I’ve been reading in the mornings as I eat my breakfast andthe aroma of brewing coffee wafts through my kitchen a book by Madeleine L’Englecalled Walking on Water, which is anexploration of the relationship between faith and art, and what it means to bea Christian artist. It’s been a beautiful journey of realization, critical thinking,and rediscovery of things I’ve long known but recently forgotten. One thingthat she speaks about and has particularly struck me is the importance of a child-likeimagination and the truth found in story and myth. To soon are we told to putaway ‘childish’ things and grow up to realize the ‘real world’ of cold science.We are taught to doubt and turn our noses up at outrageous ideas like unicorns,dragons, selkies, and faeries. What a tragedy it is when a child turns in hisimaginings, closes them up in a box never to be opened again, and learns todoubt what he cannot see. The attitude of some that say “Let not this childpollute his mind with fairy tales, let us teach him of the ‘real’ world,” isone that strips the child of his creativity, of his very childhood. Of courseit is important to teach our children of the reality of this world, and of itsdangers and snares, but not at the expense of or rather than fairy tales thatteach and bring wonderment to our children’s minds.
Having studied folk and fairy tales for a Master’s leveldissertation, as well as the culture in which they have long been perpetuated Ihave come to understand that to tell fairy tales to our children is not to lieto them. It is to broaden their perspective and engage their imaginations toteach them the truths that lie inherently in so many of those tales and songs.I want to teach my daughter to see the fantastic in the mundane, and see beautywhere is it unexpected. I want her to see mountains and wonder what adventuresmight lie in wait there, whether dwarves live under them or dragons keep ahoard there. I want her to wonder whether faeries are real as she walks througha silent forest as the sun filters through the leaves. When we take her to thebeach, I want her to remember the stories about selkies and mermaids andimagine that she sees them beneath the waves or sunning themselves on thoserocks out there. There is so much to be gained from story-telling andimagination, and I want her to have every opportunity to experience thosethings and engage in the magnificent high-creativity that comes with achild-like wonderment of the world.
My mother told me when I was young that the tops of fallen acornswere vessels that faeries used for their cups and plates at their feasts andparties, and if I collected the very best ones and put them under my pillow atnight, they would come to take them and leave a token of thanks in their place.I would spend hours collecting the delicate things, reveling in the knowledge thatsomething I did could somehow help the faeries. I felt important, and Iimagined the beautiful creatures with their gossamer wings making merry arounda table set with cups and plates that I had collected for them. I wasadmittedly a little bummed when I realized that it was my mother who took theacorn tops from my pillow when I slept and left coins in place of them, but Iwould never trade those hours collecting and imagining nor the world I held sodear in those moments. Those memories are some of my favorites. I want mydaughter to have an abundance of those memories. I want to encourage her toimagine worlds and beings no one has ever seen, and to share in those worldswith her.
“In art we are once again able to do all the things we haveforgotten; we are able to walk on water; we speak to the angels who call us; wemove unfettered among the stars.” –Madeleine L’Engle
“In our society, at the age of five, 90 percent of thepopulation measures ‘high creativity.’ By the age of seven, the figure hasdropped to 10 percent. And the percentage of adults with high creativity isonly two percent! Our creativity is destroyed not through the use of outsideforce, but through criticism, innuendo, by the dirty devices of this world. Sowe are diminished, and we forget that we are more than we know. The child isaware of unlimited potential , and this munificence is one of the joys ofcreativity. Those of us who struggle in our own ways, small or great, tricklesor rivers, to create, are constantly having to unlearn what the world wouldteach us; it is not easy to keep a child’s high creativity in the late years ofthe twentieth century.” –Finley Eversole, in The Politics of Creativity
I intend to try, and I intend to cultivate the creativity ofmy daughter, and all of my children, so that they remember that they are morethan they know. We are made in the image of our Creator, therefore we arecreators ourselves.
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| Reading together as a family. Starting her off right with The Lord of the Rings. |
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