Who's Singing Next to You?

 I’ve been reading about the work of English Baptist theologian and leader Dan Taylor (1738-1816). Taylor was an advocate for congregational singing; he believed it blessed the whole church. Some of his fellow Baptists weren’t so sure. They believed such singing violated Paul’s rule against women speaking in church (I Cor. 14:34). Taylor’s view eventually prevailed. Isn’t it curious how we will take some verses and squeeze every imaginable implication, however improbable, from them? Yet, we take a command like “Love your neighbor” to mean we should love people who look like us—and maybe not all of them. 

A Medic Alert Bracelet for Snow White?

 Have you heard? Disney is being pressured to change their “Snow White Ride” because the Prince gives the unconscious Snow White a kiss without her consent.

Now just a minute here, this story includes a woman who hands our poisoned apples, and the kiss is what people worry about? Makes you wonder. 

And, what about those dwarfs? 

--Dopey: Come on, many, many good people are not destined for Harvard, and may even spend their lives in repetitive work (dumping inferior diamonds, for example), but do we really have to label?

--Grumpy: He spends his days in a hole in the ground, sure he might not be cheerful, and might even be irritable at times … but if people live up to our expectations, what if we called him “Sanguine” instead. We could give him a chance to change, to live up to a new image.

--Happy: If Grumpy sees the flagon as half empty, Happy sees it as half full. I guess he’s the opposite of Grumpy, the mirror image…. Wait. Snow White was a simple girl. How much did she know about math? Could there have been only six dwarfs? What if the Happy/Grumpy dwarf (or the Grumpy/Happy dwarf) was a single dwarf suffering from bipolar disorder. Far-fetched? Maybe not. Several biographers suggest Walt Disney experienced severe mood swings. Do Grumpy and Happy add up to a cry for help?

--Sneezy: Since moving to Texas I’ve learned a lot about what the locals call “Cedar Fever.” It’s an allergic reaction to “cedar pollen” in the air. It really slows some people down. Imagine the poor kid who goes to school every day with a red nose and watery eyes to face his friends calling him “Sneezy.” How insensitive.

--Sleepy: I have a relative with narcolepsy. It isn’t funny. She is afraid to drive long distances by herself for fear she will fall asleep at the wheel. Again, insensitivity reigns: A sleepy dwarf is a funny dwarf.

--Bashful: We don’t know a lot about him. He tends to be a bit reticent, reserved. In a world where the extravert gets the attention, we overlook the Bashfuls. Yet he could be the deepest, most insightful of the dwarfs. But we’ll never know.

--Doc: It’s a bit of a cliché, but he’s older and therefore wiser. Was he once a doctor? If so, what tragic event sent him into the mines—the dwarfs are miners, you know.

But wait. The dwarfs are miners. What are they doing to the environment? Why should they have all that wealth (diamonds)? Did the mine belong to the pixies before the dwarfs came along? Is it silly to make so much fuss over a fairy tale? Yeah, probably.

Maybe Disney should give Snow White a Medic Alert bracelet. It could say, “Any handsome prince who finds me, while I am suffering from an enchantment, has my consent to give me a kiss.”