Dumbo: The Thing That Made Him Different

 There is something about Dumbo that hits very differently when you watch it as an adult. As a child, I remember the little elephant with the enormous ears who eventually discovers he can fly. It seemed like a simple story about turning something that made you different into something extraordinary. But underneath the circus, the animals, and the magic of a flying elephant is a much more tender story about being different in a world that can be cruel to anyone who doesn't fit what everyone else has decided is normal.

Dumbo enters the world loved completely by his mother. Mrs. Jumbo doesn't look at those enormous ears and see something wrong with her baby. She sees her baby. That distinction means so much more to me now. Before the world has an opportunity to tell Dumbo what is supposedly wrong with him, his mother already knows what is right about him. He is hers, and he is loved. Nothing about his appearance changes that.

Unfortunately, the world isn't nearly as gentle. Almost immediately, others notice his ears, laugh at them, and eventually even use them to give him the name Dumbo. Something he had absolutely no control over becomes the thing everyone uses to define him. Nobody asks what kind of little elephant he is. Nobody wonders what else might be special about him. They see the thing that makes him different and decide that is all they need to know.

I think most of us understand some version of that. Maybe it wasn't something about the way we looked. Maybe we were too quiet, too loud, too sensitive, too awkward, too emotional, too serious, too different, or simply not enough like everyone else. Children can be incredibly good at finding the one thing someone feels insecure about and turning it into a reason to make them feel small. Unfortunately, some adults never completely grow out of doing that either.

The hardest part is that after hearing something often enough, we can begin believing it ourselves. Other people's voices somehow become our own. We stop thinking, “They believe something is wrong with me,” and begin thinking, “Something is wrong with me.” We start looking at ourselves through the eyes of people who never really took the time to know us.

That may be one of the saddest things we can do to ourselves. We hand someone else the authority to define us when they were never qualified for the job.

Dumbo's relationship with his mother is what makes the story especially emotional for me. When people begin tormenting her baby, Mrs. Jumbo protects him. She doesn't care what anyone thinks about his ears. She cares that her child is hurting. Her reaction eventually causes her to be taken away from him, leaving Dumbo alone in a place where he already feels as though he doesn't belong.

The scene between Dumbo and his mother has always been one of the most heartbreaking parts of the movie. She cannot fix everything that has happened to him. She cannot take him away from the circus. She cannot make the other elephants kinder. She can't even hold him the way she wants to. But she can reach him, comfort him, and remind him that he is loved.

Sometimes that is all we can do for someone we love too. We want desperately to fix what is hurting them. We want to change the circumstances, make people understand, remove the pain, and somehow make everything right again. There are moments when we would gladly take the hurt ourselves if that were an option. But sometimes it isn't. Sometimes all we can do is reach through whatever separates us and remind them that they aren't alone.

There is tremendous power in being loved by someone who sees beyond what everyone else sees. We all need people like that. People who know our weaknesses without using them against us. People who know where we struggle and don't make us feel ashamed of it. People who remind us who we are when the voices around us have become so loud that we have forgotten.

I think God does that for us too. The world is very good at creating measurements for our worth. We are measured by how we look, what we accomplish, how much money we make, how productive we are, how many people approve of us, and whether we fit whatever version of success happens to be popular at the moment. God has never needed any of those measurements to decide whether we matter.

Psalm 139 tells us that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. I think we hear that verse so often that sometimes we forget how radical the idea really is. Our value isn't something we achieve. We don't become wonderfully made after we improve ourselves enough. God knew us before anyone else had an opinion about us. He knew everything that would make us different, and none of it surprised Him.

Dumbo spends much of the story believing his ears are the problem. They interfere with everything. They make him clumsy. They make him a target. They are the thing he probably would have changed immediately if someone had given him the opportunity. Then eventually he discovers that those same ears allow him to fly.

I love that because sometimes the thing we spend years wishing we could change becomes connected to something valuable in us. The person who was told they were too sensitive may grow into someone with extraordinary compassion. The child who never quite fit in may become the adult who notices the person standing alone. Someone who struggled may become the safest person for another struggling person to talk to. The experience that once made us feel different may eventually give us the ability to understand someone in a way others cannot.

That doesn't mean every painful experience has to become some wonderful gift. I don't think we have to romanticize the things that hurt us. Bullying hurts. Rejection hurts. Feeling different can be lonely. Being misunderstood can leave wounds that remain long after the people who caused them have forgotten what they said. The lesson isn't that we should be grateful people were cruel because it made us stronger.

The lesson, at least for me, is that their cruelty didn't get the final word.

Dumbo's ears didn't change. What changed was what they meant to him. At first they represented everything that made him feel ashamed. Eventually they became part of what made him extraordinary. He didn't have to become less different to become valuable. He had to discover that being different never made him less valuable in the first place.

I think that distinction matters. Sometimes we spend years trying to fix ourselves when what really needs to change is the way we have learned to see ourselves. We think we need to become quieter, smaller, prettier, stronger, more successful, less emotional, more outgoing, or somehow more acceptable. We imagine there is another version of ourselves somewhere in the future who will finally deserve the confidence, love, or belonging we keep withholding from the person we are today.

Maybe we don't need to wait for that person.

Dumbo also has his feather, and I think there is something interesting about that part of the story. He believes the feather is what allows him to fly. It gives him confidence because he thinks the power is somewhere outside himself. Then the feather disappears and he has to discover that it was never what made him capable of flying.

I think we all carry a few imaginary feathers. They are the things we believe we need before we can finally become who we are supposed to be. Maybe when I lose the weight. Maybe when I get the promotion. Maybe when someone chooses me. Maybe when I have more money. Maybe when I feel more confident. Maybe when life settles down. Maybe when someone finally tells me I am good enough.

We keep waiting for something outside ourselves to give us permission.

Then sometimes life takes the feather away.

Those moments can be frightening because suddenly we have to find out whether we can still fly. We discover that confidence wasn't actually contained in the job, the title, the relationship, the approval, or whatever else we had been holding onto. Maybe those things helped us recognize something that was already there.

Faith reminds me that my ultimate security was never supposed to be in the feather anyway. If I know who God says I am, then the changing opinions of people around me don't have to determine my worth. That is much easier to write than it is to live, of course. We are human. Words hurt. Rejection hurts. We want to belong. But perhaps part of growing in faith is learning whose voice gets the final say.

There is another reason Dumbo's story feels meaningful to me. He doesn't spend the movie proving that the other elephants were right about him. He eventually proves that their definition of him was far too small. They looked at his ears and saw a flaw. They couldn't imagine there might be another way to see them.

Sometimes people will misunderstand us simply because they don't have the imagination to see beyond their own expectations.

We don't have to spend our lives convincing them.

Maybe there is freedom in realizing that. We don't have to explain ourselves to everyone. We don't have to make every person understand our story. We don't have to shrink ourselves to make someone else comfortable. We can listen to people who genuinely love us, remain humble enough to grow where we need to grow, and still recognize that not every criticism deserves a permanent home inside our hearts.

When I think about Dumbo now, I don't really think about a flying elephant anymore. I think about how quickly the world notices differences and how desperately we all need places where those differences don't disqualify us from belonging. I think about parents who look at their children and see beauty where the world sees something unusual. I think about people who have spent years trying to overcome labels someone gave them when they were young. I think about all the imaginary feathers we cling to because we haven't yet realized we can fly without them.

Most of all, I think about how much of life is spent trying to become acceptable to people who were never supposed to determine our worth in the first place. God already knows every unusual, complicated, imperfect thing about us. He knows what we wish were different. He knows the parts we hide and the places where someone else's words still hurt. And somehow He still calls His creation wonderfully made.

Maybe the thing that makes you different isn't something you need to overcome before your real life can begin. Maybe you don't need to become smaller, quieter, easier, or more like everyone else. Maybe you simply need to stop seeing yourself through the eyes of people who couldn't recognize what God had placed in you.

Dumbo thought his enormous ears were the reason he would never belong. He spent so much time wishing they weren't there that he couldn't imagine they might someday carry him somewhere nobody else could go. I think there is something beautiful in that reminder. The thing that once made us want to hide may not disappear, but perhaps someday we will look at it differently and realize it was never proof that something was wrong with us.

Maybe we were simply learning how to fly.