Millions Suffer Global Depression from Avatar Envy and Pandora Deprivation

JUST ABOUT THE TIME I START bemoaning the fact that I wasn't born into Victorian England with its decorous society and fabulous women's fashions, I discover the rest of the world is seriously depressed over not being able to live on a so-called idyllic alien planet called Pandora, complete with blue skinned people who leave earthlings wanting nothing more than to flee the filthy rotten place we call planet Earth and come live with them in their noble savage society.

Good. I liked being in the theater yesterday with a friend and only five other people. I like being where the crowd isn't. As I've always said, there's good reason for DisneyWorld and OpryMills: It's to keep throngs of people off the trout streams I love to inhabit with a few other fishermen and women who'd rather stand in icy cold water for hours, days, weeks contemplating our navels in peace and quiet than do anything else .

So what's up with all this? Well, surely it's no accident that Avatar----which I haven't seen nor have plans to see---was released during the emotionally toughest and most highly-charged time of the year: the dead of winter. A time when yearnings and dis-satisfactions with our ordinary lives come most starkly into focus. A time we are most susceptible to contrasting what we have with what we wish we had. Human longings are strongest from Christmas until early spring.

If we're single, we want to be married; if we're married, we want to be single. If we're working, we wish we weren't and if we're not working, we want to be. Etc. Etc. Etc. It's a time we are more prone to take a quick emotional fix to medicate and mitigate our bereft feelings.

Somehow, Avatar has presented throngs of people with Norman Rockwell pictures of Utopia that sharply contrast with those of their personal realities---ie, the fallen, imperfect and sometimes lonely places we all inhabit. Years ago, I remember it happening to me after seeing that wretched movie Love Story. I moped around for weeks during the winter, depressed with all sorts of cravings of things I didn't have and thought I needed and deserved. I'm sure I was even more a pain to live with than normal.
Anyway, it appears that Avatar has hit a real collective nerve with masses of people who long for a better world. A world without hunger and want, a world without war and conflict, a world without struggles in relationships, imperfect love and rejection. A Utopian fantasy world. A world where our if onlys and what ifs really might come true.

I've come to understand with a little age that these longings are a normal part of the human condition and as such come and go. While they're based on fantasy, they really do emanate from the deepest part of our souls seeking a better life and deeper connection. And while we may have glimpses of glory during special times in our lives here on Earth, the reality is that that perfect world hasn't come and won't for any of us here...... not yet, at least.

I'm sure you know what I'm going to say next, so here goes: There is a New World that's surely coming one day that's infinitely more wonderful than Pandora and all the things we crave. It's laid out for us in the Bible though there are many mysteries surrounding this New World that are yet to be revealed. If you're really seeking your heart's desires and need hope and encouragement to meet the stark realities of your life and relationships during our dead of winter and beyond, then there is a balm even better than Avatar you can begin to rub on your wounded lives and relationships. Here for each and every one of us willing to take a look and open to a mustard seed's worth of faith and inquiry. It won't make everything suddenly magically right, but it can and will make each of better, giving us greater meaning to our lives and the longings of our souls

Perhaps this winter will bring you into contact with that only real Hope that's far, far beyond anything you can conceive in Avatar or on Pandora. The real adventure starts here and until the new heaven and earth arrive in earnest, it certainly helps us deal better with the old, fallen one we still inhabit in spite of the deep yearnings Pandora kicks up in millions of our lost souls.