“Hush! scush! scurry!
There you go in a hurry!
Gobble! gobble! goblin!
There you go a wobblin’;
Hobble, hobble, hobblin’—
Cobble! cobble! cobblin’!
Hob-bob-goblin!—
Huuuuuh!”
After seeing enough references to George MacDonald’s The Princess and the Goblin to make me wonder how I’d never encountered it earlier in life, I finally got around to reading it a few years ago. What a delightful, beautiful story! So much goodness and truth shared in such a creative way!
One of the images that has remained vividly with me is that of Curdie, the young miner and son of a miner, explaining to the princess, Irene, and her nurse, Lootie, that the fearsome and truly dangerous goblins are repelled by singing and humor.
Curdie has spent much of his young life working in the mines, and he has had to learn to deal with the presence of goblins. The conversation that struck me occurs outdoors in the fresh air, not down in the mines. We learn that the goblins do sometimes come out of the mines, so that the fears of Irene and her nurse is understandable. The shapes and sounds they’ve been hearing along their way were not only their imagination.
When Curdie tells Irene and Lootie that they are safe if he walks them home, Lootie wonders why he is so confident he can protect them from the goblins. He says:
“They can’t bear singing, and they can’t stand that song. They can’t sing themselves, for they have no more voice than a crow; and they don’t like other people to sing. They won’t touch you so long as I’m with you.”
“And why should the goblins mind you, pray?”
“Because I don’t mind them. I’m used to them.”
“What difference does that make?”
“If you’re not afraid of them, they’re afraid of you. I’m not afraid of them. That’s all.”
Curdie goes on to explain that in the realm of their own territory they are less easily repelled and more dangerous, especially to anyone in whom they detect fear. But in the land of the humans, they lose their power in the face of his silly songs and his courage.
MacDonald uses the words happy and merry to describe Curdie at the outset and tells us Curdie has sparkling eyes. He enjoys teasing in a good-natured way. As the story continues, we hear Curdie laughing outright after he has chased off a goblin from their path.
In this fairy tale style, MacDonald uses merry little Curdie to share great wisdom, as fairy tales are known to do.
I’ve reflected often on the words, “If you’re not afraid of them, they’re afraid of you.” I don’t know who all will read my words, but perhaps some of you, like me, have lived a life that has given you plenty of practice at feeling fear. And perhaps the experiences and wounds of your life have made you very aware of the spiritual battle that Jesus and others describe in the scriptures.
Maybe, as for me, those references are much more than abstract ideas on a page and are realities that you experience in your mind and heart, even in your body. Sometimes the pull of desires that would harm you or others.
And sometimes voices, thoughts, and feelings, are so dark they bring fear. We are told that Satan is the father of lies; and many of his lies, and the doubts they can create, are designed to conjure fear. And just as the goblins live underground in the dark, lies and fears live best in the dark, in the invisible “cave” of our inner being.
What if this stuff you believe isn’t real, after all? What if the decision you made in faith was actually the biggest mistake of your life? What if you’re not really who you think you are? What if your life has no real meaning? Or what if it did, but you’ve messed things up so much, you’ve lost the meaning?
On an on it can go. … What if no one really—really—cares about you? What if your work ultimately doesn’t matter? What if you die without having made any difference? What if you die alone?
I have a client who has battled severe depression for decades and battled very well. A while back, he shared with me one of his practical secrets for hard days at work. “I find a hallway where no one is around, and skip down the hallway a few times, singing a song that normally makes me happy.”
His advice is good advice for spiritual battles. As he put it, “You can’t stay in a funk if you’re skipping and singing out loud. You just can’t.”
And those lies and fears really do grow less powerful if you’re singing out loud. (I haven’t tried the skipping idea, but I’m sure it only adds to the effect!)
Light drives out darkness, and merriment drives out fear. And when we are not afraid of the lies of darkness and demons, the demons are afraid of us and, like the goblins in the story, must scuttle away into their own territory. They know that courage and joy come from the One Who is much greater than them.
I’ve been thinking about how merriment provides us with powerful weapons against fear and despair. Singing and laughter, specifically. God truly thinks of everything!
Both of these engage the diaphragm and the vagus nerve, and in doing this, they calm our nervous system. They lower blood pressure and the heart rate. They lower levels of cortisol (the stress hormone), relieve stress, and release endorphins and oxytocin (the hormones that make you feel good and help you connect to other people.)
These physiological changes clear the mind and make it easier to think well and to stay connected to the outer world rather than getting mired down in our internal state.
I used to come home from chorus rehearsal in such a state that my husband and I began referring to my “chorus rehearsal high.” Two hours of singing turned the world into a light-filled place of wonder and beauty.
God made us for joy, for light, for beauty, for connectedness. So, it makes sense that He would have given us these “weapons” that help us keep life in perspective and help us fight the fear that Satan tries so hard to use against us.
At one point in The Princess and the Goblin, Curdie says to nurse Lootie, “You wouldn’t have lost your way if you hadn’t been frightened.” It’s so true, isn’t it, that fear causes us to lose our way? We can lose our sense of reality. We can lose our practices of prayer and trusting God. We can lose our sense of who we are. We can lose a realistic perspective on who other people are, becoming suspicious, even paranoid.
And so much of this can be battled with a good laugh or a strong song, especially if shared with a friend, but even when engaged alone.
So, our deployment of merriment may take the form of silliness and songs, a la Curdie:
Hurry! scurry!
Bother! smother!
There’s a toad
In the road!
Smash it!
Squash it!
Fry it!
Dry it!
You’re another!
Up and off!
There’s enough!—
Huuuuuh!
And it may also be prayed on a Sunday morning in more sober fashion, acknowledging the source of our joy and hope and the connection between gladness and courage. As the post-communion prayer in the Book of Common Prayer puts it:
Eternal God, heavenly Father, you have graciously accepted us as living members of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ, and you have fed us with spiritual food in the Sacrament of his Body and Blood.
Send us now into the world in peace, and grant us strength and courage to love and serve you with gladness and singleness of heart; through Christ our Lord. Amen.
The featured image, “Twinkle Lights in a Jar,” is courtesy of Lancia E. Smith and is used with her glad permission for Cultivating.
Sheila Vamplin learned early to love God through words, music, and people. Her English degree, piano study, and choral singing somehow led her to Italy and then to Croatia. Landing back in the U.S. after three years of war, she earned a counseling degree. Now a licensed marriage and family therapist with a DMin in spiritual formation, she has concurrently taught piano students and has sung with the Memphis Chamber Choir and the Rhodes Mastersingers Chorale. Her current focus is translating the Italian memoir of beloved friend Tosca Barucci Chesi. As a counselor and spiritual director, Sheila has a heart for artists and those in professional ministry. She loves Gerard Manley Hopkins. With her husband she plans to return to Croatia, anticipating more surprises and trusting that the Holy Ghost will continue brooding over the bent world, even and perhaps especially there.
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