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Recent Reading: Toads and Diamonds

Toads and Diamonds is a fairy story found in Andrew Lang’s Blue Fairy Book. I always enjoy reading such stories with my children, and I’ve written about them quite a few times on the blog (see the On Fairy Stories section at the top of the page). Fairy tales are interesting on a number of levels. They are interesting because of the sheer enchantment for starters. They allow you to enter into imaginary worlds full of magic. They are also interesting because you rarely find one without finding a number of moral lessons put in terms that capture the imagination.

C.S. Lewis made the point on more than one occasion that the primary function of the well-ordered imagination is to be found in seeking after truth. One aspect of that truth is virtue. And so it is fitting that examples of, and exhortations to, virtue should be put in the form of imaginative stories.

I say all that because this is certainly a story with one such lesson. The basic plot is that the ‘fair maiden’ of the story (I’ll let you read it yourself to fill in the details) is given a gift by a fairy that causes flowers and jewels to spring from her mouth each time she speaks. Conversely, the main character’s wicked sister is cursed by the fairy so that toads and snakes issue with speech.

Our diamond girl is kind and loving and always speaks accordingly. Our toad girl is mean and cruel, and the toads and snakes correspond to her speech.

As I read this with my daughter, of course, the obvious question to ask was, ‘So, what about you – diamonds or toads?’ In some sense we are all speaking one or the other. And most of us, more likely all of us, are a mixture of both. We speak diamonds and flowers at times, and toads and snakes at others:

  • James 3:7 For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, 8 but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. 10 From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.

It ought not to be so, and the gospel of Jesus Christ gives us the resources to change our speech. Jesus speaks to us kind words of grace. He speaks of blessing, of life, of love. He dies for the sins of our speech, and provides his Spirit in order to make new creatures, with new ways of speaking:

  • Ephesians 4:29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

If you constantly hear grace, it should constantly lead you to speak grace. If you are being built up by the gospel, then you should build others up. This is not simply a morality issue, it is an issue regarding a new creation. The old way of speaking has died, the new way of speaking has come.

And a fitting analogy for examining yourself might be, ‘am I speaking flowers and diamonds, or toads and snakes?’ If nothing else, it is certainly an imaginative way of putting the issue before children: ‘So, what you just said, was that a diamond or a toad?’

You can read the story HERE.

Recent Reading: The Young Man who would have his Eyes Opened

This is a fairy story from Andrew Lang’s Violet Fairy Book. I read it with my daughter. It is about a young man who wanted to have his eyes opened so that he might see the things ‘that took place under the cover of night which mortal eyes never saw.’ He found a wizard who could open his eyes. The wizard warned against it. I’m not retelling the story, just giving the gist.

With open eyes he saw the wood-nymphs dancing in the forest. He was never the same. He longed to see them again, but never did. ‘He thought about them night and day, and ceased to care about anything else in the world, and was sick to the end of his life with longing for that beautiful vision. And that was the way he learned that the wizard had spoken truly when he said,”Blindness is man’s highest good.”‘

Quite a stirring thought. As a Christian I can’t help but thinking of the ‘Beatific Vision.’ My theology here is highly questionable, but it made me think: God said to Moses, ‘You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live’ (Ex. 33:20). Is it that a man who saw God’s face (his full-orbed glory) would literally die from the sheer awesomeness of the vision which no man is capable of handling – a spiritual heart-attack, if you will – or is it that he would no longer be capable of carrying on with life (as we know it) after having seen such glory? After all, Exodus 33:20 could quite literally be translated, ‘Man shall not see me and recover.’

And so, ‘We see in a mirror, dimly’ (1 Cor. 13:12). And sometimes it is overwhelming as it is:

God’s people do not always know the greatness of his love to them. Sometimes, however, it is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. Some of us know at times what it is to be almost too happy to live! The love of God has been so overpoweringly experienced by us on some occasions, that we have almost had to ask for a stay of the delight because we could not endure any more. If the glory had not been veiled a little, we should have died of excess of rapture, or happiness. Beloved, God has wondrous ways of opening his people’s hearts to the manifestation of his grace. He can pour in, not now and then a drop of his love, but great and mighty stream (C.H. Spurgeon, from his sermon, Prodigal Love for the Prodigal Son).