By Rachel Lewis
New York, United States
THE TRUE SNOW WHITE’S DIARY
It’s a dark and stormy evening. Lights glow through the dreary streets of New York and tears are streaming down my face. I have no coat and no umbrella, just a ten dollar bill in my pocket to somehow get me through the week.
Chilled to the bone, I pull my thin knitted wrap around me. As I stand on the corner, people fly by me. They brush and bump me, they laugh and yell. They talk on their cell phones and search their IPods. Someone yells at me to get out of the way.
Thunder sends a shiver down my spine as I seek shelter underneath the red awning of a luxury hotel. I lean against a wall and slide down to the sidewalk. New Yorkers continue to whiz by. Sopping wet and miserable, I look into the hotel window.
I see cozy couches, a fire burning, and tables topped with hot chocolate, coffee and cookies. A man sits reading, children play, and three teenagers laugh joyously by the fire. For a moment, the sight pours warmth into my heart. I would give anything to be able to jump through the window, toward the light . . . but that world seems so terribly out of reach.
With light on one side of me and dark on the other, my world becomes a blur. Is there no one who sees? Are people really so cold as to leave someone shaking with fear in the rain?
Then, for the first time ever, I realize something. I realize that somewhere out there, outside of myself and even this world, there must be something greater. As I sit there on the pavement, my heart shattered, I hear someone call out to me. Without thinking, I look up, and for the first time in a very long time, I pray.
Why is it that we love fairy tales? How have they managed to stand the test of time? As a little girl with a troubled life, I longed to jump into the pages and live the lives of the characters, to experience what Snow White or Cinderella experienced. More than anything, I wanted to be a part of their magic.
Now, years later as a young woman, my Brothers Grimm still rests on my bedside table. The stories, however, have developed an entirely new meaning. They do not promise that “happily ever after” is handed out on a silver platter. It only comes to fairy tale characters because of their endurance and their ability to see the light at the end of their own extremely dark tunnels.
In today’s world, that light has been stifled. We look around and see people who have given up, who see no point in persevering through adversity. We see people whose pain has made them scared to ever love again. Who, as The True Snow White suggests, “have long forgotten how to talk to one another, let alone to the world around them!”
That night when I was frozen on the street, I could simply have become another indifferent human being, but I chose not to. That’s right. I chose. For at that pivotal moment of wavering between light and dark, I heard a magical voice say, “have no fear, for you are loved and there is hope!”
I clung to that voice, found faith in it, and knew that it would never go away; that in fact, it had been there all along. And at that moment, I realized that the dying pains of closing up are far greater than the growing pains of allowing my true self to blossom! I decided to love and live fully, and never let the pain and fears of others dominate me again. I did not walk towards the light. Rather, I decided to become a light.
“Every time someone kindles the light of their soul, they don’t do it only for themselves, but everything grows brighter around them, too,” Harald Walter Azmann writes. Not only have I found this to be true, but I have also found a greater satisfaction in it than any amount of wealth, success or fame could provide.
Once the light of my broken soul was rekindled, a void in me was filled. The same void the vain Stepmother tries to fill with the reassuring words of her magic mirror. The same void many people try to fill with new cars, cell phones, drugs, sex, and more. We all see it. And yet, at the end of the day, they are still empty and alone.
“You see, your stepmother looks for happiness in all the wrong places,” the wise old dwarves point out to a spellbound Snow White. The Stepmother lives only for herself and no one else. There lies her entire problem.
Humans are made to coexist. Otherwise our life would be mechanical and empty. We would never feel love, anger, pain, or joy. And it’s when people like Snow White’s stepmother cut themselves off from those around them that they enter a vicious downward spiral to destruction.
If, however, they can reach outside and give of themselves to those around them, they just might experience a greater satisfaction than they could ever hope for. For it’s in giving of ourselves and helping others that we help ourselves. As Snow White’s mother, the good queen declares, “To love yourself and serve the world with pure and unconditional love, that’s whole! No sword could be mightier.”
For sure, Snow White’s stepmother is human. She was a child once, like everyone else. And like most us, her path led her through her share of pain. Perhaps she is over the edge and it’s already too late for her. But maybe there is still hope.
After all, Snow White could have chosen a much darker direction if it hadn’t been for the unshakable love of seven wonderful friends or virtues that guided her. Is it so hard, then, to believe that the love that encouraged Snow White could have the same effect on her stepmother?
As someone who has been in dark places myself, I know that change is possible. People can indeed change, and as members of the human family we must build on that. Press on despite the limitations of others which are mostly their own fears of failure. If someone ignores or tries to stop you, keep dancing and singing anyway.
As the seven dwarves do each time Snow White awakes from one of her evil stepmother’s onslaughts, singing:
So you take step by step,
And don’t forget to show your feelings!
Fight without fear!
But trust in the gift of life.
You’ve got to find a voice,
And always strive to serve your people.
And you will be a light in the night!
Read Rachel Lewis’ comments on
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Young Face, Old Soul
Most of the time, while in this world, you’ll feel like an utter fool trying to do what’s right. And the only advice I have to offer is: Keep doing it. This life will pass, but the consequences of our actions will increase or take from our happiness forever.
Harald Walter Azmann
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A Light In The Night by Rachel Lewis, THE TRUE SNOW WHITE’S DIARY
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