What makes life worth living? What do you need in order to live a fulfilling life? How we answer these questions will reveal what we believe is most important. If we asked the pirate Jack Sparrow, I can guess what he’d say. Freedom. A ship of his own and the never-ending horizon before him, a world of possibilities. And, of course, a bottle of rum thrown in.

We pursue the things we value. Our priorities act as our compass, to use a seafaring metaphor, guiding us to what we truly desire. The 2003 film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl introduces a cast of cut-throat villains and imperfect heroes, all of whom are pursuing something. Whatever questionable actions they engage in can all be explained by taking a look at their deeper motivations.

On the surface, it’s a fun, swashbuckling story. The soundtrack alone is enough to make you feel like an adventurer. A lot of the film’s charm comes from the quirky Jack Sparrow, the loveable pirate with that mischievous glint in his eye. You can’t help but root for him. Sure, he’s a pirate, but he’s one of the good ones. The movie does a lot to make those who engage in piracy more sympathetic.

The Disney corporation, of course, is not totally pro-piracy. I always have to smile when a Disney DVD begins with the warning “Piracy is Not a Victimless Crime”. This is the company that made billions of dollars off celebrating Jack Sparrow’s escapades, after all. I guess piracy is all fun and games until the bottom line is threatened by counterfeit DVDs.

​Nevertheless, perhaps the film has a point. There is actually much to admire about some of these pirate characters. They have dreams and ambitions not dissimilar to our own. Just like us law-abiding citizens, they want to find the good life and their place in this world. Unlike the traditional pirates of stories like Treasure Island, who will do anything to pursue wealth and luxury, these pirates have learned their lesson about the dangers of greed. They lived the stereotypical pirate life—and found it lacking. (Apparently the Aztec gods had something to do with that, but the point still stands.)

Barbossa, captain of the Black Pearl, is the film’s big bad guy. And yet, you can understand his behaviour, and even feel sorry for him. The curse that stands upon him and his crew is a hellish business. They hunger and they thirst, but no food or drink can satisfy. Every pleasure, every small earthly delight, has been taken from him. Like the Ringwraiths of Tolkien’s imagination, Barbossa is one of the living dead. He is starving to death, unable to truly live, and yet unable to die.

So it makes perfect sense why the pirates would do anything in their power to end this torment. They attack Port Royal, seeking the gold piece which will free them from their bondage. But unlike the Ringwraiths, the pirates go to seek a treasure in order to give it away. They seek to be rid of it, to return it to its origin, that accursed Aztec chest, the veritable Mount Doom of the story.
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The kidnapping of the lady Elizabeth Swann and the spilling of a drop of her blood is all explained by this one and, arguably positive, motivation. They want to be free. They want to live. The attack on Port Royal, the attack on Jack’s new ship, the attack on the Royal Navy, and the kidnapping of Will Turner—all these acts of piracy are meant to achieve their noble cause.

Captain Jack Sparrow, or the former captain, is not under the influence of the curse, at least at first. Yet he too has arguably good motivations for his actions. He wants to be captain of his own destiny, to be free. He wants to live in the way he so chooses, without restraints. This is perhaps the quality which audiences, myself included, most love about our Jack. It’s a higher pursuit than Barbossa’s longing for bodily pleasures. At some level we all want Jack’s freedom too. We want to go where the adventure takes us, to live our lives to the fullest.

So when Jack finds himself abandoned at the beginning of the film, having been mutinied and marooned, left to die on a deserted island, his crew and his ship stolen from him, you can imagine his frustration. His quest to reclaim his freedom takes many turns. In one of his first scenes, Jack briefly holds Elizabeth hostage, using her as a distraction to cover his escape. And we in the audience cheer on his efforts to flee the king's men. It seems wrong for Jack to be imprisoned, especially after saving Elizabeth’s life. Jack’s many deceptions, his playing of all sides in the conflict between the navy, the pirates, and Will Turner, all serve to bring Jack one step closer to reclaiming his ship and ousting Barbossa. He speaks of the Black Pearl as the symbol of his freedom. It is not just a ship. It represents the full life he so much desires to live.

Jack is never completely honest with Will Turner, never telling him the whole story about Jack’s past, or Will’s past, or how he plans to defeat Barbossa. He seems to treat Will more as a bargaining chip rather than a partner. But audiences are more than willing to forgive Jack for that. Jack’s maneuvering comes incredibly close to giving him that freedom in the end. Unfortunately for him, he ends up in a noose at the end of the movie.
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But luckily, Will Turner steps into the gap. Will is an interesting fellow. Barbossa’s desire for pleasure and Jack’s desire for freedom are not wholly alien to Will. Both are important elements of a fulfilling life. Will certainly wants the freedom to be with his sweetheart, Elizabeth Swann. But more than freedom, his love for Elizabeth is his primary motivation. All else is secondary.

When Jack hides inside Will’s blacksmith shop, fully intending to leave without harming Will, it’s Will who takes up a sword to start a fight. Why? Out of love for Elizabeth, whom Jack held hostage earlier that day. When Will comes to spring Jack the pirate from prison, it’s not for love of piracy or criminality. He does it to enlist Jack’s help in rescuing Elizabeth from Barbossa’s men. If Will ever engages in piracy, such as commandeering a ship of His Majesty’s Navy, it is only out of love for his dear lady, Elizabeth.

And this is where it gets interesting. When Will comes forward to Barbossa, explaining his identity as the only one who can break the curse, and gives himself up in exchange for Elizabeth, something profound takes place. He does something Barbossa and Jack could never do. In his act of loving sacrifice, Will gives up all other pursuits. He repudiates Barbossa’s pursuit of pleasure and Jack’s desire for freedom. In handing himself over to the pirates, Will is giving up his pleasures, his freedom, his life—everything, except his deepest love.

While enjoying life is certainly a good thing, as is living a life of freedom rather than bondage, Will Turner finds something far better. He finds a higher calling, the calling to give up his freedom and his life. He willingly constrains himself, letting himself be bound with ropes and led to the slaughter, all out of love. When Jack asks earlier what Will would do for Elizabeth, he instantly replies, “I’d die for her!” It’s hard to imagine Jack saying the same thing in this film.

If you were wondering, is this going to be another one of my articles where I end up saying that love is the strongest thing in the universe, then I can only unashamedly admit that, yes, yes it is. But the reason I keep coming back to this fact is because it’s true. Love is a higher calling than all others.

​Elizabeth’s love for Will grows throughout the film, and by the end she puts her love for him above everything else. As soldiers surround Will and Jack with loaded rifles, ready to shoot, Elizabeth steps forward, coming between the bayonets and her beloved Will Turner. Her action, which saves Will’s life, echoes Will’s original act of self-sacrifice.
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Barbossa and Jack want good things. And they want to live life to the fullest. But the question this film points to is this: Can you really have a fulfilling life without love?

I love Jack Sparrow for his whimsy, tenacity, and independent spirit. He makes the film what it is. But I can’t say his life is as meaningful as it could be. Jack’s compass is a good illustration of his outlook. The compass doesn’t point north. Rather, it points to his next desire, the next thing he can grab, free for the taking. But while he’s off on his adventures, taking all he can and giving nothing back, I wonder if he realizes what he’s missing.

All of us are trying to find our place in this world, our purpose. And while I believe we all have an individual purpose, unique to our gifts and situation, there’s also a purpose in which all of us share. We are meant to love one another. If we achieve everything else, and don’t have love, we have nothing.
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And the inverse is also true. If we lose everything, but hold on to love, then nothing has been truly lost.

The Rosetta Stone holds the key to understanding the ancient past. It's a hefty, grey slab from 2,200 years ago, engraved with three languages—hieroglyphs, Demotic Egyptian, and Ancient Greek. I was able to see the stone in London in 2014. As one of the most popular artifacts at the British Museum, naturally it was surrounded by crowds of excited tourists taking photos. We were all craning our necks to catch a glimpse of this seemingly uninteresting rock. Out of all the museum's artifacts, like colourful Roman and Greek mosaics (which are great by the way), towering Babylonian statues of winged bulls crowned with human heads, and sunken treasures of the Vikings, you have to wonder why this grey slab draws so much attention.

When I was in grade 7 we were studying ancient Egypt and for one of our assignments we had to write our name in hieroglyphs. We put so much effort into replicating those Egyptian symbols perfectly. It was fun because it felt like we were writing in a secret code. What we didn't know is that it was the Rosetta Stone that made this possible.

For centuries no one knew how to read hieroglyphs. That knowledge had been forgotten. Egyptian written history, locked away in elaborate inscriptions on tombs and pottery shards, seemed forever lost to us. But that changed with Napoleon's military campaign in Egypt. In 1799 French soldiers were digging fortifications near the port city of Rosetta in the Nile Delta when they unearthed something rather heavy—a stone slab weighing roughly 1,680 lbs. They had accidentally discovered the Rosetta Stone.

The world of ancient history can seem far away and even inaccessible. But it's closer than we think. Scholars were able to determine that the Rosetta Stone includes three copies of the same text, an ancient declaration of loyalty to Egypt's pharaoh. Since we already knew how to read the portion in Ancient Greek, suddenly we had the solution for deciphering hieroglyphs. The Rosetta Stone was the key that opened up to us the world of ancient Egypt.

Novelist L. P. Hartley writes, "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there." To me that's an exciting concept. It means the world of the past is alive and well, waiting to be uncovered. And there's always more out there to discover. This doesn't just apply to history. Just as the Rosetta Stone opens up the world of the past to us, fiction brings us into new worlds where we encounter both the familiar and the unexpected. Picking up a new a book is really a big moment. Worlds living just beyond our imaginations are all of a sudden flooded with light and life. When I think of the Rosetta Stone, I'm reminded how sometimes all it takes to break through into another world is finding the right key—or the right book.

Do you remember opening up The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for the first time, or better yet having one of your parents open the book up so that you could go to Narnia together? Do you remember what it felt like to visit that magical land of talking beavers and fauns, heroes and villains, mysterious forests and shining castles? It almost seems like a real place. There’s just something about the story that keeps drawing readers in.

Kids today still fall in love with Narnia, stumbling through the wardrobe with Lucy and her siblings, Peter, Susan, and Edmund. The four Pevensie children have an unforgettable adventure there and are crowned kings and queens at the end of the story by the great lion Aslan himself.
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But that’s only the first novel in The Chronicles of Narnia series. Other stories follow, characters come and go, and some characters change in surprising ways. Lucy’s sister Susan is someone who takes a turn later in life.

At the end of the series, when the battle is won and the now grown-up Pevensies and all our favourite characters return to live with Aslan in the new and restored Narnia, Susan isn’t there. Why? Because she doesn’t believe in Narnia anymore. As Peter tells us, Susan is “no longer a friend of Narnia.” We learn that she has turned her back on the fantastical land she visited as a child and seems to have convinced herself that Narnia was just a place she and her siblings made up. It was a story only children could believe in.

How is that possible? Susan actually goes to the land of Narnia and sees it transfigured from endless winter to a brilliant spring. She witnesses the defeat of the White Witch and of the tyrant usurper Miraz. And Susan is there in the moments before Aslan's death. She and Lucy walk with Aslan on his sad march towards the Stone Table. They bury their fingers in his shaggy mane. When Aslan asks what the two of them are doing there, Susan replies, "Please, may we come with you—wherever you're going?" How could Susan, after all that, forget about Narnia?

Well, having never travelled to a land of talking animals myself and reigned there for years and years as a benevolent monarch, I can’t comment on the likelihood that I would be able to totally discount such an experience as pure imagination after the fact. All I can say is that it must take a great deal of effort to deny reality, because reality has the annoying habit of never really going away, even if we do our very best to ignore it.
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But laying that issue aside for the moment, it will be more fruitful to look at how Susan lives her life now that she has thrown off her belief in Narnia as a real place. Some literary critics seem to admire Susan for laying her childhood to rest.  After all she has more important things with which to occupy her time. She’s an adult now, a woman who dresses up for parties and going out on the town. She has a liking for “nylons and lipstick and invitations.” We can’t all be Peter Pan trapped in Neverland. Some of us have to grow up.

​It seems that Susan has simply moved on. Her world has expanded and she’s finding her place in it. We shouldn’t be surprised that Susan, like every young person her age, is discovering what it means to be an adult. Some critics allege that author C.S. Lewis disapproved of children maturing into young men and women and pursuing romantic interests. Some charge him with sexism. Novelist Philip Pullman, author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, claims that Lewis “didn’t like women in general, or sexuality at all.”
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But is all that true? In the third Narnia novel The Voyage of the Dawn Treader Lewis doesn’t seem to have any problem with the now grown-up King Caspian and Ramandu’s daughter falling in love and getting married. When Caspian meets her, he and all the rest of his companions recognize her as “a great lady.” Even when Caspian’s boyish, independent spirit gets the better of him and he gets the bright idea of sailing alone into the great unknown and to the very edge of the world, Lewis doesn’t let him. He brings in the character of Aslan to set him straight. Caspian realizes that he can’t act like a child without responsibility. He’s a grown up with a duty to his royal subjects, and his lovely lady to think about.

Susan has reached the season in life she’s been looking forward to, but the problem is that she wants to stay there forever. There’s more to life than she knows, more to come in her story than she can dream up. But she just can’t see it yet. Instead she has set aside both the past and the future, turning her attention to trying to control her present. Her world has ground to a halt, frozen in time just as the land of Narnia is when the Pevensies first enter in through the wardrobe. It is a place where it’s always winter, never Christmas—at least until Aslan breaks the spell.

Is Susan’s story over then? We don’t hear what happens to her next. Does she stay trapped like some of us are, too old to listen to fairy tales and yet too young to see their deeper value? Author C.S. Lewis didn’t think so. He wrote a letter to a reader on this very question, telling us that there is hope for Susan yet. He wrote that “there is plenty of time for her to mend, and perhaps she will get to Aslan's country in the end—in her own way.”
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If it’s been a few years since you read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, you may have forgotten about the dedication at the front of the book. Author C.S. Lewis dedicated the novel to his young goddaughter Lucy Barfield. Inspiration for writing the story came to Lewis during World War II, but by the time it was published the war was five years past. Lucy was thirteen-years-old when she received the manuscript. In his dedication Lewis writes,

Some day we will be old enough to go back to the stories of our youth and not feel embarrassed. We won’t feel that we’re too good them, or that we’ve outgrown them. There’s something Lewis knew that some other adults do not—that the best stories, including so-called children’s stories, never lose their value. No matter how old we are.
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Lewis’s goddaughter Lucy Barfield attended a theatre performance of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in London in her late 40s. She was the guest of honour. And later near the end of her life, as she was suffering from multiple sclerosis, she said, “What I could not do for myself the dedication did for me. My Godfather gave me a greater gift than I had imagined.”

Narnia is not like Neverland where our heroes never grow up. During the Pevensies’ second visit to Narnia in the novel Prince Caspian, Lucy meets Aslan and is surprised how large he looks. But he corrects her. It’s not that Aslan has grown—Lucy has. He tells her, “every year you grow, you will find me bigger.” Every year she matures and her knowledge and experience grow, Lucy realizes that there’s more to Aslan than she thought.
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Susan isn’t the first Pevensie to deny the existence of Narnia. Edmund did it first and, what was worse, he betrayed his siblings into the hands of the White Witch in the process. If Edmund could come back from that, so could Susan. I think we get a clue to Susan’s fate near the end of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Aslan says, “Once a king or queen in Narnia, always a king or queen in Narnia.” I believe Queen Susan will grow up in the end. And when she does she’ll realize that the truths she learned as a child are still true today.

When I was in grade five life was simpler. In math we learned about place value and had to memorize the difference between hundreds and hundredths. We read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe chapter by chapter and I got my mom to help me with the homework questions. We had lockers, but they didn’t have locks. My biggest worry was about improving my French pronunciation. And recess was all about four square. My classmates and I drew the lines in chalk every day—so often that the school eventually decided to paint permanent lines on the pavement. We thought that being the king of four square was the most important thing ever. But before we knew it four square was out. We had moved on to other things. Another year grounders was the big thing and another year it was chess. Some things we thought would last forever ended up being relatively short-lived in the grand scheme of things.

But that can be hard to foresee, especially when we’re young. Just consider fifth grader Jesse Aarons from the novel Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson. In Jesse’s little world success means being the fastest runner in his class. With that one goal in mind he trains hard for the whole summer, waking up first thing to go running. He comes back all sweaty from his morning runs just in time to milk Miss Bessie the cow. His sisters complain about him smelling bad after his runs, but that doesn’t bother Jesse too much. Better to be known as the runner than as the “crazy little kid that draws all the time.”

Jesse Aarons, or Jess as people call him, returns to Lark Creek Elementary after the summer break expecting things to go his way. He imagines himself running across the finish line to the cheers and applause of his fans. His little sister May Belle will celebrate him as the winner. His classmates won’t pick on him for sketching all the time. And his dad will forget about work and spend time with him like the good old days. He’s going to make everyone so proud. After all, being the fastest kid in grade five is a pretty big deal.

Leslie Burke is not your average fifth grade girl. With her strange clothes (faded cut-off jeans and sneakers without socks) and her odd-looking lunch from home (yogurt of all things), Leslie begins to shake things up. Her classmates are soon shocked to discover that she doesn’t own a TV. But the most earthshattering revelation is that she can run. Her victory puts all the boys to shame. And wouldn’t you know it, all of a sudden everybody starts thinking that maybe being the fastest runner in the fifth grade isn’t such a big deal after all. Pretty soon running is old news and the boys go off to pursue other recess games.
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Jess moves on too. At first Jess is tempted to do the same as the boys and tries to ignore Leslie on the school bus. Still, she recognizes something in him he cannot see himself. And she sees him as someone to whom she could offer the hand of friendship. And so one day it happens. In music class, while Miss Edmunds is leading the students in singing a tune, Jess makes his choice:

​And just like that Jess steps into a new season in life. His friendship with Leslie takes him on something of a whirlwind. He hits the ground running, trying to catch up with this girl whose writing comes to life, whose imagination knows no bounds, whose eyes seem lit by some transcendent spark. Together Jess and Leslie dream up the fantastical kingdom of Terabithia, over which the two of them reign as king and queen. Even Leslie’s dog gets to be Prince Terrian. They play their game out in the backwoods on the far side of a creek. Before long Jess has a new spring in his step. He wakes up “every morning with something to look forward to. Leslie was more than his friend. She was his other, more exciting self—his way to Terabithia and all the worlds beyond.”
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And all because he makes a choice. Jess says yes to the adventure of being Leslie’s friend. It’s almost like Jess is Leslie’s apprentice going through a season of training. Leslie helps Jess to go deeper, to continue his drawings, to experience “the poetry of the trees” with new eyes, to step forward into the unknown despite his fears. Stepping into a new world can be scary, you know. On one stormy occasion Leslie and Jess enter a thick grove of pines that is eerily quiet. Jess gets chills, thinking the growth might be haunted, but Leslie’s quiet confidence never falters. Feeling ashamed of himself, Jess thinks he’s “obviously not worthy to be king of Terabithia. Whoever heard of a king who was scared of tall trees and a little bit of water?” But here’s a secret for new kings to understand. Everyone has fears, even the greatest among us. It’s just that kings, good kings that is, don’t give themselves the option of running from them.

Jess learns to stretch himself, to face his fears and insecurities with Leslie at his side. Terabithia becomes his training ground, the place where he gains the confidence to deal with the bullies at school and the challenges at home. He feels “taller and stronger and wiser in that mysterious land.” It’s in that place that something comes alive inside him. He gets a vision of who he is, and who he could grow to be. His self-doubt is still there, yes, but he learns to act in spite of it.

And then it all comes crashing down. (Here come the spoilers). On one particularly rainy day Leslie goes to the land of Terabithia by herself. She takes hold of the rope swing, hoping to swing across the flooded creek into Terabithia. Jess comes home from an outing, expecting everything to continue as normal, but finds his family in chaos. He hears that his friend Leslie is dead. The rope swing broke. When Leslie tried to swing across, she hit her head and drowned. And just like that, Jess’s season with Leslie abruptly comes to an end.

Now, maybe you were tempted to slam the book right about now. That seems like a rip-off. If all this time we were heading to the moment when Leslie would be taken away, what was the point? Was it even worth it? When you’re in the middle of a season in life, you get used to it. You start thinking it’s going to last forever. And then it doesn’t. But I don’t think that means it wasn’t worthwhile. In fact, maybe it’s only when it’s over that you realize just how special it was.
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As Jess reflects back on his time with Leslie, he realizes what an impact she had. He thinks about how “it was Leslie who had taken him from the cow pasture into Terabithia and turned him into a king. He had thought that was it. Wasn't king the best you could be? Now it occurred to him that perhaps Terabithia was like a castle where you came to be knighted. After you stayed for a while and grew strong you had to move on.” And that’s what it should be like for the seasons of life as well. Each stage in life has value. We meet new people, we deepen relationships, we make mistakes, and we learn new things. But in the end there comes a time to move on. In a way each stage is a bridge to the next. There are some people that follow us into the next stage in life, and some we leave behind.

​After spending so much time learning from Leslie, it is Jess now who steps into the role of the teacher when he decides to share Terabithia with his little sister May Belle. He takes her by the hand and leads her there over the bridge he’s built. The imaginary land of Terabithia was always a special place just between Jess and Leslie. But now that Leslie is gone, Jess decides that “it was up to him to pay back to the world in beauty and caring what Leslie had loaned him in vision and strength.”
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You might say Jess grows up. But that doesn’t mean he puts Terabithia and his imagination behind him. He’s grateful for it. He honours it and understands its deeper purpose in his life. We are not always so discerning. Sometimes we get so focused on the greater things ahead that we forget about what brought us here. We’re tempted to dismiss our childhood as nothing more than childish, and don’t think about where we’d be without it. We’re tempted to feel proud of ourselves for who we are today, and forget about all those experiences that prepared us and brought us here. It takes some humility, I think, to look back at the seasons of our life and come to grips with how so many people and experiences have helped us along the way.

Leslie gives Jess something special. She gives him a glimpse of “the shining world - huge and terrible and beautiful.” She gives him the ability to see the beauty and magic all around him. And most of all, Leslie gives him her friendship. To know someone as a friend, to share the kind of bond that Jess and Leslie do in the novel—these things can’t be easily dismissed. Even after Leslie’s death, Jess carries his memories with him. They meant something to each other. And Leslie’s impact is not lost on him. Jess is a changed person, a better person, for having known her. Every season has its value, and so does every person we meet on the journey.

And so I don’t think we can say that the moments Jess spends with Leslie are wasted time. Their time playing in the woods, using their imaginations, being kids together—at the time these are the most important things they could have been doing. And I don’t think Jess will suddenly stop using his imagination now, though he might begin using it new ways.
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There’s a way to move on without forgetting. Even so, having to move on can seem intimidating. There’s so much unknown when we start something new. But I can offer this encouragement: we may not have to do it alone. As we move through life, there will be some people that move with us. Friendship is one of those things that can transcend the stages of life. It’s something I know I’m grateful for. With it we can better face the changing seasons, and the storms. We can know that we have people beside us to trust and rely on, people with a shared vision of what’s truly important.

If you’ve travelled you know how exciting it can be. New sights and smells abound, from the wildlife to the night life, from the music to the food. There are so many unexpected wonders that come with experiencing another place, another culture. It’s almost like going to another world. But at some point you return to that familiar place, that place where you belong—home.

​And perhaps all at once you realize something. Home feels different. You notice for the first time what makes your home so unique, the things you took for granted before. You realize how special home really is.

The song "Edelweiss" appears in the Broadway musical The Sound of Music. The von Trapp Family Singers perform it on stage in front of a crowd of their fellow Austrians. It’s a song about a flower, yes, but it represents something more. It’s a celebration of home. Home in general and the homeland of Austria in particular. "Edelweiss" is a simple song, which is probably why I know it by heart. I always assumed it was a genuine Austrian folk song but it isn’t. It was composed for the 1959 musical. And yet this simple melody captures something deep and true. Having a good home is a blessing. It’s a place of comfort and safety. It’s somewhere to rest and relax, somewhere you know you can go to be refreshed, loved, and built up. There’s nowhere else like it.

As The Sound of Music nears its conclusion, the von Trapps prepare to make their exit. They sing "Edelweiss" and a number of other songs to an admiring audience and receive a standing ovation. No one in the crowd suspects, however, what is about to happen next. The von Trapps are going to leave their beloved homeland, which has been taken over by the Nazis. Austria is no longer the country they know and love. It has become something else entirely, somewhere they are no longer welcome. The von Trapps make the painful decision to remain loyal to their real home, "the true Austria," which so many of their neighbours have forgotten.
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It’s often in leaving home that you realize how valuable home is. You see it for what it is, and how it suits you so well. Perhaps not all of us have a good place to call home. Not all of us know where we’ll find it. The song "Edelweiss" gives voice to a hope, a prayer almost, for wholeness and fulfillment. Its hope is that someday we will be restored and blessed once more with a place we all seek—a place to belong.

We know what an audiobook is. Now you can hear professionals read books to you on your drive to work in the morning instead of having to read them yourself. You can listen to books while you do yard work or exercise at the gym instead of having to find the time where you can sit down to read in your favourite fireside armchair. Personally, I prefer fireside reading. Making time to read a book or read aloud to the family is so worthwhile. But if you're busy doing something on your own, sometimes an audiobook is the best option.

They do have their drawbacks though. Some books don't work as well as audiobooks. Some voices are better suited for audiobooks than others. And then there's that bothersome concept of comprehension. How much do you remember from the audiobooks you've heard? For me there's a noticeable difference between the two. There's just no comparison to holding a physical book in your hands.

​But as it turns out, there's another option out there for hearing stories. It's called audio drama. Unlike audiobooks, today's audio dramas boast a full cast of actors, music, and sound effects. An audio drama is like a movie, but without the visuals. The movie plays in your mind instead of on a screen. The BBC has been adapting classic literature into audio drama on the radio for years. In the U.S., the long-running kids' show Adventures in Odyssey stands out as an example of original content. And there are many more great audio dramas out there waiting to be discovered.

Audio drama can captivate you for hours. I remember as a kid sitting in the living room drawing pictures or colouring or playing with LEGO, all the while listening through the audio dramas of all seven books in The Chronicles of Narnia. Whereas an audiobook sticks to a dry reading of the words on the page, an audio drama brings the story to life. It puts you right in the middle of the action. Unlike some audiobooks, audio drama is the farthest thing from being boring or bland. And yet it accomplishes it all with sound alone—​no brightly flashing screen required.

Whether you're looking for classics like Oliver Twist, Anne of Green Gables, and The Secret Garden, or the World War II era biographies of people like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Corrie ten Boom, or even rare books that no one's ever heard of (see Lamplighter Theatre), audio drama has you covered. I think one of the reasons audio drama works so well is because it adapts the stories for the audio format. It's not simply a reading, but a dramatization. And it also allows sound designers to use the full range of tools at their disposal. These are stories which engage your imagination, stories you remember. Whatever genre you like or whatever age you are, there's something out there for you. I really can't recommend audio drama highly enough.

“Where words fail, music speaks.” This quote is attributed to Hans Christian Andersen, the 19th century author of fairy tales such as “The Little Mermaid,” “The Ugly Duckling,” and “Thumbelina.” He’s saying that for all its precision and utility, language has its limits. There are times when words are not enough, when what seems inexpressible in words alone can only be expressed in song. That’s a very humbling thing for a writer to admit. You might think Andersen would privilege the written word above all else. But you don’t have to call yourself a musician to understand the truth in his statement.

We know that we need music. I once heard a public talk about pseudoscience and mental health from a psychiatrist at university. His whole lecture was basically an attack on things like anti-stress colouring books, fidget spinners, and other products that people push while claiming they have mental health benefits, even if there is little evidence to back up their claims. Having thrown out nearly everything under the sun, the psychiatrist concluded that science does back the importance of at least two activities which contribute to our mental well-being. Exercise was one of them. The other was hearing music. (Personally, I would add a few things to that list, like reading, writing, community, and service, but then again I’m not an intensely skeptical psychiatrist, so what do I know?)

When I first watched The Fellowship of the Ring movie and heard the opening seven notes of the Shire theme, composed by Howard Shore, I was transported. It wasn’t the visual effects that brought me to director Peter Jackson’s vision of Middle-earth. It was that score. I was there with Sam as he lamented the departure of the elves into the far west, with Arwen and Frodo on the desperate gallop to escape the hooded Ringwraiths, and with the nine members of the Fellowship as they rested in the hallowed woodland of Lothlórien. The Lord of the Rings movies are indeed wonderful adaptations, though they don’t measure up to J.R.R. Tolkien’s books. And yet I’ve often thought that for all the changes the filmmakers made, it was worth it to have these films made if only because we got that musical score.

There's something about music which speaks to our soul. In Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, a teary-eyed Professor Dumbledore describes music as “a magic beyond all we do here!” We know that words have power. After all, you cast a spell by saying the magic words. But music has its own power too. It has the power to move us, to stir our hearts. Music can create things within us that weren’t there before. Maybe that’s why in Narnia’s creation story author C.S. Lewis has the lion Aslan sing the world into being. In the prequel to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, titled The Magician’s Nephew, the boy Digory arrives in what seems like a totally empty world. But then something wonderful happens.

​As the lion’s song swells, the blackness overhead suddenly comes ablaze with stars. And the stars have voices too and join in the song. Soon the first day of Narnia finally dawns and grass and trees and animals spring up. And all the while the voice of Aslan continues to sing, bringing life to the world. J.R.R. Tolkien does something similar in The Silmarillion where the supreme deity Ilúvatar creates Middle-earth out of a symphony of “endless interchanging melodies woven in harmony.” But then the created being Melkor weaves in a dark melody of his own, seeking to increase his own power and corrupting the world in the process. Not all music, apparently, is created equal. It can be used for evil as well as good. Though, Tolkien suggests that evil cannot create anything new, but can only twist and distort the good creation that already exists.

If music is powerful, it follows that it can also be dangerous. The Sirens of Greek mythology attract sailors with their song and lure them to a watery grave. The villain in the animated film Tangled has to sing her spell for it to take effect and the 2005 version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has the faun Mr. Tumnus play his pan flute to enchant and ensnare his guest, the unsuspecting girl named Lucy. Music affects us and transports us to somewhere new. But what if it takes us somewhere we don’t want to go? Just as words have the power to either uplift or discourage, to bring comfort or distress, different pieces of music can have vastly different affects. The often discordant music of Stravinsky and Schoenberg can be a chore to listen to. But there is also plenty of catchy music out there that isn’t worth our time either. In the short story "Each in His Own Tongue," author Lucy Maud Montgomery writes that those who play music have the responsibility to use their gift well and to "never debase it to unworthy ends." Both the makers of music and its listeners must tread carefully. Not all music is the best for our well-being.

​But we shouldn’t let that truth destroy our appreciation of music altogether. Sigmund Freud, famous for attributing much of human activity to the workings of the unconscious mind, looked upon music with great suspicion. He recognized that works of art have a “powerful effect” on people, and so when contemplating literature or sculpture he would focus on analyzing how they produced such an effect. But he could not do the same with music. Freud knew that music affected him to the core, but he was at a loss when it came to explaining why. He writes, “Some rationalistic, or perhaps analytic, turn of mind in me rebels against being moved by a thing without knowing why I am thus affected and what it is that affects me.” And so he set music aside. I have a feeling that Dr. Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, would have found fault with our university psychiatrist’s lecture on exercise and music.

I once went to a play called Dr. Freud’s Last Session. The play is a fictionalized meeting between Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis in which these two intellectual giants engage in a friendly battle of wits, debating topics such as human suffering, mortality, and the existence of God. Lewis appeals to beauty and the imagination, while Freud dismisses his thinking as pure fantasy. The two are repeatedly interrupted by radio reports of the impending clash between England and Germany which would become World War II. But whenever music comes on the radio, Freud is quick to turn it off. He doesn’t care to have his mind affected by such things. I will always remember the ending of the play when Freud and Lewis have finished bringing forth their best arguments and they go their separate ways. Freud is left alone in his study, listening to the radio. Except this time when the music comes on he doesn’t turn it off. He waits. He listens. The audience is invited to listen too. Invited, I think, to be swept away by a thing more beautiful than can be put into words.

We live in a world of discord. A place plagued by suffering and death. At some level we recognize that the world is out of tune. As Tolkien understood it, the good creation has been corrupted. Melkor’s theme has infiltrated every area of our lives, obscuring the beauty of the world. And yet, not all is lost. In The Silmarillion Melkor’s great effort to drown out the music of Ilúvatar is of no avail. Because in the end Ilúvatar takes Melkor’s discordant music and reshapes it back into his own melody, resulting in a piece of music “more wonderful” than ever before. What Melkor means for evil, Ilúvatar uses for good.

Think of the way a line of music works. It is full of different notes and chords moving us from dissonance towards resolution. On its own a dissonant note sounds wrong. But then the next note comes and suddenly it sounds right. In the context of the song as a whole it fits perfectly. We know that a piece of music will keep going because its unresolved notes hold us in suspense. And we can hear when a song ends not just because the notes come to a stop, but because that dissonance gets resolved in the final notes.

​Tolkien's writings often have a bittersweet quality to them, but that does not make them any less beautiful. What could be more beautiful than broken people carrying on in the midst of sorrow, wounded and yet persevering together? If we find things sounding discordant and out of tune now, perhaps that means we’re still in the middle of the song. What comes next may yet catch us unawares as the symphony unfolds its magic. For now we wait, listening for when the discord in our world will finally be healed.

We read about conflict all the time, whether we pick up a biography to learn the true story of Corrie ten Boom resisting the Nazis, or pore over a biology textbook to find out how white blood cells combat infection. Conflict seems to be an inescapable part of life.

​At a fundamental level stories are all about conflict. There's some challenge our characters face, some obstacle they need to overcome. We know what that's like. We experience conflict in our own lives, whether that's conflict with others or even within ourselves. We know what it's like to go through pain and heartache. Li-Young Lee's poem "The Gift" is about a boy who suffers a small yet familiar hardship. He gets a splinter in his hand. But thankfully for him, he has someone by his side to get him through. Here are the opening lines of the poem:

The love and care with which the father treats the boy stays with him. The poem goes on to describe the same boy as an adult, holding his wife's hand tenderly. He cares for her the way he's been taught, with gentleness and understanding.

But let's think back to what exactly the father does. As he removes the splinter, the father tells the boy a story. Maybe this is only meant to be a distraction. Something to take the boy's mind off the pain. The poet might have included any number of things here to distract the boy, so why include a storytelling? Perhaps it points to the fact that just as stories are about conflict, they're also about resolution. Another word we could use for that is healing. Stories meet us where we are, in our conflict and pain, and show us where we can go. Heartache doesn't have to be the end of our story. There's reason to hope.

​The boy in the poem doesn't remember the specifics of the story. What he does remember is his father's calming voice. He remembers the bond of love between them. To tell a story is to share an experience with someone else. A storyteller creates a world out of thoughts and feelings and invites another person to enter in. Author and reader live the story together, sharing in the good times and the bad, experiencing hardship and relief. As readers we get the sense that someone else is with us, that someone else understands. The best stories reach out to us like a parent comforting a child. They let us know that whatever struggles we face, we don't have to face them alone.

​​Have you ever had an epiphany? Maybe you suddenly realized that it really does hurt when you put your hand on the hotplate, or that leaning too far to one side in a canoe is likely to end in disaster. Or perhaps you've had an epiphany like Ebenezer Scrooge, who had a harrowing nightmare in which he was visited by a number of ghosts and woke up with not only a deep understanding of the meaning of Christmas but with a whole new lease on life. Epiphanies come in all shapes and sizes. What they have in common is this: an epiphany is a moment of clarity when we see things as they really are. Something clicks and we wonder how we didn’t see it before.

The 2010 film Tangled presents us with a character very much in need of an epiphany. Based off the classic fairy tale Rapunzel, this version has the princess Rapunzel kidnapped as a young child and imprisoned in a tower by the old woman Gothel. Rapunzel grows up there, all the while totally unaware that she’s a princess. She believes Gothel is her mother. She trusts her captor wholeheartedly, never suspecting her sinister motives. Meanwhile Rapunzel's real parents, the king and queen, continue to mourn her disappearance. It’s only after a trip out of the tower that Rapunzel finally sees the light.

Which brings us to Flynn Rider. While Rapunzel is unaware of her origins and is largely oblivious to what goes on in the world beyond her tower, Flynn seems to understand the world pretty well and his place in it. Flynn’s escapades as a thief take him anywhere and everywhere, including over palace rooftops. When we first meet him at the beginning of the film it seems Flynn may have found his ticket to a life of ease and comfort. Rapunzel’s crown sits on a pedestal in the palace surrounded by armed guards. The crown is covered in jewels and has remained long untouched these many years. So naturally Flynn takes it for himself, with no concern about how the loss of the last remaining token of Rapunzel's memory might affect the king and queen. Nor does he bat an eye when he betrays his partners in crime, the Stabbington brothers, leaving them to the palace guards while he makes off with the crown. Flynn clearly prefers working alone. And better to betray others first before they have the chance to do it to you.

So you can imagine that when Flynn stumbles upon Rapunzel’s tower and hears that she wants him to guide her on a little quest to solve the mystery that has long plagued her imagination—to find the source of some floating lights that appear in the distant sky on her birthday every year—he’s a little less than enthusiastic. For one thing, he works alone. For another, that would take him back towards the palace, to the very guards who would like nothing better than to execute him for his crimes. But Rapunzel figures out a way to have him come around. Having taken the stolen crown off his hands, Rapunzel's proposal suddenly seems a lot more acceptable. If Flynn helps her, he gets the crown back, and with it his ticket to a new life far away from there.

It’s interesting to note how similar Gothel’s outlook is to Flynn’s at this point in the story. Flynn wants to save his own skin. He looks out for his own interests because, if he doesn’t, who else will? If he has to use other people and betray them along the way to achieve that, so be it. Gothel has the same attitude. She survives because of her own resourcefulness. The reason she kidnaps Rapunzel in the first place is for the girl’s magical hair, which Gothel uses to stay young and keep death at bay. I have no doubt Gothel would prefer being alone if she could, and must view living with Rapunzel and her magical hair as necessary, but rather inconvenient. Similarly, Flynn says he aspires to one day retire “somewhere warm and sunny on an island that I own, tanned and rested and alone, surrounded by enormous piles of money.” Flynn seems to believe that he is his only friend in the world.
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But the facts tell a different story. Over the course of their quest, Rapunzel saves Flynn’s skin more than once. She befriends a group of nefarious ruffians at a tavern along the way and convinces them not to turn in Flynn to the authorities. And at one of the bleakest moments in the film, when Rapunzel and Flynn are trapped in a dark cave that’s quickly filling with water, Rapunzel uses her magical hair to light up the darkness and find the way out just in time. And later when Flynn’s hand gets injured Rapunzel uses the same magic powers to heal him. Perhaps Flynn was wrong about being alone after all.

Rapunzel isn’t the only one in need of an epiphany. Flynn’s great epiphany is something so obvious that we might question his knowledge of common sense. And yet it’s something we have to experience before we can believe it. Flynn comes to the sudden realization of a simple truth—we’re not in this alone. We don’t need to have the self-centered attitude that life is all about what we can do for ourselves. That is a very narrow view of existence. When we only leave room for one, there’s no room left for the possibility of relationship and togetherness. But when we do make room, we open ourselves up to caring for and being cared for by other people.

As they watch the lanterns soar up into the night sky, the lanterns meant to commemorate the birth date of the kingdom's lost princess, Rapunzel and Flynn experience things from a new perspective. In that moment Rapunzel seems to understand that being there together is more important than investigating the lights in the sky, which are no longer so mysterious. And Flynn no longer sees the crown as his ticket out of there because suddenly escaping alone to freedom is not his priority. Their song together, "I See the Light," perfectly describes what we encounter in an epiphany. In the song Rapunzel repeats the phrase “Now I’m here,” while Flynn keeps coming back to the words “Now she’s here.” There’s something profound about being here, being present. Epiphanies happen in the here and now. Like I mentioned before, an epiphany is a moment. A moment in time when you see things as they are. In The Screwtape Letters C.S. Lewis writes, “the Present is the point at which time touches eternity.” Eternity, by definition, always exists. You might call it the reality behind the veil. But we don't always see it. It's only in a truly meaningful epiphany that the veil is lifted for a moment and the reality of eternal truth shines through.

A young princess finds herself in a kingdom beset by creeping shadows—monsters which lurk far underground. In the darkness below they tunnel endlessly, plotting to one day rise up and take over. Who from the kingdom will challenge this dark foe? Who is worthy to lead the forces of good to beat back the enemy once and for all? This is what fairy tales are made of. We know what's supposed to happen next. A prince will arise, seeking to win the heart of the princess. And what better way to do that than to fashion himself into a fearless, conquering hero who can do anything simply because he believes in himself? It makes perfect sense to our modern ears. As the great philosopher and poet of our age Miley Cyrus once said, “If you believe in yourself anything is possible.” (It’s impossible to find the source of this quote, but I'm sure we will eventually if only we believe in ourselves enough.) But while the prince is off on his own saving the day, one question remains. What's a princess to do in the meantime?

Perhaps Princess Irene can help us out with this question. In the children’s novel The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald, Princess Irene is an eight-year-old girl with a penchant for exploring. Her curiosity takes her to all kinds of exciting places, whether that’s getting lost on the rocky slopes of the nearby mountain as daylight begins to fade, or getting lost wandering the endless hallways and staircases of her father’s castle. Her poor nursemaid Lootie. She looks away for one moment and little Princess Irene is gone again, probably getting captured by goblins for all she knows. When Irene comes back one day with a tale about meeting her great-great-grandmother in the attic, Lootie will have none of it and notes that “princesses are in the habit of telling make-believes.” 

How should a princess act? Lootie has some pretty low expectations. If young princesses are indeed so prone to spreading lies then we can’t really expect better of them. No wonder the prince gets the responsibility of saving the day. Princess Irene, however, continues to defy expectations. She has some very different ideas for how a princess should behave. As she tells Lootie at one point, “Nurse, a princess must not break her word.” You see, Irene has standards. But it's also possible to take her statement the wrong way. Maybe she's saying that it’s perfectly all right for you vulgar peasants to engage in petty trickery and deceit, but as for us royals, we will not stoop to that level. Irene's standards show up again when she gets rather annoyed at Lootie for dismissing her strange story about talking to her great-great-grandmother. MacDonald writes, “Not to be believed does not at all agree with princesses: for a real princess cannot tell a lie.” Well, I guess that settles it. A true royal simply comes from better stock than the rest of us and is therefore naturally virtuous and morally superior. No wonder they’re granted the divine right to rule. No one else is qualified.

If there’s anything we’ve learned from history, it’s that kings can be corrupt, noblemen can be far from noble, the clergy can dabble in the diabolical, and the courts can pervert justice in the extreme. These days we expect our heroes to have moral failings and we’re suspicious about anyone held up as morally good. We see the world as a complicated mess of mixed motives and ambiguous outcomes. What separates the good from the bad? That’s a question for ethicists to argue about. It’s hard to see the way forward in a clouded, grey world such as our own. But that’s where stories come in. Stories, when they’re done well, can point us to an ideal without ignoring the troubled reality that we live in. They shine a light on another reality that we can lose sight of and forget to strive for.

Princess Irene is not perfect. What sets her apart as a model to follow is that she never forgets her high calling. She refuses to lower the bar despite her mistakes. Irene gets herself into some trouble, which as I’ve mentioned drives her nursemaid Lootie crazy. On one occasion Irene is caught out of doors after dark, just in time for the goblins to come out of their holes. Thankfully, a twelve-year-old miner named Curdie passes by to help Irene escape from the goblins and return home. Irene “never forgot Curdie, but him she remembered for his own sake, and indeed would have remembered him if only because a princess never forgets her debts until they are paid.” She recognizes that she has a duty to reward the boy for his kindness. That's what princesses do. But going beyond that duty, Irene also just appreciates Curdie for who he is—that's what friends do.
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How does Irene repay Curdie? As you might expect for a fairy tale, at first the princess promises a kiss to her rescuer. But as Lootie will not tolerate such fraternization, Curdie is content to go home without it. He continues in his quest to discover what nefarious plans the goblins are putting into motion deep underground. That seems to be his mission. So let’s return to our initial question. What’s a princess to do while her rescuer is hard at work saving the kingdom? She should probably go back to her toy rocking horse and try not to get into too much trouble. But that wouldn’t be much of a story. After all, chapter one is entitled “Why the Princess has a Story about her.” As it turns out, Irene repays Curdie by becoming his rescuer. Curdie gets himself captured by goblins in an underground cave and it’s up to Irene to haul away the rocks blocking up the entrance. And so, “with aching back, and bleeding fingers and hands, [Princess Irene] worked on, sustained by the pleasure of seeing the heap slowly diminish and begin to show itself on the opposite side of the fire.” A surprised Curdie, who thinks he’s done for, asks, “What are you doing?” Irene responds matter-of-factly, “Clearing away a huge heap of stones.” At that Curdie exclaims, “There’s a princess!” In other words, thanks for saving my life—and by the way, you’re amazing.

Now that’s impressive for an eight-year-old. Princess Irene seems fairly strong and independent. If she can do that on her own, why would we even need a prince? But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s think back to that outlandish story Irene told about meeting her great-great-grandmother. Irene insisted the story was true, and so indeed it is. Princess Irene’s great-great-grandmother does in fact show up from time to time living at the top of an otherwise abandoned castle tower. She watches over Irene and provides her with a magical thread to guide her way. It is this thread which leads Irene into the heart of the goblin’s lair so that she can find and rescue Curdie. The same thread guides them home. Curdie cannot see the thread himself, but he decides to trust Irene and follow her nonetheless. As they go, Irene advises him, “Now you must keep by me.” Curdie must trust Irene and Irene must trust the magical thread. Her great-great-grandmother tells her that the thread will lead her home, but that “it may seem to you a very roundabout way indeed, and you must not doubt the thread. Of one thing you may be sure, that while you hold it, I hold it too.”
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We put a lot of emphasis on independence. Fearlessly self-reliant people are strong. After all, how can you be strong unless you trust in your own strength? But the fact is that we're actually dependent on many things even if we don’t realize it. The goblins, for instance, mockingly refer to humans as “sun-people.” If you haven’t noticed, we are totally dependent on the sun for our survival. Every living thing on the planet is. But the goblins, with their fiercely independent spirit, aren’t so sure they need the sun. One goblin says:

​The goblins live under the strong delusion that they alone are the masters of their own fate. While living in their little underground world they’ve become convinced that they need nothing but their own intelligence to survive. They certainly believe in themselves, don’t they? The goblins look at their torches with satisfaction and ignore the sun, our galaxy’s supreme example of fire and light. Perhaps we could say that a goblin is someone who has spent so long focusing on themselves and their desires and their achievements that they’ve become twisted. They trust nothing but themselves. A goblin keeps his head down, no longer able to look to anything higher than his own nose.

A princess, however, has a higher calling. So does a prince, by the way. Now, Curdie the miner is not technically a prince. But he sure acts like one. And no, I don’t mean that he goes around feeling entitled, treating everyone else like servants. That's not what a real prince does. Curdie lives a life of service, looking out for others to the point that he puts himself in danger. Irene does the same on her rescue mission. Author George MacDonald points out that “there is some ground for supposing that Curdie was not a miner only, but a prince as well.” Curdie is a prince not because of his ancestry but because of the virtue he exudes. In an introduction to a more recent edition of The Princess and the Goblin, fantasy author Ursula Le Guin writes, “MacDonald is also stern and clear about what nobility is. It has nothing to do with money or social status. A princess is a girl who behaves nobly; a girl who behaves nobly is a princess.”
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What is a princess really? To oversimply matters, a princess is the daughter of a king. She does the noble thing because that’s what she’s been taught by her father. Any girl who keeps her eyes on the standard a princess aims for can be a princess herself. In this case the princess of our story also happens to be the great-great-granddaughter of a queen. Princess Irene’s great-great-grandmother does quite a lot of teaching too, reminding Irene where she should place her trust. Does she believe in herself? To a point, yes. But even more so she believes in the words of the ancient queen. Irene wouldn't have gotten very far without her, or without Curdie for that matter. And Curdie's biggest mistake is thinking he can take on the goblins by himself, which gets him captured. It's only when Curdie and Irene learn to rely on each other that they find their way.

​Our prince and princess may not always get it right. But despite their failings, they do not lose sight of their mission or the high standard to which they are called. Anyone, royalty or otherwise, can be a prince or a princess. But there is a cost. Only those who can admit when they don't measure up to their calling are the ones most likely to fulfill it. Only those who humble themselves and trust can find the thread again and follow it back home.