more on the theology of The Wizard of Oz

In the former post, I talked about Dorothy. I talked about how she had the power to go home all
along. But what about Scarecrow, Cowardly Lion, and Tin Man? They all made their way to the
wizard. They were all rejected by the wizard. They prevailed. They came back. They rebounded.
Then they told the wizard what they wanted. They shared their deepest wishes with the wizard.
What was on their wish list? Scarecrow: a brain; Cowardly Lion: courage; Tin Man: a heart. Did
they get their wishes granted? Not really. They benefited from the placebo effect. The "great
and powerful Oz" tried to tell them that they already had all these things. He tried to tell them
these were things that were internal and not things you could get externally. Did they listen? No. It went over their heads and they just repeated their wish lists. So to pacify them, he gave them
the illusion of what they asked for. He gave the Scarecrow an honorary degree of thinkology. He
gave the Lion a badge of courage. He gave the Tin Man a heart shaped clock on a lanyard that he
could wear around his neck.
If we're looking for brains, courage or heart, we must look inside. I have been like all three of
these characters. I have felt like I wasn't smart enough to go back to college. I went back and
have made A's and B's. I have lacked courage in many areas of my life. I try to avoid conflict as
much as is humanly possible. This has many times created more problems for me than if I had
faced the problem right off the bat. This is something I must work on. Heart troubles are
different. I think sometimes we can be too empathetic. Is this possible? I am thinking yes. We
should love and care for our neighbors and fellow man (male and female). However, sometimes
we do this so much that we forget we have needs. Or we notice we have needs but decide we'll
take care of our own needs later on. Then somehow, we never do.
Instead of waiting for a wizard to tell us to look inwardly for what we need, we need to work on
figuring it out on our own. And like Dorothy, Scarecrow, Lion, and Tin Man........ we wouldn't listen anyway.