started doing what I knew I was always made to do - to Create. I chose a medium that sang to my semantics-loving heart, and started creatively documenting my encounters with God and my surrounding reality. 

Two short months in to this new practice, I wrote: I have had such a profound experience of God through writing that I will spend the rest of my life searching for the words to try and convey it.

Well, I suppose now is as good a time as any, if you'd like to pull up a chair.  

When I used to read fairy-tales, I fancied that kind of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one! There ought to be a book written about me, there ought! And when I grow up, I'll write one..." Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Today is my un-birthday, but earlier this week I celebrated my 32nd real birthday. I presumed 32 year olds felt grown up, but I certainly don't. Parts of me, I suppose, feel more grown up than they did seven months ago, but what I've learned most of all is - well, we never stop growing up. And what a tragedy it would be if we did, never to have any more Adventures! 

This particular Adventure, as many of mine do, started in a bookstore. A special edition copy of J.M. Barry's Peter Pan caught my eye. I can't tell you why, for sure. Maybe it was the shiny gold pages, perhaps it was because I had never seen or read the story of Peter Pan and I was Curious. I'd also like to believe that Something within me gave me a little nudge.

The book sat on the shelf for a while, but kept making eye contact with me each time I walked past it. One night I decided to settle in to watch the original 1953 Disney film. 

It was like holding up a looking-glass to my world. I started jotting down notes about all the reflections I could see in my own world and in the Gospel Story. I felt Inspired, and pulled the book off the shelf.

February 14th, 2025

I've gone down the Reddit Rabbit hole researching Symbolism behind these Characters. I'll spare you the trip to Wonderland (stay with me, for now, in Neverland). They are so complex, that I suppose the whole world would not have room for the books that could be written.

John 21:25

As I have journeyed from a state of chronically chaotic Never-Land to a land of Curiosity & Wonder, I wonder just how much I have grown. To find out - as I find out most things about myself - I'll take a journey on the page, and start at the Beginning, exploring the roads I've traveled to where I am today.  

Like painting over an old self-portrait.

Like reviewing class notes for semester finals.

Like a Broadway Revival. 

Like taking off the creance, finally flying free and trusting my Handler. 

A re-record of sorts of some of my favorite, and not so favorite, pieces I've written, where in my life I was when I wrote them, what they've taught me and how I see it - and use it - now.  

When we come to the End, it will be time to retire The Hidden Gospel, for now. The Seasons are changing - my Window Tree is ripe with acorns for a harvest - and then I will join the earth for a Season of Fallow, slowing down to do some underground work. 

If you're Curious, I'd like to Invite you to journey along. 

'Begin at the Beginning,' the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop." Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

In the Beginning... (Genesis 1:1 & John 1:1)

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