{"id":5112,"date":"2025-12-17T07:48:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T12:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=5112"},"modified":"2025-12-17T07:48:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T12:48:09","slug":"retelling-the-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/17\/retelling-the-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Retelling the Story"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u00a0Are you ready for Christmas? During the season of Advent \u2013 which annually begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas and leads up to December 25 \u2013 followers of Jesus traditionally look for ways to prepare themselves for the coming of God\u2019s own Son into the world. Throughout December we\u2019ll ponder ways that we can ready ourselves to receive Jesus, once again, into our own hearts.<\/em>

Before 1937, animated cartoons were mostly kids\u2019 stuff.\u00a0

\u201cPlots\u201d were little more than a few jokes strung together over three minutes.\u00a0Characters were roughly drawn and colored without a hint of subtlety.\u00a0

When Walt Disney began to talk about crafting a full-length animated film, few could even imagine what he had in mind.

What Disney had in mind was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, <\/em>a work of art that a number of critics continue to believe is the finest movie (of any kind) ever made.

Snow White <\/em>transformed the reality of animation.\u00a0Disney insisted that the stars of the movie weren\u2019t\u00a0silly, exaggerated caricatures trying to get laughs.\u00a0They were real.\u00a0They should be portrayed as actual persons.

That meant their eyebrows should crinkle a certain way when they felt wonder or doubt.\u00a0Their clothes should move naturally when they stood up.\u00a0Their hands, their cheeks, their hair, and especially their eyes should look authentic.

Without the availability of 21st century\u00a0CGI technology, all of this had to be done painstakingly by skilled human hands \u2013 work that typically took years.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0

Throughout that time, Walt Disney was everywhere. He visited every department in his studio, continually engaging his\u00a0nearly 500 co-workers.

Mostly what he did was tell, retell, and tell yet again the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs<\/em>.\u00a0

Disney would go from desk to desk and drawing board to drawing board. He would act out every emotion.\u00a0He would portray every scene.\u00a0In his monumental volume Walt Disney: the Triumph of the American Imagination<\/em>, Neal Gabler points out that Disney completely lost himself during these sessions, which often took three hours.

Staff members would be spellbound.\u00a0Many choked up.\u00a0

Whenever they heard the leader of their project pour out his heart, their vision was restored.\u00a0They returned to their highly specific projects \u2013 drawing Bashful\u2019s nose, perhaps, or the gnarled branches on certain trees in the woods \u2013 with renewed energy.

In other words, whenever they heard the big story, they better understood where their own humble parts of the story fit in.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0

Gabler asserts this was something Walt Disney could not possibly\u00a0not<\/u><\/em> do.\u00a0He had become one with the story.\u00a0And only he could tell it with such passion and pathos.

There’s a reason that people of faith keep telling the same Christmas Story over and over again.\u00a0

It helps us find our place in the universe.\u00a0\u00a0

It’s not an accident that most of the world’s great made-up stories, including Snow White, Star Wars, Moby Dick, The Brothers Karamazov, <\/em>and Harry Potter,\u00a0<\/em>align with the all-too-real narratives we find in Scripture:

The world used to be a better place.\u00a0Then dark forces defiled it.\u00a0Salvation must be plotted.\u00a0Some characters will choose the light.\u00a0Others will side with darkness.\u00a0Only with great courage \u2013 and reliance on great powers \u2013 can victory be achieved.\u00a0Along the way, extraordinary sacrifices must be made.

When Snow White sings “someday my prince will come,” she is voicing the world’s most enduring\u00a0hope:\u00a0that one of these days, a savior is going to show up\u00a0and set everything right.

And the world at last will be healed.

There’s a reason we need to hear the\u00a0Story of God becoming a human being again and again. And yet again<\/em>.

Every time we face a pile of dirty dishes, or a crucial conversation, or a rampaging toddler, or a relational crossroads, or a workplace decision\u00a0that feels like one of those\u00a0make-or-break moments, we need to remember that our lives actually mean something.\u00a0They are actually going somewhere.\u00a0And it matters how we respond.

Meteorologists are assuring residents here in the Midwest that we will (once again) see no white snow on December 25.

But at least we can take heart from Snow White.

Whatever we choose to do today, at our own version of a drawing board, will actually make a difference in the Big Picture.
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here \u00a0Are you ready for Christmas? During the season of Advent \u2013 which annually begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas and leads up to December 25 \u2013 followers of Jesus traditionally look for ways to prepare themselves for the coming of God\u2019s own Son into the world. Throughout December we\u2019ll ponder… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5113,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[119,634],"class_list":["post-5112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-christmas","tag-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5112"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5114,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5112\/revisions\/5114"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}