Here’s a story I’ve never told anyone.
I was about six years old, and I was standing in the bedroom I shared with my sister. Glowy afternoon sunlight filled the room. It was after school and I was unloading some of the day’s treasures on our bed. I remember putting a roll of stickers – one of my most prized possessions at the moment – in the center of the bed. A few moments passed and I turned away from the bed, but then I heard some movement. I turned back around to see that the roll of stickers had unrolled itself and was now on the floor of our room.
I raced around the bed, expecting to see my sister or little brother there, devilishly smiling at making mischief. No one was there. No one was under the bed or in the closet. It was just me, my backpack, some school papers, and a roll of stickers now unfurled across the bedspread and, there, resting on the floor.
* * * * *
Though my parents were devout Southern Baptists deeply entrenched in the peculiar culture of that denomination in the late twentieth century, they never steered us away from that which smacked of magic.
Halloween was always an elaborate event with my mom making costumes for four kids and my dad driving us to the best neighborhoods for trick-or-treating. My dad could tell a great story, and much to my mother’s chagrin, he could easily spook us with tales of the Snow Wolf or how he heard footsteps late at night in the last house we lived in or the time he saw a man in white walking on the side of the road and when he glanced in his rear view mirror, the man was gone.
You’re getting up with them when they have nightmares tonight! my mother would scold him.
* * * * *
It was this easiness with the unexplainable, and maybe even the little moments of experiencing the supernatural for myself, that made a it so easy for me to buy into a religious faith that centered on an invisible, triune God.
A wondering about magic gave me the space to believe
in a God that spoke and created all that is seen and unseen,
in a Jesus who turned water to wine and healed the sick and raised the dead
and said this bread is my body, when you eat it remember me,
and this wine is my blood, when you drink it remember me,
and in a spirit – oh Spirit unseen! – who would take up residence somehow within me
and make me a new creature.
A comfort with believing there is more to existence than what our veiled eyes can see allowed me to stand between wooden pews as a child and sing without irony or hesitation that
I serve a risen Savior, He’s in the world today
I know that He is living, whatever men may say!
I see His Hand of mercy, I hear His Voice of cheer,
And just the time I need Him, He’s always near.
He lives! He lives! Christ Jesus lives today!
He walks with me and talks with me along life’s narrow way.
He lives! He lives! Salvation to impart!
You ask me how I know He lives, He lives within my heart. (*)
* * * * *
When I hear some within the church warning against the way of mystics, I get a little incredulous. We do all understand, don’t we, that we partake in a faith built on the resurrection of the Son of God? And that His death on a Roman cross atoned for the sin of all – past, present, and future?
Someone please tell me what in time or history or space is more magical, more mystical than that.
* * * * *
It was never a question for my husband and I whether or not our family would “do” Halloween. Of course we do! And we keep it silly and fun but we make space for the spooky, too. I just think it’s okay, you know, to stretch that space within us that wonders about that which cannot be nailed down, that which no amount of logic can explain.
Because someday, they’ll come to me with something like 2 Corinthians 12 and say, “Um, so the Apostle Paul is saying that he … went to Heaven somehow? A heaven or The Heaven?” And we’ll look at each other with big eyes and I’ll shrug my shoulders and say, “I don’t know! It’s almost like it was … magic.”
Recently, I frequently find myself thinking, “Words are such magic!” One of those things that leaves me in awe of God’s great mysteries are stories (fictional or not) that fill me with a sense of wonder. I, too, do not want to live in a world without magic. These magical stories point me to Him. Thanks for sharing yours.
Oh yes, this! I was once “scolded” by a youth group leader when I prayed the following prayer at the end of one of our meetings. “Father, I so want to feel you, use your magic to reveal yourself to each one of us.”
“God doesn’t use magic!” He insisted. I walked away just feeling sad that he couldn’t see the magical hand of God all around him.
Sometimes, I wonder if it’s a matter of semantics. There is no denying the supernatural aspect of our faith, yet the word magic tends to be so off-putting.
(I do want Him to use His magic to reveal Himself to me though!)
WOW – AWESOME POST!!! I love that the idea of magic opened your eyes to the mysteries of Heaven. : )
Thank you, JJ. The mysteries of Heaven, the mysteries of salvation, the mysteries of the faith. A lifelong love of the unexplained.
Thank you for this, Megan – a word of sanity and truth in the midst of so much fear out there. Though I’m not a big fan of the word ‘magic’ in regard to God’s work in the world (too much seminary maybe??) I am a big fan of mystery, the mystical tradition and its great gifts to the church, and the gift of human imagination. And all of that good stuff leads us to wonder/awe/humility as we think about our story as followers of Jesus. We simply cannot explain it all – so leaving room for God to surprise us is a very good thing. Thanks for validating that and inviting us to think about it.
And perhaps I’m being a bit hyperbolic in considering explaining/discussing things of the Bible with “magic,” but it’s all quite unexplainable, right? Supernatural, mysterious, mystical … magic dances around easily with all of those words. The very definition of faith is the belief in that which is not seen. I don’t see how the two can be separated.
Thanks for your gentle response, friend.
I saw this title and immediately though it must have been you who wrote it!
We have clearly left room for magic in our household because whenever we do science experiments my daughter says “oh it’s magic!”. Maybe it is about the semantics but I can’t think about miracles and God working without wondering if we aren’t created to appreciate a little wonder in our lives. I think it’s a good lesson to be learned to that the wonder of magic is quickly lost if it because a routine thing. Miracles are amazing, but so is the long, slow, redemptive process.
All the more reason to enjoy some nice magical fiction, eh?
I like it, that the magical opened you up to Christ. We do Halloween but not Santa, and I hope I don’t squash their ideas of the mystical. What makes me look with new eyes is always the babies growing. Not so long ago, she was INSIDE ME. And look at those muscles, those eyes, the way that brain has developed – that’s magic to me.
I think you hit the nail on the head – allowing children to revel in magic and imagination (fairies, giants, wizards, etc.) opens their minds to being able to accept the mysteries of faith. There are things that we can’t not describe, that can only be felt – there are doctrines that by most folks who don’t have joint PhD’s in theology and quantum physics needs to be taken on “faith”.
I’ve always felt that a belief in magic as children gives us the foundation to believe in miracles as adults.
I like this.
However, for me, I don’t like spooky things. AT ALL! For a variety of reasons, mostly because I have this incredibly overactive imagination and make everything that is pretend real.
Even now at 35.
So in that, I try to focus on what good and lovely and right and pure and noble and true. And I try to encourage my children to do that, too.
However, we do Halloween at our house. You know why? Because I always wanted to as a kid and never got to because my parents wouldn’t let us–being something that celebrates evil AND we lived far out in the country.
So we trick or treat. We get out and meet the neighbors and if something spooky comes up, we talk about it.
The magical part? So true. Honestly, you are right–it is about semantics. Totally. Just like I have said I want my children to judge. Everyone gets all hot under the collar about the word judge, but truth is we are judging all the time. If something is right or wrong, safe or dangerous, etc. So while others want to use the word discerning–I will still firmly put my mark on the word judging.
(Just not in the way the world takes it!)
Thank you for this post!
Not only do I love this story, but I’m delighted to discover a community of Christians that supports it! Not a single negative word in the comments! Oh yay, I’ve found a home here!