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<\/a>This is a story about how we see ourselves, and what happens when we don\u2019t like what we see. Once upon a time, a girl was born. From her very first moments, she was exceptionally beautiful. Everyone noticed that Bella was beautiful. In fact, it was almost the only thing that anyone ever noticed about her.<\/p>\nHer family was well of, but they were not royalty. And Bella\u2019s parents very much wished that they were. Bella\u2019s extraordinary beauty seemed like it might be the ticket, in an age when beautiful women sometimes married princes or kings and brought their whole families into a life of luxury. So, from the time she was very young, Bella\u2019s parents told her of the importance of her beauty for the family\u2019s future.<\/p>\n
When Bella was very young, her mother bought her a mirror. Her mother told her that the mirror was magic. It could see everything, and it would always tell the truth. Bella\u2019s mother stood her in front of the mirror and asked her what she saw. When Bella hesitated, not knowing what to say, her mother told her that she was looking at the fairest girl in the land.<\/p>\n
Soon Bella learned to stand in front of the mirror and ask, \u201cMirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?\u201d And she learned to hear the mirror tell her, \u201cYou are the fairest in all the land.\u201d Bella grew up, gazing at the mirror.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, there was a boy just about Bella\u2019s age who was also growing up. He was the prince, and would become king someday. When he had grown into a young man, his parents decided it was time for him to find a wife and get married. They began having dances and parties for all the families in the land with daughters around the right age to marry the prince.<\/p>\n
Bella\u2019s family saw their chance. They made sure that she attended as many of these events as possible. And they made sure that she always looked perfect. Bella knew herself to be more beautiful than any of the other women who wanted to marry the prince. So she was shocked when the prince chose a different woman to be his wife. She was bitterly disappointed, as were her parents.<\/p>\n
As for the prince and his new princess, well, we don\u2019t really know why he chose her or how things were for them. What we do know is the story of their child. By the time she was born, her parents had become the king and queen. She too was extraordinarily beautiful right from birth. She was very pale, so pale that her name was Snow White. Her mother died very soon after she was born.<\/p>\n
By now, Bella\u2019s parents had also died, but their desire for their daughter to be queen lived on in Bella\u2019s own heart. When the queen died, Bella saw a second chance to win the prize of the crown, and she began to find ways to meet the king. And this time, she succeeded. The king married Bella and she became the queen, and step mother to the baby Snow White.<\/p>\n
Bella moved into the palace with her mirror. She still stood in front of it every day and asked the same question, \u201cMirror, mirror on the wall, who is fairest of them all?\u201d And the mirror answered, \u201cYou, my queen, are the fairest of all.\u201d And as far as Bella was concerned, all was well for a while.<\/p>\n
But Bella soon noticed that Snow White was also extraordinarily beautiful. And Bella began to worry that she would not always be as beautiful as she was. For the first time in her life, Bella began to fear the answer to the question she asked the mirror. She began to worry that one day the mirror would whisper to her that Snow White had grown more beautiful even than Bella herself.<\/p>\n
Once she had this fear, looking in the mirror suddenly changed. Bella used to look at herself and find all the things about her face and body that were lovely. But now she began to inspect herself for anything that might be ugly. And slowly she began to find things. A spot here. A bit of skin there that didn\u2019t look exactly right. An odd shaped lump or two beneath the surface. And these flaws began to pile up.<\/p>\n
Finally, one day when she stood in front of her mirror, it became absolutely clear to her that she was no longer the most beautiful in the land. She asked her question, already knowing the terrible answer she would hear. \u201cMirror, mirror on the wall, who is fairest of them all?\u201d And sure enough, this day, the mirror answered, \u201cSnow White is the fairest of them all.\u201d<\/p>\n
To Bella, this was the worst news she could possibly have gotten. All her life, she had been the most beautiful. It was the only thing that anyone had ever appreciated about her. She believed it was the only thing that mattered about her. And now it was gone.<\/p>\n
At first, Bella was just terribly sad. But eventually that sadness began to turn into anger. Bella began to think about the fact that someone else was now the fairest. And she began to hate the person who had taken the place she thought was hers. It became unbearable for Bella that Snow White existed. This feeling of hate and anger grew until Bella finally decided to do something about it. She decided to get rid of Snow White once and for all.<\/p>\n
Most people know what happened next. Bella decided to have Snow White killed. First, she asked her huntsman to do it for her, but he took pity on Snow White, and warned her to run away instead. She did, and found shelter with the seven dwarves. Meanwhile, Bella learned that Snow White had survived from her magic mirror. She prepared a poisoned apple, and took it to Snow White, disguised as a peddler. Snow White ate it and fell down as if dead. The mirror once again told the queen that she was the fairest in the land.<\/p>\n
The dwarves found the apparently dead Snow White and mourned her for three days. Then they were going to bury her, but she still looked as fresh as a living person. So, they built a coffin out of glass so that they could still see her perfect beauty. A prince from a neighboring kingdom happened to find her. The stories differ on how he woke her up. But however it was accomplished, Snow White was returned to life.<\/p>\n
This story always ends well for Snow White and very badly for Bella. But I don\u2019t think this story needed to be so sad and hard. There are many places in the story when someone could have done something differently or made a different decision and things could have been happier. I invite your contemplation of what those might be.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This is a retelling of Snow White that I used recently in an intergenerational service.
\nThis is a story about how we see ourselves, and what happens when we don\u2019t like what we see. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2431,"featured_media":1870,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[128],"tags":[170,5],"class_list":["post-1869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liturgy","tag-folklore","tag-unitarian-universalism"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>This is a story about how we see ourselves, and what happens when we don\u2019t like what we see. Once upon a time, a girl was born. From her very first moments, she was exceptionally beautiful. Everyone noticed that Bella was beautiful. In fact, it was almost the only thing that anyone ever noticed about her.<\/p>\n