In Fairyland

We've had a good summer season of movies. I managed to get round to seeing How to Train Your Dragon 3 along with the new Mary Poppins, and I - with my simple, unrefined and uncultured taste in movies - must say they were rather impressive.

But, that being said, I've always had a soft spot for good kids movies. Perhaps most of us do. They're a true treat for the heart. So many people I know have told me their favourite movie is a kids movie
(usually Shrek), and I am no exception. There aren't many movies that are as memorable and snuggle as close to the heart as kids movies can.
It's a beautiful little paradox.

You know, Einstein (a man with a magnificent brain and even better hair) once told parents that, if they wanted intelligent children, they ought to ...
"Read them fairy tales!"
And, after that...?
"Even more fairy tales!!!!"

Well I reckon he's on to something.

Someone has said somewhere that fairy tales are best, simply because they do not fear to tell the truth:
They offer no apology even as they tell us such preposterous nonsense such as that shepherd boys often make the best kings, and children are far better at beating monsters than the proudest knights.
They dare to remind us that fortune is fragile, and always has a cost of some sort, always hinging precariously on a compromise. Advising that promises are best taken seriously and breaking one might just steal away a kingdom, a lover, or a blessing, or a dear baby child.
They say love hurts and demands sacrifice.
They dare to reveal the true ugliness of those poor souls in love with their own reflection,
and point out that those who hoard over money and wealth may readily be called dragons.
They demand that magic is an everyday occurrence, not unlike the evening news or the rising sun.
They expect that treasure awaits those who face trial, with virtue and humility. Not the strong, necessarily, but the selfless and the brave.

And, above all, they dare to say all this as though, just maybe, it were actually true.

Perhaps, that is why children love them, for children love justice and truth, and demand 'what's fair'.
But we old people fear them. Sometimes they just cut too deep.

Yet Tolkien reminds us that fairy tales were written for adults - that Little Red Riding Hood was eaten by the wolf over and over before one day the woodcutter finally hopped in and saved her - yet they were "relegated to the nursery", where we could laugh them away and forget.  Grimm's tales it seems are not to grim for children, while they might just shake their parents down to the soul.

But if we let them, they can work magic.
They can remind us who we are. We can be children again.

And now is when you dismiss me for a nonsensical whimsical old romantic who's let his brain flop out onto his lap while he was too busy admiring the sunlight shimmering through the morning dew drops that kiss the wild roses, or something like that. But that is wherein the mistake lies...

...for children are not romantics, but the most grounded realists of us all.


G.K. Chesterton (in perhaps the most entertaining work of non-fiction I've ever had the pleasure of reading) tells of how fairy tales "touch the nerve of the ancient instinct of astonishment ... These tales say that apples were golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green. They make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water."

It is with this fresh wonder that children seem to welcome every day.

It is we rather, now grown old and sentimental, who are obsessed with the unreal fantasy that life is devoid of any excitement, magic, eternal legacy, rhyme and reason, while the children rush to greet the world with all wide eyes and smiles, ready to lap up the blues, the greens, the ambers, the greys, so deliberate and perfect and magnificent as a painting. To behold the sheer magnificence of the soft blue sky (as expansive as a giant's cloak), the boom of thunder with lightning's flashes (screams of wars raged in the firmament), to sing nonsense to the birds (and listen for the reply), and to dance in the rain (for the lonely night sky). Up to the clouds with the epics they tell (not necessarily about sheep), and down to the finest detail scribbled into flower petals and seashells (by some peerless artists' hand). They are slain again and again by the sheer beauty and awesomeness of the cosmos.

And why shouldn't they?
What is not magical and amazing about this miraculous world that we have somehow - trapped in some depressing and claustrophobic fantasy - grown bored of. We wake each morning to the same earth, same sky, same people, and the grass the same green ... and how magnificent is that, that grass should be such a deliberate, triumphant, and confident green (when it could well have been purple), marching ever so slowly to take over the whole world. And it grows and it dies and it grows again. Ha! Magnificent! It never grows old. It's just like magic!
The child beholds the same wonder every day and, while we grunt and groan at the weather, they leap in laughing 'why? why? why? why?'

And they are not foolish old romantics, but are utterly grounded in reality; seeing clearly that life is a quest, with dragons to be slain, treasure to be won, and beauty to be defended. Every action echoes through eternity. Children are eager for the adventure they hear singing through the spheres. A song we've all heard. They hear the call to be heroes.

And our world suffers a crisis of heroes at the moment, doesn't it?

The heroes we hear about nowadays are such marvels (hehe), big characters with great powers. But the heroes of fairy tales are really quite simple and small, their heroics not coming from any magnificent powers and blessings, but rather their strength came from virtue, bravery, selfless service, and (dare I say) humility. Perhaps the closest example we applaud today is Captain Steve Rogers, who was brave and selfless well before they went and made him super. But the heroes of fairyland are still small heroes, sometimes doing only the littlest things, everyday things, heroic things. They are, in my highly fallible opinion, the better lot. I see in my mind poor little Jack, cutting down the beanstalk to splat the tyrannical Hulk clambering down from above.
I trust you know how the rest goes.

We have forgotten what it is to be a hero, have grown old and forgotten the dreams of our youth; where great courage and love are rewarded beyond imagining, and the forgotten little orphan is really undiscovered royalty. We have been lulled into complacency by a world that prefers comfort over virtue. Comfort, of course, turns out to be more profitable.
So, I implore you, take up the banner and charge (you needn't carry a sword, very few heroes do).
To live without a higher purpose, without striving for the transcendent, a heritage to defend or a beauty to win. Is that even life?

And read some fairytales sometime (perhaps we could get a poll going of our favourites in the comments or something, eh?), or your favourite childhood book, or perhaps a movie.
You might just find you remember some things.

Like The Dawn: A Christmas Story

It was a deep night, thick and stifling, draped heavily like velvet over the desert, putting the tired land to bed, laying it down into the soft consolation of sleep. From the grand little palace, glowing lights danced and burned proudly and ostentatiously, spinning whorls and patterns into the deep purple fabric of the sky. The Setrapes had ordered it, and so by some obscure sorcery the fires leaped and danced in all different shades and colours, wild in hungry brilliance. The Satrapes was an ambitious man, wholly devoted only to raising himself, by sheer stubbornness of willpower up above the clouds; to fight further, trade wider, be served and loved by more, and so the fires leaped and spun. But high above, they scarcely stole from the magnificent constancy in that eternal tapestry of stars.

I stood outside there as the palace hummed with music and laughter behind me, and those silent stars looked sadly down on me. It was not that I did not approve of the festival - certainly celebration is a wondrous thing in its appointed time. It had been a good year for that court, with bountiful harvests and spoils of war, and it is always wise to give thanks for what is given. But the palace was not my home, I’d only arrived on the eve of the great festival. Now I’d had my share and withdrew, letting the night draw me gently closer to whisper it’s silent secrets to my heart, deeper and deeper.

Behind me, the festivities slowly closed, the great crescendo descending to a soft purr. Night crept on, gathered all to its bosom. Soldiers, lulled by drink, sank to the floor. Young men in fine robes grew silent and retired. Their partners withdrew to recline on long soft couches, folds of diaphanous silks blossoming about them in beautiful flowers. All children finding rest in their mother’s arms. One by one the magnificent torches tired and gave in with a final exhale, until the revelers gathered about the last great fire in the main hall. Night came on. Silence descended. Shadows reigned.

But a voice called out against the midnight shadows for “A story! Let’s have a story.”

“Then let’s hear of your battles against the heathens in the east” they implored the military captain.

“And your travels among the roving tribes to the west”, turning to the merchant crew.

“How about that old tale about the woodcutter and the thieves”, and some dramatic personality leapt up to tell it.

So they dragged on, raging against the Tyrant Time. Refusing to let the celebration slip away. Savouring the last seconds as a child would lick up the dregs of some sherbet. Deeper and deeper, longer and longer.

“I also have a story to tell you, if you will listen.” A voice whispered from the shadows, weak and wavering. It was an older man, greatly regarded by all the people, even the ineffable Satrapes himself, with almost reverential respect. He was a Magi, and, of course, that demanded respect. Such were the icons of legends written into the earliest books, the power behind thrones, treasurers of all knowledge, even the elements bowed to their command, those wise men who studied the secrets hidden in the treasury of the universe. I looked to him with a careful mixture of awe and intrigue. This man, like myself, was a visitor. He had arrived the same day I had, only hours before me on the road.

I listened. The palace held its breath in anticipation, so the old man looked up to the naked sky and continued:

“I could tell you a lot from these stars, you know. Years of my life I’ve spent under them, gazing at them from ancient towers above the world. I could name everyone and all of them for you if you like and recount each story they tell, if we had nights and nights to spare. No, don’t worry, I’ll only tell you one tonight, your half-drunk and your eyes half-closed as it is. I won’t bore you with this old man’s dribble any more than you deserve. This is the story of a star I can no longer see up there in God’s great tapestry.

“It was a peculiar star, if it even was such a thing. It behaved like no star I’ve ever seen. All I’ve seen travel east to west like servants of the sun, but this one went … shall we say its own way. We saw it, one bleak midwinter night, the eve of the first moon of winter to be exact. Right there in the western sky. Simple and superb. Beckoning, perhaps one might think. A number of us gathered, discussed what was to be done. We had heard that ‘a star shall come forth’, but we had not thought it credible. Stars do not ‘appear’, that is not the way of things. We had wondered though. Yes, some of us had wondered. And we beheld this one at its rising. We are magi. We listen to the stars, and the stars do not lie to those who will listen. They told of a newborn King, ... and beckoned.

“We formed a small company for the journey, only three of us. Most were too old to face the desert. Others had more questionable reluctance. Some were not taken for nonsense; they denounced us, disgraced us as infidels. Others behaved in secret, just gave us gifts and let us correspond, keeping up their name. And fair enough, an unforgiving way was kept for us. The days hot and hateful. The nights froze to the heart. And always the thirst, cutting down to the soul. Desert land is hard, merciless, and the people even more so. For my own part I know not what kept my face to the desert wind. Perhaps fidelity to my calling, lest some other force possesed my bones.

“In time we came to a restless city and the high seat in the land. One who called himself a king. The man was a king, that is true, with a grand court both rich and powerful, but it was not he we sought, nor any of his sons. For all his welcome I found no rest there. He listened with greedy eyes to our story, and they raged at the news we brought. As we stood before his tall throne, providing audience for his illustrious speeches in dazzling robes, in my heart I was thinking of the ancient tales about the monstrous dragons that ate princesses and stole empires, sitting on gold hoards all alone forever … counting I suppose. In those stories, whole armies of soldiers would be crushed in a moment by the fierce monster beside towns incinerated in a single breath, so the people would live in fear. But after all the great and proud heroes in the land had perished to tooth, claw, and flame, a single unlikely little challenger would arise from the cowering land to trick and slay the unholy beast. In the best versions the little hero was only a child. Those tales were always my favourite, I wish you would tell those again in your courts, the unlikely ones that didn’t fear to tell truth.

“No I could not rest there. We fulfilled all policy and went on our way. But the king called us one last time to his great chamber, imploring us to return when we had found the child, ‘so that he too may come and worship’ he told us. I looked at him, a beast dressed as a saviour, and I tried to imagine a dragon kneeling.

“Beside him, his mistress stood holding his youngest son, pampered by a court of willing hands. I’ve heard that child is dead now. I’ve heard that king killed all his sons. It does not surprise me, dragons always devour the children, the family. It knows from there comes its demise.

“In only days, we came at last to a small town, but a bedlam to behold. We saw crowds of lost people and heard murmurs of ‘enrollments’, but for an emperor far-away longing for power, to raise himself higher than he deserved. No one spoke of a King. In the sweat and the dust and the concrete apathy, we collapsed. This was meant to be the place.

“But when night came the star remained, and we followed it once more, out from that busy little town, preparing for something indeed … but not a King. Out in the quiet, we came, not to a house, but our guide waited at last over a cave. And so our journey ended, under the earth.

“Now I was an old man even then. I daresay I was old before many of you were yet young, and I don’t have little to show for it. In my time, I’ve read all the lore of our people and understand all the sciences and arts we’ve developed. My life’s been measured out in scrolls and books, reading further, searching deeper, tasting, enjoying, devouring all the knowledge the universe offers. I’ve advised kings and princes, who’ve obeyed my word like dogs. Whole empires have rested in the palm of my hand, or so I believed. And how we will believe such startling fantasies about ourselves sometimes, eh? as long as they look nicer than the truth. Yes, even I, who has gazed at the stars all my life, trying to read them like you would a book. Thirsting after truth like a dying man in the desert. Not a sentiment, not a fancy, something hard, solid, that you can sink your teeth into and shatter them. All my life I’ve been following these stars. They led me here to you tonight. And they led me, all those years ago, down under the earth to the feet of my King. And in that moment, I saw all the stars, those passed, those waiting for birth, and all that was above them and all they looked down on in every age, dancing in His eyes.

“I saw all the universe, and He who sang eternity into being. And in that moment, before that simple little creature, I knew only that I knew nothing.

For a second the silent was perfect, he could have been speaking to a gang of dead men for all he knew. But you could feel everything, the stone walls, the groaning desert, the gathering darkness, and the hearts gathered all around - in the light of the dying fire, the darkness, and under the darkness - all listening to every word coming from the old man’s mouth as though they were life itself. He spoke:

“What we found down there, none of us could have prepared for. There was a man, a father; silent and strong. But it was the woman we loved first; like the star we followed, but shining brighter and gentler with the glory of a mother. And her eyes were love, pure as is impossible, deeper than the ocean. But the ocean is less than a teardrop falling from her eye. And I was there, falling, drowning, dissolving. I gave her my heart without ever a word. Now, even now, every moment I long to see Her smile once more.

“At her feet we laid the gifts we had brought, withdrawn from ornate chests. They had been magnificent, fit for a King, exquisite as dust. Had I not laid down my heart as well, this old man would have been too ashamed. But that Lady laughed, the song that makes God sigh, and from the deep warm folds of Her mantle she revealed a tiny newborn child.

“Heaven came to earth.

“It is impossible to say all that my heart burns to tell you. Forget nights, I could spend lifetimes writing it in books, spilling it out in words, and still could not communicate the slightest truth of that beauty, that love. Oh, but if I could you would laugh and weep with joy. Your hearts would burn, and then you would die, because this life would have no light for you. Ah, Mother and Child! How I long to return! How I wish I had never left. No. Instead, I must keep to this, following the stars, telling my story. Waiting. They will lead me home.

“Soon.

Out over the desert, through the darkness thick as death, the world held its breath, waiting for dawn.

Purgatio

So high school finished, for those who don't know.
(Yeah! Whoo! Congratulations! - I know)

These are the days my friends, these are the days. The whole world's opened up like a blooming flower. This is the moment, this is the pearl, this is that fine sunshine.
And so many of my friends are saying ...
they're bored.

The long-awaited triumphant romance sinks into stale tragedy.

Honestly, I don't understand it. I've no time to be bored. I've been too busy cleaning out my room - swish! swash! dust, drawers, ripe paper, into fire 'Whoosh!' Working through my life with a methodical severity, sorting it all into apathetic piles of 'to keep' or 'not to keep'. So much, and oh so much more to go. It seems I've measured my whole life out in lines of scribbled ink on cheap paper ... and off it goes
'Whoosh!'

Hah! you could almost imagine the life draining from me as it's all thrown away, turning slowly into some shriveled little thing with thin-yellowing skin, curled up in the corner like a scrunched ball of paper.
But don't worry, I've lost no blood. Good thing I'm more than the mark of pens - the magnificent cartoons I left in the margins of superb workbooks, accompanying perfectly all those wonderful words I wrote. Mellifluous! I should think so! See them blow away like farts on wind.

Could last 1 year maybe. Even 2 years. 100 years! Today. Pfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff.......


It's quite a relief, really. Like a good hot shower (with soap) after years in a hot dry dusty desert,
where there are no showers.
Purging through it all. Boiling it all down to the refined product; the gold, the simple things, what I really need. You know, sometimes (when I'm especially out of it) I think I really wouldn't mind if a great fire just came and ate up all my room - my bed, desk, books, clothes arranged all prettily out on a china plate - and to excrete back out at me nothing but smoke.
Just me, with nothing. Tossing it all aside like a smelly old cloak. Naked; like I came into the world, my soul held fresh in the bosom of God. Poor, pure, and simple, like a wee baby, waiting in trust for everything to be poured into it. Gaping at all the brand new world, as amazing as it always was. Before I grew stale.
Ah what a silly thought!

Yes, I daresay spring cleanings are very good, we people especially need them. Sweeping up the dust. Chasing out the rats. Keeping the air fresh and free. Finding all the secret things festering and moaning in the dark and bathing them in the light. We're like gardens that need a good weeding every so often, lest the rare and beautiful plants get choked and the whole think turns rank and poison.
Or, again, just like we need showers lest we grow smelly and positively repellent to any poor soul nearby. It is important to review, to examen, to reform, and others will surely appreciate the smell when we do.
Letting the fires burn off all the rubbish, the baggage, the chaff, finding gold purified in the heat.

POP!

You know, I was once in a train (as people tend to be) in Guanzhou (which is very far away from where I am now) sandwiched in a flood of strange unknown people in a strange and unknown place,  like a timid little needle in a living, breathing, behemoth of a haystack. I was lucky though. I was not lost (this time that is) and I was not alone - I was with an unlikely bunch of people together on an unusual mission to a hidden little place (that I've never found again on Google maps). It was an interesting day, to be sure, fraught with unlikely encounters and dangers, from rabid puppies to probably-illegal activity in a totalitarian state.

None of this is important for you, though, let's go back to the train.

Munched up by the tides of indifferent people, pressing against me like so many gnarly teeth, a Texan priest (of all people) I was travelling with turned to me with a bounteous smile and said something that I have not yet forgotten. It went something like:

"You know I love to just look at all these people and think about all of those different bubbles, all the different stories, all these people in their own little worlds, thinking about their own little problems, living their own little stories. Just going on, oblivious to all the other little bubbles around them."

I stepped out and looked at all the little people and almost laughed.
All the little bubbles ready to go 'Pop!'

You know, as I trudge through my life of essays and classes, homework and schoolwork, looping like a little wheel, I realise that I really am no different. I plod along with my head down in the mud stressing about all the silly little things that I have to do, not really knowing where I'm going really.

But every now and then I look up.
And every now and then I think (to take a curiously common example) "wow that's a big tree!"

I love the fact though that everyday I get to walk over the freeway on my way home and, when I'm paying attention, look out over all the speedy little cars and trucks and neat houses and trees to the big blue sky stretching its mantle over all and everything. So big! So big it stretches my brain more than any day of school. So big it makes me laugh.

Hahahaha (Pop!)

How good it is to look up at the sky and see how little we are.
How little people look, up and out of their world.
And suddenly, in knowing our littleness our world grows so much bigger.

How funny are clouds! How mighty is the wind! How beautiful the stars, like wounds in a bleak and black and lonely eternity for Heaven to shine right on through.
How big, how beautiful is the world. How much more interesting than the stupid little private universe inside my head.

What a relief it is to know that it's not all about me!

So look up at the sky and realise how little you are. Let your bubble pop!
And let the relief flood in ...
that you are not the centre of the universe.
That it's not about you. It never was about you.
How Good!

In Statu Viae (Springtime)

Sorry for the silence, its been a long cold winter.
Now I find it's the season for poetry.


In Statu Viae

Springtime;
Early frost, worries the heart,
Bites the new blossoms in the bud.
United and apart,
Within and without,
The river, our sister, is crying in the mud,
The perpetual struggle of her sorrowful soul;
The whole world groans to be free.

And I too am not evergreen;
I cannot shrug winter's sting,
My soul, tired, ceases to sing,
Wandering afraid through the tyrant night,
And the cold days of dirty light,
The wind my only comfort.
The whole world moans, thirsting so long to die
And rise;
Trees clicking their fingers in the wind,
Dry old bones.
And the darkness creeps in.
The silence, the awful solitude,
Alone! Alone! even in the magnitude,
And listening for anyone there?

Oh Lord, it is so dark here!
I cannot see! I cannot see!
My Jesus, I trust in Thee.

And you come,
Simplicity, framed by rays more sublime
than the sunrise, sunset, and the gentle night sky.
Too beautiful
The eye is blinded,
But the heart turns and smiles
Gazing at the eternal Springtime.

Growing Up?

So here I am everyone: my last day of childhood.

Tomorrow I step off into the deep dark unknown, the wild and treacherous land of wicked secrets and attractive monsters - adultland.

Ah bugger.

I don't want to go, but I really must.

But before I do go anywhere, it seems there's a certain question I need to finally answer first.

Namely: how on earth does one 'grow up' in the first place?

So here we go.

For me, the process of ‘growing up’ has always been intrinsically tragic, a sad inevitability that could never be avoided, but  should nonetheless be avoided like the plague. The death of joy. The death of wonder. The death of innocence. Then finally … well death. I clutched to my fading childhood as to a tree in a tornado, legs blowing in the wind like streamers as time swept me away.

But, of course it was too late. It had been too late for years.

So my childish sentiment crawled to childish maturity.

It has always seemed to me a great paradox that the young should yearn to be older, while the old should gaze wistfully at their past as it runs by on little new feet. The young rest in the arms of the old, and the old adore the young. One longs for what is coming, the other mourns for what has been lost and left behind.

(Neither know what they really want, and the two really aren't that different. One just has more wrinkles.)

But this is where I'm heading it seems. My best days behind me, having reached the summit, and now I'm rolling down the hill to pick up my sore groaning body at the bottom, take up a walking stick, and assume my destiny as a cantankerous old man, ever barking on about how it was "back in my day" (yesterday) until eventually I keel over and die.

But my heart cries, 'No! It mustn't be.'

And indeed, it mustn't be.

For me, as I imagine most people would, I associated adulthood with experience and childhood with innocence, and the tragic journey of ‘growing up’ the loss of innocence,

sounding like a sad operation that must be undertaken,

like the neutering of dogs or castration of sheep.

But I disagree,

I daresay a mistake has been made here to juxtapose innocence and experience.

I daresay we've confused our understanding of innocence with ignorance.

Rather, I think we'll find that a man who has seen a murder, but did not commit it, is still innocent.

Or a woman who has witnessed a theft, but goes on a jolly chase after the culprit, is still innocent. And innocence is always to be prefered to guilt.

You can know things, you can look upon the world and seen things. But have no part in what you see.

You can see murder, and rape, and porn, and greed, and hatred, and evil, and you can fight back.

As far as I'm concerned, you're still innocent. If only you have the strength to hold on.

And I have no intention of becoming guilty, and rotting away in some inner cell moaning about paradise lost. Or worse, accepting myself as a criminal.

And yet I must grow up?

And so I shall,

Holding and taking my innocence with me.

Because,

Growing up is just as much about knowing what you must hold and take with you, as what you must leave behind.

You have to keep moving, you mustn't stop marching on, just don't drop what you really should not leave behind. Don't forget what you might just (when you are old and wrinkly) look at in a little child one day and miss.

I grow up, old, and wrinkly, but still I remain ...

a little child.

A Mother's Heart

I don't know if there is a love so great between creatures as the love between a mother and her child,  in those first small moments of life. With only the bright, the harsh, the noisy world they have suddenly fallen into and that soft, gentle consolation - the all-encompassing embrace of mama, holding her child like her own heart.

She, all that child's world,
and that child, the whole world, simple and small in her arms.
Holding each other as there is nothing else.

I suppose today is about our mothers, those who held us,
hold us still,
and never let go,
forever and ever.
In oh so many ways we can only try to repay.

This is how we were born,
This is how we will die,
Small and simple,
In the arms of our mother.

Farther than we can reach or closer than we know, let's hold them back today,
and never let go.

(Happy Mother's Day Mama! Thankyou!)