Windows

I write a lot about Reality and Fantasy in these pages. I think a lot about Reality and Fantasy— how the two diverge, how they parallel, how they touch and overlap. It comes of living in a world that has regressed into a slap-dash imitation of an original: Adam and Eve saw that Masterpiece, but after six thousand years of counterfeiting, some critical bits have been left out, moved, or replaced. Don't get me wrong— this world is still the best art there is in the universe, but living inside the frame makes it easy to see the marks of forgery. “Make-believe” is often the only window we have through which we can dimly make out the true colors and true shapes of that initial perfection.

For a change of pace this Christmas Eve, my family and I went to see Enchanted— again. I found I liked it as much as I did before, and this time was better able to define why. It's a window. When the Andalasian girl Giselle falls out of a cotton candy fantasy and into our hard-bitten reality, her innocent assumptions and our unconscious jadedness create quite a contrast. The twist is, of course, that each side has validity. By the end of the film we begin to realize that while there is more life to be found in a completer truth, even if it's hard, there are still things belonging to fairytale that should be part of everyday truth that aren't. For example, there is more to marriage than True Love's Kiss. Reality shows us that. But fantasy takes it for granted that if you love someone you show them in a thousand little ways because that's how it is in Andalasia. We of New York and L.A. and Ethel nod our heads vigorously, wishing from our depths that we could take it for granted. Something in us recognizes that that is how reality should be. We see through the window that in the Masterpiece World we wouldn't have to beg for affirmation. It doesn't transgressed against decorum for us to wear princess dresses and twirl— even at 35. Men understand that it's okay to fight dragons (they're not endangered), protect the girl, and yes, even get angry at evil.

I got shoes for Christmas. Beautiful painted ballet slippers that would blend into any forest floor of any elven ballroom. My friend Elisabeth made them for me. Every time I put them on I feel like a princess. I think it's because the motion of sliding my foot into just this shape of shoe harkens back to the days when I played “glass slipper,” and put on and took off a clear “jelly” shoe, with a charming toe and a cunning heel, over and over and over again. I felt like Cinderella. These shoes are another window: they remind me that feeling beautiful is desperately important.

As Christmas steals in while I write, I am thankful for the way God has left windows open for us in unexpected places. Even His own story has a touch of fantasy about it so that we can relate. What good fairytale doesn't involve royalty incognito? Or peasants turning the world upside down? Or humble beginnings followed by heroic deeds? Or a damsel rescued? Or miraculous events everywhere? Well, in Jesus we have a “bastard” son of a poor carpenter, born among a people oppressed, brought up in obscurity, the oldest of at least seven siblings, a boy there was always something “special” about. At his coming of age he bursts upon the scene, wonders flow from his fingertips, voices are heard from the sky... and he is hated! By villains more dastardly than even the most nefarious tales dare tell of! They plot and they plan, but he always escapes. At last they think they've caught him. One of his best friends betray him. They beat him, torture him, and kill him. But what fairytale is complete without a miraculous return of the king? After the usual three days the small-town boy comes back to life, and suddenly everyone can see that he must be the rightful king of the kingdom. Why couldn't they see it before? He looks just like his father! It's only a matter of time before he takes a bride...
It's like every good story we've ever read, only a thousand times better because it's true. The kindness of Jesus in throwing open that window moves me. He has used words and pictures and facts that every nation on earth can understand and respond to. It's like me shoes. And like Enchanted. It's the skin on the spirit of a thing so we can touch it. Look through the windows. They're everywhere.