Gravity
I used to look down my nose at adults that love cartoons and fairy tales. Stupid me. Now it seems to me that the truths that are cultivated in stories have the most zest and staying power.
So today, I want to tell you about the fairy tale that spoke as much to me as any sermon or lecture.
There was a princess that lacked something. It wasn’t just any “something” that she lacked. Of all the things in the world to lack, this girl lacked gravity. Of course this didn’t come about by natural causes, but by a jealous and wicked aunt. And this did put a kink in things and troubled her parents greatly, as it would any parent. Have a child requiring 24 x 7 tethering and in constant danger of floating away in the lightest breeze – it might be just a little unsettling for the whole family, you think?
And, you also might assume correctly that as she grew, along came a prince. And of all the princesses he had to choose from, this girl that had a knack for floating away, she wasn’t at the top of his list. But as often happens, he stumbled across her before he knew who she was. He fell for her before she was capable of falling.
Trouble came – BIG trouble. It threatened the kingdom, the princess etc. Self sacrifice was demanded and this prince fulfilled. This is where she fell, where she shed her first tear, and gained her gravity.
Of course the prince and princess were betrothed at once. But the princess had to learn to walk, before they could be married with any propriety. And this was not so easy at her time of life, for she could walk no more than a baby. She was always falling down and hurting herself. “Is this the gravity you used to make so much of?” said she one day to the prince, as he raised her from the floor. “For my part, I was a great deal more comfortable without it.”
“No, no, that’s not it. This is it,” replied the prince, as he took her up, and carried her about like a baby, kissing her all the time. “This is gravity.” – George MacDonald, The Light Princess
The gravity, the pressures of this world, they weigh hard, but on this day and every day, may you feel the Prince of Peace carry you – may you feel the embrace that you would not be capable of feeling, if it weren’t for – gravity.
a Rearranged Life 