The Faerie House

We had a Grandma day.
I love one-on-one time with my grandchildren.
When they are quite young, it is usually time at Grandma’s house.
It is that magnificent push on the swing or snuggling together as we read favorite books.

It is different with my oldest granddaughter.
We can go to special places and out to lunch.
She has the energy and stamina to keep going until we come back to Grandma’s to rest.
We read, have a special snack and enjoy an hour or so before I drive her home.

This particular day we went shopping.
I intended to get her a new dress and a few other things.
She picked out the one she wanted.
I wholeheartedly agreed with her decision.

We went to a store that she enjoys which has garden things and craft things.
We decided that we would search for a faerie house.
She told me that she would find just the right place for it, since she has one in her garden.
I had no idea if our search would be successful.

We recruited the help of a man who appeared to be a manager.
Could you help us find a faerie house? I asked him looking down at my granddaughter.
Without missing a beat, he knew how serious she was in finding just the right one.
A faerie house; well that is a special thing to find, he said directly to her.

He walked us down to the floral section as I explained our mission.
My granddaughter has a faerie house in her garden and she wants Grandma to have one, too.
He smiled and walked ahead of us as my four-year-old granddaughter held my hand.
He got us to the correct aisle and pointed to some lower shelves.

My granddaughter’s face lit up when she saw quite a few houses from which to choose.
Thank you so much, I said to the kind man.
Oh, Grandma, this one! My granddaughter said. It has a door.
It reminded me of something right out of Tolkien; a house with ivy and a Hobbit-type door.

Why do you like the door? I asked her.
So the faeries can come in, she said as if the answer should have been obvious.
I didn’t think the material, the house was made of, would be wonderful in a garden.
Even if it lasted only this season, it was worth the purchase.

C.S. Lewis wrote about stealing past “watchful dragons” to describe the ability of literature to reach the hearts and minds of a reader with ideas they might not otherwise consider. He proposed that such stories could work upon the imagination to bring the heart to Christ. (C.S. Lewis, “Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say What’s Best to Be Said,” in On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature)

C. S. Lewis knew that stories can reach places in a heart that didactic explanations cannot.
Jesus taught in parables.
There was an A ha moment when the listener saw themselves in the story.
Great teaching happens that way; it stirs the imagination with Truth.

The consolation of fairy-stories, the joy of the happy ending; or more correctly of the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous “turn” (for there is no true end to any fairy-tale): this joy, which is one of the things which fairy-stories can produce supremely well, is not essentially “escapist,” nor “fugitive.” In its fairy-tale — or otherworld — setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief. (J.R.R. Tolkien, Tolkien On Fairy-stories)

This sudden turn that Tolkien was talking about is called, eucatastrophe.
It is the turn that happens when everything appears hopeless.
It is the sudden turn that shows us the joy that was there all along.
It is the Gospel.

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. (Romans 5:6)

When all seemed lost, when all seemed hopeless, Jesus Christ died for us.
When the Garden was closed with flaming cherubim after the Fall, Jesus opened the way back.
When we could never save ourselves, Jesus came and saved us.
When it appeared that the Cross had the last word, Jesus rose from the dead.

Eucatastrophe.
The sudden turn.
The Hope that we never expect.
Stealing past the watchful dragon, the enemy of our souls: the Cross was really a Victory.

My granddaughter and I bought the faerie house.
She decided to put it on a garden bench on our side porch.
She insists that the door remains open.
I wholeheartedly agree with her decision.