30 June 2025

Margery Williams wrote a delightful book entitled, ‘The Velveteen Rabbit’. In it, the Rabbit asks a question about reality. ‘What is real?’ asks the Rabbit. ‘Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out-handle?’

The Skin Horse reassures the Rabbit that, ‘Real isn’t how you are made. It’s the thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.’

The Rabbit asks if it hurts and, of course, it does sometimes. He wonders, ‘Does it happen all at once, like being wound up or bit by bit?’ The Skin Horse tells the Rabbit that it doesn’t happen all at once, ‘You become. It takes a long time.’

The Skin Horse tells the Rabbit that it doesn’t happen to people ‘who break easily of have sharp edges or who have to be carefully kept’. He goes on,  ‘Generally, by the time you are Real, most  of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the  joints and very shabby.’

This is where reality is to be found. I know that for myself for my hair has been loved off and whilst I still have my eyesight albeit worsening as the years pass, I am becoming loose in my joints and very shabby.  The Skin Horse turns being loved into an accolade despite the wear and tear or perhaps because of it!

Margery Williams concludes her discussion on reality when the Skin Horse says, ‘But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are  Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.’ Equating reality with love is very Scriptural. ‘God is love.’ says St. John and in him is the Way, the Truth and the Life. And that’s our reality!