Since it’s Halloween and we’re stuck on the plane for several hours, I thought I’d enjoy a bit of dark drama. (The sort of “dark” that I like.)
The Huntsman: Winter’s War. Have you seen it? Chris Hemsworth- SWOON. Valiant and courageous, long haired and chiseled (takes me back to elementary school and my undying crush on Sully from Doctor Quinn Medicine Woman).
Okay. Enough of that. The story of The Huntsman precedes “Happily Ever After;” a tale about what comes before Snow White’s castle of dreams; it’s about love and evil at war. In my opinion, the main plot isn’t about the huntsman. And the story isn’t merely a fairy tale either. It’s symbolic. It’s revealing.
Fairy tales capture my visual senses, taking me into another time and place, revealing to me truths about my own world. The war of love versus evil in this fairy tale centers around the lust for power, the lust for what one does not have, the lust for oneself… Facts of life we relate to in our own frail reality…
What is the plot? Two sisters long to be known, to be desired, to be loved; the younger finds love in the arms of an affair while the elder finds love in her own likeness. They battle equally to prove themselves worthy of love by embracing their own power- making others suffer the pain they have long suffered- rejection, fear, loneliness, depravity, and shame.
How does the plot thicken? Both sisters want something that they believe will make them whole and complete, make them free and secure. They each want a child. They want to love and be loved by their own child. They want to fulfill the desire to be a mother, fulfill the desire to nurture, fulfill the desire to establish themselves through their own offspring.
The desire itself is of Wisdom. It is the desire to create a legacy. But a legacy built on the love of Self will crumble.
Who is like these two sisters who seek family, acceptance, belonging, and a legacy? You and I are like them. You and I are women. We are women who have the deep heart’s desire to be mothers, to love our children, and to build them a kingdom of protection.
Wisdom -underneath the black rubble of our pride we acknowledge- does not come from ourselves. Wisdom comes from Someone who designed us with intricacy, dignity, loyalty, authenticity. That Power itself does not desire for us to be destroyed. It will stop at nothing to protect us from ourselves, to protect us from the darkness that will consume us as we embrace our lust for power, our lust for acceptance, our lust for being wanted.
The allegorical tale rung true like a clanging gong to my own reality with this intimate message…
A child will not complete us. A child will not end our shame. A child will not heal our suffering. A child will not rescue us from ourselves.
Only the One who is all-knowing, a divine-designer can do that for you and for me.
We are like the two sisters, at the mercy of our own mirror which reveals to us we have deceived ourselves, or at the mercy of Love who wants to set us free from the chains that bind us to darkness and depravity.
The love and desire for a child will no more complete us than it did Ravenna & Freya. The love for something that is centered around “us” or “me” will destroy from the inside out. The love of self is a wicked corruption. The lust for a child destroyed their kingdoms, and it will destroy yours and mine as well.
The love of Love itself -which has reached out with tenderness, vulnerability, and truth- will smash our fears; break the chains of lust; heal our broken stories; bind up our orphan wounds; captivate our searching hearts.
What will consume you? Who do you love? What will be your legacy?
