I recently watched the movie, Where the Wild Things Are. And while I generally did not like the film, there was something that resonated with me about the source of Max's anger.
What Max really wants is to sleep in a great big pile with everyone, to be all together.
In the world of a child, when this goes wrong, there is anger, confusion, sadness and destruction. On the other hand, for both the child and the monsters, everything in the wold seems to be right when they all sleep together in one big pile.
Today for my scripture study I read about the post-mortal life, how, "that the spirits of all men, as soon as they are departed from this mortal body....are taken home to that God who gave them life" and that paradise is a "state of rest, a state of peace, where they shall rest from all their troubles and from all their care and sorrows". (Alma 40:12)
I realize as I wander through this "dark and dreary waste" that what my childlike soul longs for, more than anything else, is to be together with an eternal family, to sleep all in one big pile, to partake of that paradise that is unchanging, secure and certain love, which is "desirable to make one happy" and "fill my soul with exceedingly great joy" (1 Nephi 8:11-12)
If such a paradise world does exist, where all my sadness and angers and insecurities disappear in that great big pile, where we all stay together and no one leaves or is left out, it gives purpose and motivation to endure meaning to the anxiousness and loneliness that comes from not being with our Father now.
Douglas: Will you keep out all the sadness?
Max: I have a sadness-shield that keeps out all the sadness, and it's big enough for all of us.
Where the Wild Things Are
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