Sleeping Beauty

Shield of virtue

/ Fran Haley / 15 Comments

A Spiritual Journey Thursday offering

with thanks to my Spiritual Journey writing friends and to Karen Eastlund for hosting on this first Thursday in September. Our theme is “virtue.” I began writing on this topic last month: What is virtue?

Allow me to start my circuitous spiritual journey route today with a question, Dear Readers: Do any of you remember a vintage device called Viewmaster? From back in the olden days before cable, videos, DVDs, movie channels, and Virtual Reality headsets?

My grandmother bought one for me in the early ’70s. It looked exactly like this:

My Batman & Robin Viewmaster 3D Viewer and Reels. 1966. Jimmy Big Potatoes. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

You’d remove the reels, ever so carefully holding them by the rim, not getting your fingerprints on the little squares of film. Notches on the rim indicated proper insertion; these would be centered at the top. Then you’d hold the Viewmaster up to your eyes, aim for a light source—lamp, overhead fixture, or window—and voilà! The magical 3D scene would draw you in. When you were ready for the next scene, you’d push down the little lever on the right.

I didn’t have Batman reels as pictured in the photo above. I had Lassie, Casper the Friendly Ghost, Bambi, some others I can’t recall at the moment, and the first set Grandma ever purchased for me: Sleeping Beauty.

I recall my childhood horror of Disney’s Maleficent and her curse on Princess Aurora, who was subsequently disguised as Briar Rose, relegated to living in the woods. My child’s blood ran cold at the spindle scene in which the young girl pricked her finger (creepy multiple hands appeared there), which ushered in her enchanted sleep instead of death…

Enter Prince Philip, her rescuer.

The good fairies Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather, always working on Aurora’s behalf, gave two objects to the Prince: The Sword of Truth and the Shield of Virtue.

That Shield of Virtue has lain dormant in my memory for decades.

Today I retrieve it, blow off the layers of dust, and consider its gleaming significance.

The Shield of Virtue (vignette). C-Lemon. CC BY-NC-ND.

The shield, emblazoned with a cross, protected Philip from Maleficent’s fiery breath when she transformed into a dragon; in the movie, she cries: “Now you shall deal with me, O Prince, and all the powers of hell!” (yes, this is an animated Disney movie made for children. Fairy tales, as you know, can be quite Grimm).

As I contemplated writing on the topic of virtue again, this shield kept rising to the viscous surface of my thoughts. It is more than a magical token.

There’s a real Shield of Virtue. A gold one, awarded to the first Roman emperor, Caesar Augustus (Octavian), so inscribed: The senate and the Roman people give to Augustus, son of the divine Caesar, in his 8th consulate, the shield for virtue, clemency, justice, and piety towards the gods and his native land.

Marble copy of the Shield of Virtue (Clipeus Virtutis) of Augustus. Carol Raddato. CC BY-SA

The Shield of Virtue is a thing that was given. It denotes battle. Above all, valor. It is a defense. By very nature of its name, the Shield of Virtue represents high standards, mercy, fairness, loyalty, acting on behalf of others.

I return now to the spiritual journey. A path of treacherous turns, often littered with brokenness. Dark forests of encroaching thorns and dragonfire as ever the fictitious Prince Philip faced. Ongoing warfare, threat of destruction…

Armor is desperately needed. As Paul wrote to the Ephesian believers:

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm…in all circumstances, take up the shield of faith, with which can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one…(Ephesians 6:11-16).

The spiritual battle is real. A shield is given; one of faith. It occurs to me that virtue and faith are inextricably intertwined. Courage is born of believing in something greater than oneself (my favorite definition of awe). Tapping into this disperses unique fuel in one’s veins, enabling one to grasp the shield and to power through, trusting. Scriptures repeat that the battle isn’t even ours, but the Lord’s. His faithfulness will be your shield and rampart… (Psalm 91:4).

Somehow, an acrostic seems called for.

Valor. Let it not be born of vainglory but of an
Infusion of love, of mercy, of divine strength.
Righteousness not fashioned by humanity,
Tempered and refined in heat of battle.
Upward, toward the light, let me always cast my
Eyes.

Strength to all.

*******

Another lens through which to view virtue, from my previous post on this theme:

Within the angelic hierarchy of Judeo-Christian tradition is a class of angels known as Virtues. They are connected to motion and order of the cosmos, dispensers of grace, exceptional courage, unshakeable faith, and miracles. They are balance-bringers; in a world so unbalanced of late, the angelic Virtues must have their hands full. As I write, I imagine them roaming the streets, unseen, fervently seeking ways they can impart divine strength.

The birthday

/ Fran Haley / 17 Comments

Birthday fairies

Birthday Party – Fairies Watch Over Us. Alicia Chenaux. CC BY-SA

I recently wrote about a professional development activity at my school —”finding your why”— based on the work of Simon Sinek. The principal led staff in recording life moments that left us changed, somehow. These peaks and valleys don’t have as much to do with who we are and what we do, but why.

Here’s one of my childhood valleys, and how it shapes my why even now.

The setting is my birthday. I believe I was turning ten (double digits), or maybe it was twelve (the last birthday before becoming a teenager); it’s odd that I can’t remember, because I didn’t have many birthday parties. I don’t know exactly why my mother decided to throw this one, but it seems turning ten or twelve is right.

I just remember . . . well, here, see for yourself:

More and more people cram into our small living room. Extended family members, some kids from the neighborhood, a couple of friends from school and church. Mom has balloons up, has put out party hats and noisemakers. A stack of  presents in brightly-wrapped paper grows larger. I haven’t received this many presents for my birthday before. 

I don’t even know what to do with myself, what to say to everyone. What are they going to do besides eat cake and watch me open presents? Is this going to be any  fun for them? I grow more uncomfortable each minute. When the doorbell rings, I run to open it, to have something to do.

And there he stands.

I can’t believe it.

“What are YOU doing here?” I shout. 

My party guests turn to see what’s going on.

He looks down at me with those glittering, snake-green eyes. He’s not smiling. “Your mother invited me.”

“MOM!” 

Oh, she’s right here beside me.

“Come on in,” she says to the meanest boy in the neighborhood. 

I can’t stand him.

He’s awful. 

He’s maybe thirteen, lives next door with his dad, and when I’ve been outside playing with my sister or other neighbor kids, he’s made fun of me, called me names. He threw my bike once, took a ball and wouldn’t give it back. He acts like he hates me and I’ve never done anything to him; I try not to get near him.

AND HERE HE IS AT MY PARTY.

AND SHE DIDN’T ASK ME.

 “Mom!” I suddenly quit caring that everyone else is watching. I stomp my foot.”Why’d you invite him? I don’t want him here! It’s not fair!”

The boy looks like he really doesn’t want to be here, either.

Go! Just go! I want to scream. My heart pounds hard.

My mother looks at me. A long, dark look, her brown eyes nearly black. Her face is tight.

“He’s here because I want him to be. You. Will. Be. NICE.”

She ushers him into the crowd of guests, introduces him.

I am stunned.

I almost can’t enjoy the cake, the presents, or any of it, partly because of him, but mostly because of her.

She didn’t tell me, then, in front of our family and friends, that his mother had left his father, that he was having a hard time living with his dad.

I saw a hateful bully; she saw an angry, hurting boy. Who probably felt unwanted before this party.

I saw injustice; she saw a chance for grace. And redemption.

I saw myself; she saw another.

When I saw this boy again, he didn’t call me a name. He didn’t try to terrorize me. He greeted me, not in an especially friendly way, but at least with some decency.

He never mistreated me again.

I think of “Sleeping Beauty,” the only story I remember my mother reading to me when I was little. How the fairies came to bestow their gifts on the newborn Princess Aurora, how an uninvited evil fairy, angry, shows up to curse the baby to an early death, how the last fairy intervenes and lessens the curse.

My mother intervened to lessen the curse.

For him. For me.

This one tiny episode is among my life’s greatest in seeing the story behind injustice, a deep lesson in empathy, in forgiveness, in choosing to take the high road even when you’re hurt. That what’s fair is not always what’s right, and that what’s right isn’t always fair.

A valley that shapes my why, even now.

And maybe this memory calls me to write it for another reason. Maybe because, in real life, good people, like good fairies, go wrong sometimes, and it helps to remember them the way they were.

Before the greater valleys to come, before the brokenness.

That’s what this birthday party has become to me now—a fragment of the good, to keep.

“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.” 

-Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms