By Chuck Bennett

Have you ever seen the movie "Pollyanna"? Even if you have not seen the movie, you have probably heard someone referred to as being "pollyanna-ish" for being unrealistic, overly optimistic and refusing to consider negative possibilities. Perhaps, like me, you somehow had an impression of the movie as being likewise silly and frivolous. I saw this movie for the first time about a week ago, after my kids received the videotape for Christmas, and I was surprised - it was actually a very good movie, one that I would recommend for both young and old viewers. While driving home from a business trip yesterday, I started thinking about that movie, and it occurred to me that the movie has at least two good lessons for us as Christians.

This 1960 Disney movie stars Hayley Mills as little orphan girl Pollyanna Whittier, who is sent back to the United States to live with her Aunt Polly after the death of her parents. Pollyanna's aunt, Polly Harrington (Jane Wyman) essentially owns or controls everything in the town of Harrington, even the church. For most of the movie Aunt Polly considers Pollyanna a nuisance to be tolerated (barely) as a "charitable" gesture to her deceased sister, Pollyanna's mother.

Karl Malden plays Reverend Ford, the minister at the town's only church. Aunt Polly practically dictates Reverend Ford's sermons for him - she "suggests" the texts that he will preach from, and even the general tone that each sermon will take. From the examples we hear in the movie, it is clear that Aunt Polly's idea of a good sermon is pure hellfire and brimstone. Reverend Ford preaches at length about how death comes unexpectedly, and how we sinful humans will find ourselves judged by an angry, vengeful God and cast into Hell for an eternity of suffering. Wholly missing from his sermons is any mention of God's love for us, or of the saving power of Jesus Christ, whose death on the Cross allows salvation for sinners, and allows us to appear before God in the pure perfection of Christ rather than in our own sinful nature.

The movie's first lesson comes when Pollyanna finds Reverend Ford practicing one of his sermons in a field outside of town. They sit down to talk, and Pollyanna tells Reverend Ford how her father, a missionary preacher, preferred to preach from what he called the "glad texts" of the Bible. Pollyanna's father had noted over 800 verses in the Bible in which God tells us to rejoice or be glad or be happy, and was of the opinion that if the Lord took the trouble to tell us 800 times that he wants us to rejoice, then He must really mean it. Reverend Ford takes this lesson to heart, and the next Sunday he announces from the pulpit that he has personally researched the matter and has found 826 "glad texts" in the Bible, which by his calculation should provide material for over sixteen years worth of sermons. (He still doesn't mention Jesus, but then what can you expect from a Disney movie?)

Like Reverend Ford, we need to remember that God loves us and wants us to enjoy His creation. "This is the day that the Lord hath made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." (Psalm 118:24.) (Here are links to a few more verses about Joy and Shouting In Joy and Praise.)

The movie's second lesson is an essential part of Pollyanna's character, what she refers to as the "glad game". Pollyanna tells how this game was invented by her father after her parents had requested that one of their supporting churches send a doll for their young daughter. When the missionary supply package had arrived, however, it had contained a set of crutches rather than the requested doll. Pollyanna's father had stood with her, looking at those crutches, and had told her that they must look for something to be glad about for the arrival of the crutches - and they had decided that they were glad they didn't need them! After that it became a regular game for them, and even (or perhaps especially) after her father's death, Pollyanna continues to look for something to be glad about in everything that comes her way. (When Pollyanna explains this game to the Harrington family servants, they have just returned from one of Reverend Ford's hellfire sermons - the best thing they can think of regarding that sermon is to be glad that it will be six more days before they have to sit through another one! )

I don't know of any scriptural basis for Pollyanna's "glad game" (perhaps Romans 8:28, or Titus 1:15), but it seems to me that if we look into our hearts, we will find that the Lord would probably prefer for us to find reasons to be happy with the circumstances that He gives us, rather than find fault with what He provides. This principle can be found in such secular sayings as, "Every cloud has a silver lining," "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade," and "Always look on the bright side." This doesn't mean that we should ignore tragedy or sadness, or that we should stick our heads into the sand like ostriches to ignore problems, but simply that we accept that the Lord will look after us, and that we try to find the positive side of things. As singer Dennis Jernigan puts it in music, "God is Good, All the Time." Even when it is difficult for us to understand and see the good that God has planned, it is there. Always.

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Copyright © 1997 by Charles Bennett. All rights reserved.

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