MARY POPPINS: My Own Spiritual Interpretation (Part 1)

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Part 1 of 2

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Following is an edited & expanded version of two Emails that I sent to a friend regarding the Disney movie 'MARY POPPINS'. I was explaining my own personal interpretation of the movie which has imbued the story with greater meaning and greatly enhanced my love of it. (Beware: spoilers galore!)

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I recently borrowed the book 'Mary Poppins' by Pamela L. Travers from my local library, in part, because I wanted to see just how much of what Walt Disney gave us in the 1964 movie was taken from the original 1934 book. As it turned out, Walt took a pretty lame book and turned it into a cinematic masterpiece. Walt and The Sherman Brothers managed to take six nonsensical, utterly pointless, unexplainable events from the book and tie them all together with a moving storyline (an actual plot!) which said something very important. The movie 'Mary Poppins' made a grand statement while also being thoroughly mysterious and entertaining.
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But the PRIMARY reason I read the book 'Mary Poppins' was because I wanted to see if the way I have personally come to interpret 'MARY POPPINS', the movie, was outright expressed in the book. It was not. Not in any way whatsoever. There was NO EXPLANATION even hinted at for why Mary showed up and nothing to explain how it was that she and Bert (who appeared in only one chapter) had these unusual abilities.
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The Disney movie is what inspired my brain to interpret the story Spiritually. However, there is no indication in things I've seen and read that Walt and The Sherman Brothers were actually attempting to introduce any significant Spiritual meaning into the story. I think they were just masters at storytelling and were able to find ways to take a stupid book and make it intriguing and interesting and actually lead to a meaningful conclusion. However, I can say that without the Disney film, the story (or "lack of a story") told by P.L. Travers in her book would NEVER, EVER have caused me to start looking at these bizarre events in any sort of Spiritual sense.
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In my opinion, when the subject of "Better Movie Than Book" (which is a pretty rare thing) comes up, 'MARY POPPINS' will now be my immediate "go-to" example.
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I have always liked the movie 'Mary Poppins', but the more I've watched it these past few years the more it has resonated with me and become better and better. (To be entirely honest... I have fallen in love with 'MARY POPPINS'... as well as with Mary Poppins. 😉) The movie even moistened my eyes the last couple times I watched it -- {*"John Wayne! John Wayne!"*} -- because the way I CHOOSE to interpret it endows it with so much Spiritual meaning and makes the story seem so POWERFUL, UPLIFTING and INSPIRING! Just the way the movie starts (nothing like the book!), with Mary Poppins sitting on a cloud over London, waiting to be summoned, it almost seems like an obvious Spiritual implication that is just begging for a Spiritual interpretation.

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Here is my "point of view" of the movie: 

MARY POPPINS, sitting on a cloud, is an angel of God; and as an angel of God, she comes to Earth to do the Will of God. She is sitting on a cloud waiting to be called. And Mr. George Banks tearing up and throwing away his children's paper prayer (a list of things they are looking for in a nanny) CANNOT stop the paper prayer from being delivered to God's angel on high!

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Something I especially LOVE about the movie is how Mary Poppins is so FULLY (100%) in control of every single situation. This person never experiences a single moment of doubt. *SHE IS THE MASTER OF EVERY MOMENT!* She is able to manipulate circumstances to assure that the correct outcome is always arrived at. Even when the father of the children thinks he is the boss, he always winds up confused, befuddled, later trying to figure out how things turned out contrary to what his intentions were. He has NO CONTROL over Mary Poppins whatsoever. And neither does anyone else (except God and Christ, we can safely assume).
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All this makes perfect sense if MARY POPPINS is an angel. Because an angel, sent by God, could rearrange any circumstance in order to direct events so that they will ultimately align with His Will.  Mere human beings have NO POWER over God's messengers. God's Will is Supreme at all times, so an angel carrying out the wishes of God cannot be interfered with by mere mortals. No man can fire an angel:
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You don't tug on Superman's cape;

You don't spit into the wind;

You don't pull the mask off the ol' Lone Ranger;

and you don't... challenge an angel!

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I also view BERT as an angel. He too has unexplainable mystical abilities and he is CRUCIAL in the plot of this movie, leading the story to a satisfying conclusion. Particularly notable is Bert employing some reverse-psychology tricks on Mr. Banks, which eventually results in Banks' 180-degree worldview turnabout.

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Mary is more to the point, perhaps, but Bert interjects a lot of fun into his God-given assignment while assuming multiple characters or roles in manipulating things according to the Will of God. Note that Bert somehow *knows* that Mary Poppins is coming down to Earth prior to her arrival, and Bert tells us that what is about to happen has happened BEFORE. 

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I like to interpret this to mean that Mary and Bert -- two angels from Heaven -- have worked together before in bringing families together when there is trouble and a lack of familial bonding. I think Mary (Julie Andrews) and Bert (Dick Van Dyke) are a team of angels, and UNCLE ALBERT (Ed Wynn) is another member of that team. A three-angel team working on behalf of God!!! ("Am I gettin' through to ya, fella?", as Barney Fife said. 😄)

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George and Winifred Banks, the two parents of the children, Jane and Michael, are so caught up in their own stuff (the mother with her Feminist social activism and the dad with a materialistic get-ahead mindset) that the kids are not bonding properly with their mom and dad. They're practically orphans oiphans in their own home! The family unit is in disrepair, but God's messengers are going to fix it; and afterwards, the humans won't even be able to completely understand and explain how it happened.

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[Perhaps angels are also made in all sizes and shapes, you know?]

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Is Andrew, the dog, the angels' team mascot? It's clear that Mary and Bert are very familiar with Andrew and that they both speak the dog's language. And, after all, it was Andrew who sent Mary to see Uncle Albert (with his tea party on the ceiling). And that's where Bert, in conjunction with Uncle Albert, create the silly joke about the man with a wooden leg. And this joke is what is later employed by George Banks (having learned it from his own children) while he is being dismissed from his bank employment. This joke is the catalyst which helps Mr. Banks escape his materialistic mindset; and it converts the bank manager, Mr. Dawes, Sr., -- also changing his mind about his incorrect priorities just before his death. Job well done by our three-angel team and their dog! 

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As you know, my Spiritual slogan is: 

"We have fallen asleep in God's Embrace, 

having a nightmare that we are elsewhere."
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You may (probably) think that is a bunch of mumbo-jumbo, but I not only believe there is great Truth in that slogan, I also believe it was directly given to me by The Holy Spirit. I believe that a lot of what we think of as "real" or "reality" is merely perception. We have our own individual perceptions of what life is, and we are also all caught up in a kind of collective perception (or mass nightmare). 

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Continued in Part Two...