Real

Having been born on the bitter edge of the Baby Boom generation, but having siblings that were older and more firmly ensconced in that enigmatic era - I can identify with that time period. Now let me quickly insert that I do not necessarily want to be linked with that generation; but I identify with many of the trappings of those times. I remember something of the Beatles and Elvis. I remember dances like the Jerk and the Twist. I also remember catch-phrases that seemed to be big in those days. One of those was "get REAL!" - remember that? Perhaps you still hear it occasionally. It was employed to make the recipient feel that their thoughts were out of touch with reality.

I think the real promoted by baby Boomers was more about selfish desires and hedonism. But I want to share something about being real that has stayed with me for quite a number of years.

I first ran across this excerpt in a book by Charles Swindoll, called "Improving Your Serve: The Art of Unselfish Living" (WORD, Waco,TX. 1981). Swindoll pulled this from a children's story called "The Velveteen Rabbit" . . .

The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.
"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

I don't remember ever hearing that story as a child but it was one of the first long stories I read to our children. And most every time I read it, that scene in the dark nursery between the Skin Horse and the Velveteen Rabbit struck home.

Life's abrasive bumps and knocks tend to break us down and to make us become real.

On at least one occasion, the Bible addresses this concept:

Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable. Hebrews 4:13 NLT

We tend to wear "masks" - smiling through our troubles or trying to keep stiff upper lips. But God has a sort of "spiritual X-ray vision" that penetrates through any facades that we may build.

To Him, everything is real.

And that can be comforting. Because in spite of all the ugly stuff I want to hide from everyone else - He knows about it and loves me anyway. His is not a love that excuses my faults; but one that forgives them and invites me to let Him change me.

For real.


The Velveteen Rabbit OR HOW TOYS BECOME REAL by Margery Williams / Illustrations by William Nicholson DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY, INC. Garden City, New York

Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.