Finding Neverland

The story of Peter Pan has become one of the most loved children’s stories. It captures something of the essence of childhood imagination and innocence. For children, Peter Pan is a celebration of the fantastic. For adults it is a reminder of a simpler life we have left behind, but for which we occasionally yearn. It is also a story that calls us all, young and old, to believe in things beyond our reality. Peter

Pan is a gift from the pen of author and playwright James M. Barrie nearly a century ago. Now, in Finding Neverland, we not only get a glimpse of the Peter Pan story, but also discover the man behind the story.

Finding Neverland shows Barrie’s relationship with the Llewelyn Davies children while he is writing the play, Peter Pan. The childless Barrie, in a marriage that is beginning to break down, meets a widow, Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, with four young sons. The boys are still in grief over the loss of their father, especially the boy named Peter. Through spending time with them, playing with them, encouraging them to expand their imaginations, he serves as a bit of a combination of surrogate father and child psychologist. He also manages to expand his own imagination as he works on a play about a boy who won't grow up (which actually really is about what it means to grow up.)

We get an inkling that the idea of Neverland (a place filled with adventures and fairies) was a part of Barrie’s emotional survival after the death of an older brother. It was his imaginary escape when things were too hard to bear. As he interacts with the boys, they get a peek at what Neverland is.

Neverland is, of course, only in the imagination. Is it better to escape to the imagination or to face reality? No doubt a combination of the two is necessary, but we are often told as we grow into adulthood, that we need to put aside those imaginary worlds and learn to live in the real world.

But Neverland is more than an issue of imagination versus reality: it is also a matter of belief. One does not merely imagine Neverland. Neverland requires belief?not so much an intellectual assent as a complete emotional acceptance. When we allow ourselves to believe in such a place as Neverland (or perhaps the Kingdom of God), we open the door to a reality that is beyond us. To find such a new reality is among the greatest gifts of childlikeness and is a blessing that only an adult can truly appreciate.