Pastor Seth Hedman.

They say that who you are is a product of the books you read and the people you spend time with. They also say that kids are sponges, that the brain reaches 90% of its adult size by age 7, and that these early years lay the foundation of learning and personality that will last the rest of their life. If this is all true, then the stories a child is read, especially by their parents, before the age of 7 are very, very important. In other words, stories are soul food.

This is the main point of this series of articles on fairy tales: Stories are soul food, they feed and shape the soul according to the content and morality of the story. I’ve heard teacher-memes that say “It doesn’t matter what you read: books, comic books, cereal boxes… just read.” I completely disagree. Because I am a Christian, I believe in morality. This means that I believe in right and wrong, good and evil, and that these are objective categories that exist in the real world and reflect the character of God. Murder is bad because life is good. Lying is wrong because the truth is good. If a story, therefore, tells a lie or glorifies lying, it is a bad story that feeds the soul of the reader an immoral vision of the world. The child who reads that story is much more likely to grow up to be a liar or approve lies. I would like to see children given stories that reflect truth, goodness, and beauty… not lies, evil, and ugliness. The Fairy Tale, Fable, Legend, and Mythic tradition of Western Civilization is much more likely to reflect God’s moral vision of truth, goodness, and beauty, and therefore to shape and feed a child’s soul in true, moral, and beautiful ways.

Would you have your son grow up to be the kind of man who runs towards the sound of gunfire instead of away? Then he needs stories of knights killing dragons. Would you have your daughter grow up to marry a good man who will protect and provide for her? Then she needs stories about princes killing witches and kissing the princess to live happily ever after. Would you have your son or daughter reject getting the AI-Chip, Mark of the Beast implanted in their forehead? Well, that’s going to take more than fairy tales (and so will the other hypotheticals for that matter), but stories of Good Outlaws like Robin Hood would be a good start.

Many of the problems that we have in our society are, in fact, made worse by bad stories. They are false, immoral, and ugly. Do you want your child to be a single professional, idolizing their career until it’s too late to have a family? A steady diet of new Disney Movies, pushing the vision of autonomous individualism that finds happiness through rejecting your family and following your dreams, should do the trick. Do you want your child to believe that everyone is a victim of the system and that the solution to all our problems is empathy and government programs? A daily helping of good witches, misunderstood monsters, and cute dragons is the recipe.

Stories are soul food. Bad stories are bad food that shapes the soul in a bad way. Good stories are good food that shapes the soul in a good way. Tell good stories to your children. That’s the point.

Ultimately, the goal is that these man-made stories reflect God’s Big Story of Creation, Sacrifice, and Redemption. This is the story of the Bible. If fairy tales are good food, the stories of the Bible are daily bread. They feed our souls with the Holy Spirit, not just symbols. Jesus is the dragon-slayer (the Devil) who saves the Bride (the Church). This is the objective story of the world. It is our job to come into alignment with it. What story are you living in? What character are you playing? Did you know God can re-write the script? That he can turn a tragedy into a comedy? No matter how far you go from God, no matter how false, bad, or ugly things get, he can step in at just the right moment, and rescue you. That’s the Good Story. That’s my story. Believe it, make it your life story, and, whether here or in eternity, you too will live happily ever after.