“Someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”
C.S. Lewis
Writers must have a sense of child-like wonder. You may be
writing of war, horror, and grisly death, but you get there by allowing your
sense of wonder to open the door—even if there is a monster on the other
side—or perhaps because there is one. Readers will not suspend disbelief and
enter the story unless you lead the way.
Jesus wasn’t a writer, but he was a storyteller. He used to
say to his hearers, “He that has ears to hear, let him hear”. He knew everyone
was not buying into what he had to say, but he was also aware that there were
those who were hungry to hear, willing to listen and enter his kingdom as
little children.
Picasso spoke about how difficult it was to learn to paint
with the abandonment of a child. The heroes of Stephen King’s It, won by
suspending the disbelief of adulthood. Hemingway’s “Write drunk, edit sober” is
a bit coarser way to endorse the same idea of leaving behind our inhibitions and
plunging into a story.
Ironically, there’s a certain maturity required in allowing
yourself the luxury of child-like wonder and imagination. You must be secure
enough to leave behind the comforts of everyday life. We like to complain about
jobs, commitments, and the annoying people on Facebook, but there is a familiar
safety there of which it is difficult to let go.
I hear people say they are done with drama. I fear they will
not be reading fairy tales anytime soon. Our modern world seeks to homogenize everything
and everyone. My college algebra teacher used to say the key to success was to
set up the formula correctly. Once you have the problem in the proper form, he
would say, “Just do the math”.
The ”math” of enjoying fairy tales is easy once you put life
in the proper form—or, perhaps the better word is perspective. Wonder,
imagination, and dreaming of what if are the true treasures of living.
Maranatha
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