Learning from Jack Skellington

A couple of years ago, after having seen Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Alice in Wonderland, I decided I was going to try and see every Tim Burton film I could.  Last summer I saw Corpse Bride, which completely blew my mind (and is still one of my favorite films to date), and I decided he has a innate gift for animated films.  Still, I had not seen The Nightmare before Christmas.  A friend of mine gave The Nightmare before Christmas on dvd to me for my 20th birthday.  So I watched it.

First of all, "This is Halloween" is still running through my head, and I'm enjoying every minute of it.  There are deeper things to be appreciated, though.  If you haven't seen the film, go watch it before reading the rest of this post, because if I try to explain it all, my brain will get ahead of me and I won't make any sense.  And, you just really need to see it, because you're a person and every person should see this movie.  

The main thing I want to give attention to is the main thrust of the movie: Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King, mayor of Halloween Town, stumbles into Christmas Town and decides to bring Christmas to Halloween Town.  The result, which comes when Jack tries to be "Sandy Claws" is disastrous.  While watching it, though, a thought occurred to me: Jack learns from his mistake by the end of the film, but I wonder what the other citizens of Halloween Town thought?  They watched Jack trying to squeeze Christmas into Halloween Town like trying to plant a rose on Mars; what did they think?  

The lesson that I took away from the film was this: Ecclesiastes 3:1 says that there is a time for everything.  I would argue that this includes not only a time but also the environment as a whole.  When you ignore the obvious as to what it is time for and try to squeeze what you want into your current situation, bad things happen.  For me as a Christian, it means that when I try to force something into my current situation that God has clearly shown me it is not the time for, I may as well start walking towards the bomb shelter, because an affectionately named hurricane will soon be on its way.  On the other hand, when I accept what is obvious, and take everything in its proper time, my life turns into an anthem, which just might be as catchy as "This is Halloween."