Awake

We’ve all used them, those devices that have a big red button them. It doesn’t matter what it is- a phone, a television remote, even a traffic light. We all know what a button that color means.

It means stop.

You’re on the phone and someone says something you don’t like, something that hurts. Stop.

You’re watching a movie and something revolting and grotesque comes up. Stop.

It all seems so easy in the moment. Just hit that red button and it all goes away.

But you know what you can’t stop? The thoughts. You have an image in your mind, it stays there. That’s why horror movies, movies where we see the reality of death on screen, played out in all too realistic detail, can be so dangerous. We forget that nightmares are not just the stuff of children and fairy tales. Grown-ups have them too. Movies like that feed the nightmares…do you really think that your mind isn’t capable of forming those awful images itself?

Don’t be blind. Terror is very real, and there is no stop button anymore. Not when you’re grown-up.

Remember when you were little, and scared? You’d woken up in the middle of the night and everything was wrong. Dragons had risen up in your dreams, invading your sweet, innocent mind. Waking up almost made it worse…now you were awake, crying, shaking, trying to fight off the thoughts that were never supposed to be there! But there was always something bigger to hold onto on those frightful nights. You could go climb in bed with your big brother. You could wake up your mom and tell her all about it.

“Run, run, run away, Buy yourself another day. A cold wind's whispering secrets in your ear, So low only you can hear.

 Run, run, run and hide, Somewhere no one else can find. Tall trees bend and lean pointing where to go, Where you will still be all alone

 Don't you fret, my dear, It'll all be over soon, I'll be waiting here for you.”

-The Civil Wars, Kingdom Come

But when you grow up, you can’t do that anymore, not really. We can't run away from those nightmares. It’s an unspoken rule. And even if you can…something inside keeps you from moving. You just stay there, scared to the point of not wanting to make the slightest noise for fear of some unknown creature.

But we “grown-ups” aren’t in a dream. That’s the part that should frighten us the most. There really are awful things out there and we have to face them. Because of no one faces it- if everyone turns up the music so loud that the screams of real, dying people are tuned out-if we all run away-then no one will ever know the truth. And evil can reign victorious.

Remember the first time you saw pictures of the bodies from Dachau and Auschwitz? Remember how horrified you were that such a thing could ever be inflicted on a group of human beings? Remember how repulsed and disgusted you were by the evil of one man?

Now think back to a more recent memory. Remember the first time you saw an aborted baby? Remember how sickened you were? Didn’t you wonder how anyone could rip apart a child like that? Do you remember how appalled you were when you heard the murderers claiming that it wasn’t “really a life, just a clump of tissue” ?

I remember.

And I don’t have the answers.

But I do know that even in the midst of the horror, grief, pain, anger, and fear that rushes through us when we unearth these type of tragedies, we must always fight.

Evil must not conquer. Fear cannot get the better of us. Terror is an ugly thing and you no matter how old you are, you will always engage in battle with it. But fight you must, for just as real as evil is good. Good is on our side…and when we have that, we have a mighty weapon that no one but ourselves can take away from us.

This can’t have a happy ending, because the deciding battle hasn’t been declared. But now, we must enter the war and fight our own battles. For in the end, there is only One Victor, and if He is with us, even in the midst of terror and fear, confusion and chaos, pain, grief, anger…there will always be hope. For if God is with us, then no one can stand against us.

Welcome to the war.

 

Of Elves, Dwarves, and Fairy Dust

Cinderella was always my favorite fairy tale. I'd like to say to that I fell in love with the Grimm Brother's account...but I didn't. I think my fascination really began with the Disney movie, hearing all the music, enjoying the little characters that although not in the real fairy tale, made the movie awesome. Gus-Gus stands out in memory, for instance. ;P

But when I was around seven, I read The Chronicles of Narnaia - and a whole new world opened right before my eyes. Suddenly, fawns and talking animals and kings and queens seemed like they really could be real. It made me want to step into Lewis' magical world and become a part of Narnia.

Actually, I tried once. My mom and dad had a big oak armoire and one day, just for fun, I stepped inside. I didn't close the door all the way behind me and even though I knew for a fact that nothing was going to happen, I went to the back anyway. I knocked on the wooden panel in the back and for a moment, I could feel what Lucy must have felt when she came back from Narnia. That sense of disappointment and betrayal, that feeling of wanting something so badly but knowing that it will never, can never, happen.

The next logical step into fairy-land seemed to be Tolkien's famous series, The Lord of the Rings. Most of my friends have read those books and are captivated by the elves and fairies of that fairy tale. I tried reading those once...it didn't go very well. The descriptions and amount of brain power that has to go into reading those fictional books just aren't worth it for me. I'll try again some other time- but for now, I'm content to *not* be a part of the passionate Tolkien conversations and debates.

Now, I'm almost fifteen. You'd think that my time among fairies and talking animals has passed. But I'm afraid it hasn't. I don't think it ever will.

Let's think about fairy tales for a moment. There's Cupid and Psyche, Lucy and Tumnus, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. All are so uniquely different. The first, the story of a Greek god and his love. The second, the tale of a modern-day English girl and a friend she meets in a magical land. The last, a teenager abandoned and banished because of one woman's vanity.

But all of them still are fairy tales. Not because they're not true. Although they do have that in commmon, you'll find that elements of each story could be in fact real-life. Instead, they all rest upon one person's decision, upon one choice that determines the fate of all.

"In the fairy tale, an incomprehensible happiness rests upon an incoprehensible condition. A box is opened, and all evils fly out. A word is forgotten and cities perish. A lamp is lit and love flies away. A flower is plucked and human lives are forfeited. An apple is eaten and the hope of God is gone."

-GK Chesterton, Orthodoxy, 77

Linking that to my life, there are some real corellaries. We all make choices, every day. Getting up out of bed is a choice, talking with my family is a choice. And for each choice we make, there is a consequence. That's a part of life that we all have to face-actions result in consequences. I know, we all hate them, but yet they still remain.

That's what characters in those seemingly unpretentious, harmless fairy tales learned. When Pandora cracked open the lid of that box, she submitted to her temptation and curiousity. She would have to face, for the rest of her life, the fact that she single-handedly brought death and destruction into the world.

When Psyche lit that oil lamp and looked into the face of her husband, she, if only for an instant, forgot the love she had for him. She forgot all but a burning need for knowledge which she finally quenched, but at what a price!

Our decisions have results. Our lives are made up of choices and potential. Potential tragedies, potential joys. Just like those fawns and fairies, nymphs and dryads in elfland, we get to have the final say over our life.


What is the end of the fairy tale?

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By the way, dear readers, I just re-discovered an incredible literary treasure. Or treasures, rather. It really does belong as a footnote to this post...seeing as the books are called "fairy tales re-told"...and I can't wait to blog about it. Maybe in a couple weeks?

But just to get you ready- a quote:

"Have you ever felt that there was something going on in life that not everyone was aware of?...As though there’s a story going on that everyone is a part of, but not everybody knows about—a sort of drama, a battle between what’s peripheral and what’s really important. As though the people you meet aren’t just their plain, prosaic selves, but are actually princes and princesses, gods and goddesses, fairies, gypsies, shepherds, all sorts of fantastic creatures who’ve chosen to hide their real shape...Or have forgotten who they really are.
Have you ever thought that?"

--Rose Brier, The Shadow of the Bear