Best Spiritual Movies, David Hoffmeister: When you get into the metaphysics of A Course in Miracles they give you good support. But to really start feeling it you have to get into the groove of the whole thing. That’s what is so great on this journey—you come back to cartoons, dance, music, inspiration, and singing your heart song! It all gets retranslated and used by the Holy Spirit.
The movie Happy Feet is an interesting parable. It brings up themes of isolation, special relationships, social appearances, mighty companions, humor, and even a dash of the prodigal son story. It has a lot of interesting things: the rules of society are to “resist” the dance!
The main character, Mumble, starts off as the seeming outcast—from his parents and his whole community. He goes off on his own. He’s just relaxing and discovering the flow of the dance when the big birds come. They want to eat him. Just when they are ready to take a bite, Mumble falls into a hole where they can’t get to him. That’s an example of divine providence stepping in. He makes it out of that situation without a scratch because mighty companions show up. How many of us have had those kinds of experiences—where it looks bad from the world’s perspective, and then all of a sudden you find yourself in some kind of circumstance that seems to be the saving grace?
This movie has many scenes in which Mumble and his mighty companions are falling. Their bodies are getting banged and flipped all around. This is symbolic of the permission—the full allowance—to fall. Mumble just keeps slipping and sliding, and falling and falling and falling, and then goes into the sea. The giant, tumbling boulders of ice are squeezing in on him, and he’s just shooting right through. That’s divine providence; there is always a crack, always a hole, always a little sliver.
In the end, his father shows guilt that he hadn’t been there for Mumble—not even one single day. But when he is able to express it, the dance comes in. The dance was there all along; it just couldn’t be suppressed any longer. It has to come out, over and over and over until everyone dances. And then even the aliens dance—the human aliens!
