Bonus Post #2 – It’s All About Relationships (5-Part Mini-Series)
PART 2 – The Magic Called Real
How do we create healthy ways of relating to one another?
In last month’s Bonus Post I noted that I am most alive, most human, when I meet another person at the real, genuine, authentic gut-level. This month we’ll explore just what this magic called real is all about.
One of my favorite children’s stories captures this quality of realness. The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams is a children’s fairytale about what it means to be “real.”
In the story a little Velveteen Rabbit is loved by a small boy. It was once new and shiny. It lived in the nursery and talked to the other toys. The mechanical toys felt superior and pretended they were real because they had springs and could move. The Rabbit felt very insignificant and commonplace by comparison, and the only toy that was kind to him was the Skin Horse.
One day the Velveteen Rabbit had this conversation with the Skin Horse, the oldest and wisest toy:
“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’re made,” said the 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.[1]
As the
conversation continues between the Rabbit and the Skin Horse we learn that
becoming real sometimes means being hurt, takes a long time, and once you are
real you can’t become unreal again––it lasts forever.
The Velveteen Rabbit is eventually loved by the boy so hard that it
didn’t seem to notice its beautiful velveteen fur getting shabbier and
shabbier, its tail becoming unsewn, and the pink rubbed off its nose by the
boy’s kisses. And one day when the boy cries out to Nana for his Rabbit at
bedtime, Nana grumbles:
“You must have your
old Bunny?” she said. “Fancy all that fuss for a toy!”
The boy sat up in bed
and stretched out his hands.
“Give me my Bunny!” he
said. “You mustn’t say that. He isn’t a toy. He’s REAL!”
When
the little Rabbit heard that he was happy, for he knew that what the Skin Horse
had said was true at last. The nursery magic had happened to him, and he was a
toy no longer. He was Real. The Boy himself had said it.[2]
So, by the end of the story the Velveteen Rabbit becomes real, too:
“You were Real to the boy,” the Fairy said, “because he loved you. Now you shall be Real to everyone.”[3]
But we’re left with an especially important question, aren’t we? How does the magic called Real take place in our lives? What does our love for one another look like in real life? In short, how do we experience meaningful, satisfying, fulfilling close personal relationships? See what answers you come up with as you reflect on this question over the course of the next month.
(520 words)
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