20 Becoming Real

Will you stop reading this blog if I tell you I'm not sure I've ever read The Velveteen Rabbit? 

Or, if I have, it's been so long ago, I don't remember it. Nor do I have a particularly nostalgic feeling about it like so many other people do. 

With all that being said, I can still appreciate the beauty of the story - the beauty of being made real through our wear and tear. 

And the beauty of these words: 

As the Skin Horse explains, “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.”  (pp. 118-119)

What may be even more beautiful is the story behind the story - that the author, Margery Williams came to love literature through her father who died suddenly when she was seven. Kate and Jessica write, "In her stories for children, there is a tender ache for the lives we’ve lost and the loves that endure. We are changed, and we often wish it were otherwise" (p 118). 

We've already talked about "Mourning A Future Self" and the difficulty of knowing that even as we have to say goodbye to something we will deeply mourn, there is still a chance to say hello to something new which is born in its place ("Hello, Goodbye"). Kate and Jessica are no strangers to looking deeply into loss and pain in a very real and genuine way. 

As they have in so many of these entries, Kate and Jessica don't try to erase or resolve the tension inherent in being human. Indeed, as Kate writes in another book, there is no cure for being human; no way to escape death and suffering without also squeezing out any sign of life. 

There will always be "a tender ache for the lives we've lost and the loves that endure. We are changed, and we often wish it were otherwise." 

Perhaps we, like the Velveteen rabbit are getting a little shabby from the wear and tear of loving and living which may not sit well in an Instagram world. But we are not coming undone; rather, we are becoming - becoming more real than we ever have been before through that tender ache. 

Blessed are we who are becoming, who have lived so long in this strange state we call time that it shows. We are changing, and that's how we know we are alive. 

...

You may not recognize yourself in the mirror. But this is what we hoped for, right? To live and love. To be loved. To have our experiences show on our faces and in our cells. It is the real life of Jesus in us, being made visible, as all our seams show" (p 12). 

Pastor Allison 

I'm curious: 

What does the story of "The Velveteen Rabbit" mean to you? Was it a favorite growing up? If so, who read it to you? 

From the "A Good Enough Step" on p 121: 

Find a minute alone. Take out a photo of yourself as a child. Allow yourself to appreciate what was - who you were. All the pain you had yet to know or perhaps already did know. ... But then also take time to tell your younger self all the way that living and aging and suffering have carved out within you a space for reality and more love and compassion for others. Be effusive! If a prayer comes, pray it. If a poem appears, write it. If you want to create art, do it.