by Monika B. Hilder
For those who enjoy listening, this audio reading by Monika is included.
WHAT DO WE LOVE ABOUT FAIRY TALES? How do they, along with Narnian and other fantasy stories, speak to us at any age? Just about anyone who loves fairy tales also has some questions and perhaps even concerns over them. Should we read them? And if so, how should we read them? Are they good? Or are they bad? Do we even need them? And just what is “happily ever after”?
My conviction over the importance of fairy tales has only deepened over the decades. Fairy tales are stories about the plain facts of pain and hardship and the many evils that assail us. More than that, they are stories that point out the path to miraculous healing and wellness, to the glories that await us and already surround us, overwhelming us with great goodness, always surprisingly so. I love how Dorothy L. Sayers puts it: “The only way to deal with the past is to accept the whole past, and by accepting it, to challenge its meaning.”
In this book, in the fictional voice of a grandmother writing to her granddaughter over the first twenty-five years of her life, I invite us to live into our deepest life questions. It is my hope that these thirty-three letters will leave readers richer and more able to navigate the challenges, sorrows, and joys of life with wisdom, courage, and love.
Cherished Reader, I am honoured by your listening ear. Thank you for joining me on this journey.
Warmest wishes,
Monika
A Selection from Letter 21 [Annie is 15 years old; her Omi is 79]:
Dearest Annie,
My precious Annie, sweetest fifteen. We’ve been talking about waiting lately. Waiting for good things to happen. Waiting for problems to be resolved. Waiting for dreams to come true. Waiting, waiting.
When waiting seems endless it’s hard to wait with hope in our hearts.
. . . .
The “Sleeping Beauty” story is a classic on waiting. How the curse that the fifteen-year-old princess fell under actually turned out to be a greater blessing. The reason: it protected her from a lot of bad relationships. Isn’t it far better to be overlooked—hidden from view, protected—than vulnerable to all sorts of unworthy fellows? I love the Perrault version where we read, The good fairy had created a magical shelter where the princess could sleep off the bad spell safe from spying eyes. How I wish all young women (and men) could be protected from prying eyes. And only come awake to love when they are ready to discern and enter into genuine love. Specifically, I wish you would only come awake to love when you meet the right one. I wish all others would stay far, far away from you! And meanwhile, as you are growing to know who you are and learning to love yourself, may better and even good men you meet be like the rare poet who said it was too early and not his place to awaken the young Sleeping Beauty.
God makes all things beautiful in His time, Annie. It’s true because He knows precisely what we need in order to grow into the beautiful people He has designed us to be—to be and to become. So, yes, we need to wait for the right romantic love relationship.
But romantic love isn’t life’s purpose, Annie. Important, amazing, yes, but not Everything, and not for Everyone. Not essential for a wonderful life. We probably need to repeat this in capital letters: ROMANTIC LOVE IS NOT ESSENTIAL FOR A WONDERFUL LIFE.
Wow, did I just dare to disturb the romantic idolatry of our day (or, for many, the sex idolatry)? Indeed I did—and do.
That’s right. Romantic love, at its best, is not the ultimate. A god, sometimes a powerful god, but not God. Romantic love is only good and even great when the true God comes first.
You know, I just noticed something interesting about this version of Sleeping Beauty that I haven’t thought much about before. It’s the part when the prince has passed through the trees and the brambles and the bushes and is walking up the avenue to the castle. He looks back and is surprised that none of his people are following him—and the reason is that the forest had closed up behind him as soon as he’d gone through. But he doesn’t give up his quest. He’s the one who is meant to awaken the princess. (And in that version, he doesn’t kiss her to wake her either. Instead, when he sees her, he falls to his knees and she awakens, her enchantment at an end, talking to the fairly speechless prince.) So it struck me just now that you, like all of us, are both the prince and the princess. Here’s how.
You’re like the prince on a quest because one day, one day, Annie, all the great trees and brambles and bushes of the forest that have been closed to you will open up. It will be your path through the so-called impossible and your path alone. You’ll be a bit surprised that no one is following you, and you’ll see that they can’t. This path has your name on it and your name alone, and follow it you will, valiantly, successfully, to the end. You’re the hero of your wonderful life—a life that God has designed just for you. And His power always comes with His purpose.
And you, like all of us, are the enchanted princess too. You dream good dreams, but you cannot wake up and fulfill them, not yet, not until it’s time. And you need the Prince, God Himself, to awaken you into the dream come true. That’s where the image of the prince’s kiss waking Sleeping Beauty comes in. It’s a glimpse of the big picture of how God awakens us to life, kisses us to Life.
So you see, waiting for love is much more than hoping for good romantic love to happen to you one day. It’s about having the kind of willingness to wait for the best, that’s for sure. But more than that, it’s about learning who you are and are meant to be and you only get there by loving yourself in life-giving ways. That means loving God first, no matter what. That’s the only safe place to be.
Yours always,
ever and for always,
Omi
A Selection from Letter 29 [Annie is 22, Omi is 85]
Dearest Annie,
So. You seem sure that you know who your good friends are. You love these “good friends, real friends”—not one of them Christian—and can’t stand the “weird” people at church (or any of the churches you’ve visited), especially the young women your age.
. . . .
I’m afraid I made no sense to you today, so this letter is my second try. Maybe in a few years from now you’ll be able to hear me?
Annie, remember “Die Bremer Stadtmusikanten” (“The Bremen Town-Musicians”)? That peculiar assortment of travelling companions—the animal quartet? You so loved our clay picture of them, the one hanging in our kitchen that we then gave you for your twelfth Christmas. It’s a marvellous scene. That strange foursome perched one over the other, the donkey on the bottom, then the dog, the cat, and the rooster on top, together as one tower looking in at the window of the robbers’ hideaway cottage. Making a hullabaloo of a show, all a-braying, barking, meowing, and a-crowing, then crashing into the room through the breaking glass. The robbers dashed out into the night, and when they tried to return, they fled in greater terror for good. The neighbours probably breathed a huge sigh of relief. And so the animals lived together in that cottage in the woods for the rest of their lives in peace. Maybe they even made it to Bremen now and then, who knows?
Remember how these animals became friends in the first place? On refugee road! After lives of faithful service, they’d come to the end of their usefulness in their owners’ eyes and were destined for slaughter. It started with the donkey, who realized he was about to become horsemeat. He escaped, thinking he might as well try a new career as a musician in the big city. As crazy as that sounded for an aged donkey, he reasoned he’d surely find something better than death everywhere. Then no sooner than that brave soul hit the road, he met up with the tired old dog, the wretched cat, and the despondent rooster screeching for what he believed was his last night. The donkey cheered each new companion with the hope of escape. So in the sunset of their lives, the desperadoes teamed up and journeyed on into a life worth living. Better than death! as the donkey had extolled.
You know, I think I’ve never heard it put quite so well as when I came across the Bremen Town Musicians described as a picture of “The Refugee Church.” We’re not the strong and the fearless, the winners and the chosen, the wise and the beautiful, as some measure worth. We’re refugees fleeing for our lives, refugees from a world that feeds on what we can do, then chews us up and spits us out. We’re running for whatever is better than death. We’re a gaggle of weird folk walking, jogging, and racing down the same road. A surprising hodgepodge of people with seemingly little in common except flight. A motley crew collected by an unseen Hand. Single voices, deep, high, raspy, shrill, mainly off-key, gathered by an invisible Director of a gathering concert, a grand symphony that He, somehow, is composing, rehearsing, and believes in. We’re nomads, Annie, nomads trekking through hostile land looking for . . . what are we looking for? Goodness? Hope? Yes, and freedom, real, complete, lasting freedom. And love. In fact, Life itself.
Those “mean” girls at church now. Gossipy, stupid, in your view. I wonder. If what you say is true of them, and if we knew their stories, would it break our hearts? I suspect that if we really knew their stories, all our ill feelings would dissolve. Their stories, I dare say, make angels weep.
And if there is truth in what you say of them, why this should be, especially in the church—don’t you know, Annie? Is it the ones who think they have it all together who look for God? Isn’t it only the ones who know they’re lost without Him who seek Him? The weak, the foolish, the nerdy, the ones nobody “important” seems to care about? The ones who have no place to go—they’re the ones who seek Him. It’s only the broken-hearted who find Him.
So Annie, my prayer is that you will see clearly. Choose wisely. Find a few true friends that the Lord has placed on your path. Some may believe, some may not yet believe. (I hesitate to use the word “never” in such cases.) What matters is where you’re headed and that they want to join you.
Be a pilgrim. There are things better than death.
Yours always,
Omi
A selection from Letters to Annie: A Grandmother’s Dreams of Fairy Tale Princesses, Princes, & Happily Ever After by Monika B. Hilder, published by FriesenPress in 2022.
Monika B. Hilder is Professor of English at Trinity Western University and co-founder and co-director of the Inklings Institute of Canada, author of a three-volume study of C. S. Lewis and gender, including Surprised by the Feminine, and co-editor of The Inklings and Culture. Next to spending time with her family and friends, her favorite activities are dreaming in the hammock with a good book and gliding in their green canoe.
Notes for Further Reading
Letter 21
p. 106, Give each negative thought and feeling to the Lord Jesus: see 2 Corinthians 10:5b, Romans 12:2.
p. 107, Perfect Love, God’s Love, casts out all fear: see 1 John 4:18.
p. 108, “The good fairy had created a magical shelter”: Charles Perrault, “The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood.” 1697. Paraphrase.
p. 108, the rare poet who said it was too early and not his place to awaken the young Sleeping Beauty: allusion to Wilfred Owen, “The Sleeping Beauty.” 1914.
Letter 29
p. 142, Extract from Grimm, “The Bremen Town-Musicians.” 1812-15. Translation by Margaret Hunt, pp. 75-77.
p. 143, a picture of “The Refugee Church”: see Jim Ware, “Ragtag Band: The Refugee Church,” in God of the Fairy Tale: Finding Truth in the Land of Make-Believe, Waterbrook Press, 2003, pp. 127-34.
p. 143, A motley crew. . . . gathered by an invisible Director: allusion to Lewis, The Four Loves, p. 83 (chapter 4, “Friendship,” second last paragraph).
p. 143, The ones who have no place to go: see Mark 2:17, Luke 5:31; see Frederick Buechner, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale. HarperSanFrancisco, 1977, pp. 89-90 (chapter 4, “The Gospel as Fairy Tale”).