Wisdom of Chesterton

"Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten."
-Gilbert Keith Chesterton

"Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously."
-Gilbert Keith Chesterton

      It seems to me Mr. Chesterton hit the nail on the head in the brief line I quoted above. In short I think it can be said that fairy tales are often more real than the reality in which we live. Of course this sounds a preposterous claim but if for a moment you leave off being an adult and thinking as an adult it might appear more reasonable. So let us co
nsider fairy tales. They often tell stories of love, adventure, magic, all concluding with an eternal happy ending. One aspect of these stories that is common throughout, is that they deal with ideals, with truths that are important. They deal with the battle between good and evil and show us the possibility of the victory of good even in unlikely circumstances. The most important aspect of fairy tales is not the fanciful magical happenings, although they can be instructive, but rather the deeper meaning, the deeper moral of the story. These children's tales reveal to us the simple truths that we often miss in our efforts to complicate our lives and thoughts. Perhaps this is why Jesus tells us we must become like little children to enter into His kingdom. We spend our lives trying to understand the way things work by going into ever deeper detail when perhaps the best way in which to understand the workings of something is to see it in reference to the whole, in its simplest light.
       So how does all of this relate to the second quote I included? I think that in humanity there is always the presence of those persons who are indeed well educated, intelligent people who use that knowledge and intelligence to indoctrinate, to mislead, and to attain personal power. Such persons in our modern age discount anything that is fanciful or magical as uneducated and ignorant. The real truth may be that the fanciful and magical ought not to be discounted so easily. Thus, it is important to have learned enough to know how little the learned know; to not take the educated too seriously for they may indeed be a dragon that needs defeating. So take a trip through the fanciful realms of the fairy tales, of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Hansel and Gretel, Beauty and the Beast, or whatever story catches your fancy. Who knows, perhaps dragons really do fly?