Stuck in Neverland
One of the most memorable scenes in Peter Pan involves Peter returning to the Darling’s nursery to retrieve his shadow and Wendy helping him sew it back onto his body. In the movie adaptation, the shadow is lively, and the scene is entertaining, but there may have been a darker motive in author J.M. Barrie’s mind when he originally wrote the story.
When Barrie was six years old, his elder brother David died in an ice-skating accident on the day before his 14th birthday. This event stayed with the author the rest of his life and, no doubt, influenced his most famous story about a boy who never grows old. Just as death suspended his brother in childhood, Peter Pan never grew up and was satisfied to spend his days with the Lost Boys seeking adventure in Neverland.
Numerous myths about shadows may have influenced the scene in which Peter becomes separated from his shadow. According to Jewish lore, demons have no shadows, and a fairytale by Oscar Wilde makes use of a superstition that the shadow is the body of the soul. Another old tale that Barrie would have been aware of tells the story of Peter Schlemihl, who sells his shadow to the devil for a high price, only to find that his trade results in his being shunned by society. Perhaps the shadow in Peter Pan represented life tied to earth, a life Peter had been cut off from, just like Barrie's brother who was taken by death before he reached manhood.
Peter Pan has become a story about the joy of childhood and not wanting to grow up, but its origin may have come from a dark place. We watch the movie, and we may long to go to Neverland. Ironically, the idea of Peter Pan may have begun with the tragedy of a child getting stuck in Neverland.
The Bible warns about the problem of getting stuck in a spiritual Neverland. Christianity, like life, always begins with infancy, but we should grow toward maturity as we walk with Christ. The church at Corinth had failed to do this, although many of its members had been Christians for many years, and their immaturity threatened the unity of the congregation. Paul rebukes them, saying,
But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? (1 Cor. 3:1-3)
The same problem afflicted the original readers of the letter to the Hebrews who were contemplating a return to their old Jewish religion. The author appears frustrated because he cannot discuss the finer points of the gospel with them and has to return to elementary principles:
For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. (Heb. 5:12-14)
Immaturity is a common problem, one all too familiar to Christians today. Churches and individual disciples who are stuck in Neverland hold back their brothers and sisters by sapping resources that ought to be turned outwardly to the lost in their communities and drawing controversy into the body through jealousy and strife.
A devoted follower of Christ should never get stuck in a spiritual Neverland. Let us remember the command Peter leaves with us at the end of his second epistle: “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18).
Drew Kizer