It's A Love Story

"Well, it always happens like that.  The father and mother thought a lot of the two smart young men; but the Fool of the World was lucky if he got enough to eat, because they always forgot him unless they happened to be looking at him, and sometimes even then.

But however it was with his father and mother, this is a story that shows that God loves the simple folk, and turns things to their advantage in the end."

Evelyn's school library was getting rid of some books and she got to pick two of them to keep. One of her picks was The Fool of the World and The Flying Ship, A Russian Tale. The paragraph above is from the first page of this book. That night for story time we all sat on the couch while Ben read the book to us. It was a really interesting story! Evelyn loved it and it sparked an interest in Russian tales.

On my own I have been enjoying Russian tales retold by modern authors but I think I like the simplicity of the tales themselves. I love the characters, the tests that they face, their long-suffering persistence in the face of adversity for the one virtue they refuse to renounce. That, to me, is a love story.

I think we all need that kind of encouragement to keep loving even when things are hard. Or perhaps especially then. Modern thought would have us thinking that we ought not sacrifice of ourselves for others and the moment we are called to do so is the moment to cut the strings. Beloved, don't fall into this way of thinking. Keep sacrificing, keep loving. Until it hurts and even beyond.

I have to interject a bit from the Velveteen Rabbit because it illustrates what happens when we love this way, regardless of ourselves.

The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit. 

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand." 

"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive.

But the Skin Horse only smiled.

You become. It takes a long time...
I'm not a theologian and since becoming Orthodox I am even more hesitant to write about such things. I'm counting on my more learned friends to correct or add what seems to be missing. But I think the thing that is most enchanting to me is the process of theosis and perhaps understanding the experience (ha, ha!) that I've gained. Theosis, from reading books and dreaming, seemed like an easily ascended staircase, in the mind. But come to find out, it is really much more like the Velveteen Rabbit - being loved and loving until your eyes drop out and you hair is rubbed away. Theosis happens in the heart and in the day to day life that we live out with those around us. It's a long, slow process that is worth the pursuit because in the end you become restored, Real.

You can read a really good explanation of theosis and sanctification from Paredwka, Ben's blog. He speaks about it much more eloquently than I could have. :)