Skip to main content

Fairy Tale Ending

The BlogHer August prompts are about fairy tales.

Do you believe it's possible for some people to get that fairy tale ending of happily ever after?

I think it depends on what we think happily ever after looks like. I read a lot of romance novels and the community of romance readers is very big on what we call the HEA (happily ever after). In fact, if there is a not a clear resolution of conflict and at least the implication that the main characters are going to live together in love and harmony, then we're fairly quick to reject it as romance. 

However, HEA covers a multitude of dishes, vacation squabbles, differences of opinion, socks forgotten on the stairs, burned dinner, and general frustration. The implication is that love will cover all these things- if indeed any of these things occur. Many contemporary (setting and writing) romances deal with a variety of more complex issues: learning difficulties, mismatched personalities, chronic illness, children who are more than genial plot devices, temptations, anxiety, and other real life/world issues. 

The next station on that train of thought for me is that if HEA was enough, the gospels would be the end of our written scripture. They would end with an empty tomb, encounters with the risen Christ, and then we would fade to the sunset. Ta-da! And Peter and James and John and Thomas and Mary Magdalene and Johanna and the other Mary all lived happily ever after. 

Except that Acts tells us otherwise. And our experience of church tells us the same. 

There is an HEA of resurrection, promise, and presence, but there is also work. Riding off into the sunset with the risen Jesus only leads to the sunrise and the one after that and the one after that. As it turns out, the fairy tale ending is just the end of the recitation. It's the commencement of the work of living out the togetherness that was the joy of the story. 

So do I believe that it is possible for some people to get that fairy tale ending of happily ever after? 

I do. I really do. But I think the ending is only the beginning- the beginning of the work of the new life, the new love, and the new reality that has been made in the HEA. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

I'm In

A few weeks ago ,  I was using voice-to-text to compose some prayers. After I was finished speaking the whole list, I was proof-reading the document and   realized that everywhere I said “Amen”, the voice-to-text wrote “I’m in”. “Amen” essentially means  “may it be so”,  but what would it look like to end our prayers with “I’m in”. What would change if we rose from our knees, left our prayer closets, closed our devotionals, and moved with purpose toward the goals for which we had just prayed.  Lord, in your mercy:  Grant justice to the oppressed and disenfranchised (I’m in) Cast down the mighty from their thrones (I’m in)  Console the grieving and welcome the prodigal (I’m in)  Welcome strangers and attend to the marginalized (I’m in)  Grant the space for the silenced to speak… and listen (I’m in)  Fill the hungry with good things and send the rich away empty (I’m in)  Forgive others as I am forgiven (I’m in) Be merciful as God in h...

The Reign of Christ and the Long Defeat

At one point in The Lord of the Rings, the royal elf Galadriel describes her life and experience and says, “… we have fought the long defeat.” Galadriel, like other elves and the Hobbits and many others, is depicted as being on the right side of things in the books. The Company of the Ring (the Fellowship) wins and defeats the forces of evil. Why would she consider this a “long defeat”?  Furthermore, why would J.R.R. Tolkien, the author, apply the same term to himself. He wrote in a letter, “Actually, I am a Christian, and indeed a Roman Catholic, so that I do not expect ‘history’ to be anything but a 'long defeat’ – though it contains (and in a legend may contain more clearly and movingly) some samples or glimpses of final victory.” (Letter #195) Tolkien, a Brit, fought in World War 1. Though he was on the side that “won”, he saw the devastation following the war on all sides- how the “winners” struggled with what they had seen and done and how the “losers” were galvanized to see ...

What is Best (Sermon)

Pentecost 15 (Year A)  Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9; Psalm 15; James 1:17-27;  Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 I recently read a novel set in a post-pandemic, apocalyptic world. In the book, people were working to re-establish pockets of society. A traveling symphony moved from town to town in caravans- performing music and works of Shakespeare. Early in their travels, they had tried other plays, but people only wanted to see Shakespearean works. One of the symphony members commented on the desire for Shakespeare, "People want what was best about the world." As I read and since I finished the book, I kept thinking about that phrase.  People want what was best about the world. People want what was best about the world. That is true even when we’re not in a cataclysmic re-working of what we’ve always known. The very idea of nostalgia, of longing for what once was, is about wanting what was best about the world or what seemed like the best to us. One of the massive tension...