A Rally Cry for Enchantment
Plus, how can I pray for you?
Quick note: Something I’ve been taking really seriously lately is prayer.
I have not always been that girl. I am ashamed to admit that I was often the girl who’d say, “I’ll pray for you!” and then would walk away and forget. Not out of willful insincerity—mostly out of good intentions mixed with a whole lot of distraction and *a little* internal struggle around prayer and doubts about if it actually made a lick of difference.
Well, I’m learning that it makes many licks of difference. It is good and powerful and it’s been blowing my mind lately, and now I’m praying all over the place (and probably scaring some people) but I just can’t help myself.
I’ve told you before that I pray for you here in the Second Cup community. And I do—every week. But I’ve been thinking—what if I could start to pray for you more specifically?
If you have something you’d like me to pray for you about, simply hit “reply” to this email and tell me how I can join you. Nobody else will see your message—only me. And I promise—I won’t walk away and forget now. We’re in this together.
Theo, my four-year-old, is in the “Is it real, mommy?” stage.
This weekend, we watched the OG Aladdin together as a family. At the end he asked, “Is Jafar real, mommy?” He looked concerned. As an afterthought he added, “Or maybe just the Genie’s real, because he’s good.”
Last night we read a story about Jeremiah in his storybook Bible. “Well, was he real, Mommy?”
And then this morning he asked, “Mommy, is Spiderman real?”
The kid wants to know what he can trust. He wants to know what has real meaning and real weight here in this world that feels so large and possible around him.
And while I don’t want him to lay awake at night worrying that an evil Jafar is out there lurking, I’m also hesitant to start listing all the things that he believes in that “aren’t real.”
Lately, I’ve been obsessed with the notion that we—as adults—have learned to tame our brains into believing only that which is believable. Logic is esteemed above all else; the unexplainable is cast aside as ‘hokey,’ ‘naive,’ or ‘childish.’
But perhaps we—the sensical adults—have something to learn from the astounding capacity that children have to believe the unbelievable.
I wrote about this in an article called “The Summer of Enchantment” for Aletheia Today’s Beach Read issue:
Deidre Braley
Jul 15, 2023
This is a rally cry for believers to be the most enchanted people on the planet. Otherwise, what are we even doing here?
There’s a hilarious John Crist bit where the comedian polls his audience on what they weren’t allowed to watch growing up as Christian kids, and why. Among the list are: “Harry Potter—witchcraft; Pokemon—occult; My Little Pony—satanic; and CatDog—not how God intended it.” (Crist is quick to point out that God likely didn’t intend for Bible characters to be played by vegetables, either.)
It’s funny because it’s border-line ridiculous; it’s also funny because it’s true. Christians, as a group, have gained the unfortunate reputation of being sticks-in-the-mud: we’re known for being buttoned-up and straight-laced, easily offended and quick to appraise the world based on our own moral sensibilities. Censored and sanitized—that’s how we roll.
This, of course, is an overgeneralization. But stereotypes come from somewhere, don’t they? And this one comes from many shreds of truth, pieced together into a blanket that has become so common and comfortable that many believers do sink beneath it, feeling quite safe and insulated by the delicious sense of order it produces. In this world, magic is a no-go, wandering imaginations dip into the dangerous waters of blasphemy, and wonder is only one misstep away from doubt.
Magic: A World of Possibility
As a child, I was fortunate enough to live under no such constrictions. My car rides and quiet moments were filled with the mesmerizing worlds of Harry Potter, Matilda, and The Chronicles of Narnia. I delighted in stories like Hansel and Gretel and The Indian in the Cupboard. (I even watched my fair share of CatDog.) As a result, the world I inhabited was infused with enchantment, and it was ripe with possibility. For years, I believed that yes, I just might stumble upon fairies playing in the woods beside our house, or that it was entirely possible on a rainy Tuesday to happen upon a magic portal into another time, another world.
Slowly (and ever-so-reluctantly), I wandered from this mystical existence into adulthood, abandoning magic and wonder for that which I could hold and study and know. I became sensible and learned to be a good Christian girl, wary of anything that smacked of sorcery.
And something delightful within me died.
If you would like more regular updates on articles that I’m publishing in other places, and if you like pictures of sleepy dogs and freshly baked goods and steaming coffee, check out The Second Cup on Instagram. It’s more of a day-to-day walk together, and I would love to walk it with you.
