The Cinderella Deceit

I saw the ballet "Cinderella" tonight with some of the high schoolers from the club I advise, and it was standard fair. You know, the stepsisters abuse her until the fairy godmother gets her to the ball where she dances the night away-- until midnight of course when she returns to her old self.

Yet she accidentally leaves that one glass slipper. The prince can now scour the country to find his true love by seeing whose foot fits the slipper. As he visits each village, each woman takes her shot at it. Maybe, just maybe, it will fit her foot and she and the prince would live happily ever after.

After watching this process, each woman taking her turn, I thought of something, and I just can't believe this is the first time it's been thought. Think about this:

What would each woman think after the slipper is found to be a poor fit, in light of the fact that she'd just been revealed as a brazen liar. For you see, each woman must know that she is not Cinderella. The prince doesn't want someone whose foot fits in a shoe, he wants Cinderella. I mean, really, you'd think that a woman would have enough self-respect to say to the prince when he arrives, "I know why you're here, and I can save you some time. I am not the woman you're looking for."

But no woman-- at least in the story-- no woman says this. I'd like to think that in the real non-fairy-tale world there are some who'd behave in this more noble manner, but how many? How many others would think about how to fool the prince into believing she were Cinderella? And if the slipper should fit in some way, how in the world could a woman continue her ruse that she was his true love when she was not? All without the prince ever knowing! It is comical that she actually thinks she could.

What's more, what does this say about one such woman's respect for the man who would be hers? What's he to think when he sees that see'd so willingly lie to have someone else, but when it fails she'd just settle for him? And please, just know that I'm an equal opportunity truth-teller: men are just as guilty of such conduct. They seek their own boots that just won't fit.

The sad fact is that far too many live this ruse all the time-- they live as though they are someone else and in doing so wreak havoc on their relationships because those close to them don't know who they really are. Worse, I think, many of them do know who they really aren't, and are forced to merely cope.

What a nightmare.

I still have in my mind that picture of all those ballet dancers, up there in that line, each taking turns trying on the slipper, each one portraying someone abjectly lying through their teeth. It is the nightmare of the Catholicist Nation disunderstood. Not misunderstood, but dis-understood, people just not getting it-- deliberately so-- not getting how they are deceived and deceiving, immersed in the brightest pretense in spite of the plain absurdity.

"Maybe that slipper will fit my foot!"

And maybe everyone won't see you and your character for what it really is.

For a bit more on Someone who saw through it and wanted people to know Him as He was, look here.

Even better, look at His exact words. To see what Jesus said about disunderstanding, read Matthew 16:1-12 and meditate on Psalm 119:104.