Cyber Sofreh: Day 15

In the fairy tale, The Handless Maiden, a well-intentioned Queen and a well-intentioned King are forcefully evicted from the nakedness of their naivete and Eden-like connubial bliss by a series of tricks by the Devil. The King has a battle to fight, and is off engaged in a war that consumes him, but is necessary for survival. The Queen realizes she is pregnant soon after he leaves for the front lines, and becomes consumed in a battle of her own. They each write letters to the other of their news, and entrust their messages to a servant boy to be safely delivered.

Unfortunately, the servant boy falls asleep under a tree- just stealing a short nap, on each journey to and from the castle. While he sleeps, the Devil exchanges the royal letters with his own devilish alterations. The servant boy awakes, delivers the Demon Letters unawares, and chaos ensues. The Queen is shocked to read her husband questioning her faithfullness, accusing her of conceiving a demon child with the Devil himself, and demanding the small child be killed as soon as it is born. The King is shocked to read his wife's confession of infidelity and witchcraft. They are both filled with horror and confusion. The Demon Letters have worked. To avoid the murder of her soon-to-be-born child, the Queen flees the castle and doesn't see her husband for 20 years. To rescue his marriage from infidelity, the King abandons the battlefield and the war is lost.

The idea of the devil stealing correspondence and changing it just enough to obstruct intended meanings has always struck me as the perfect metaphor for both miscommunication and prejudice, which are very related. "Thus have their superstitions become veils between them and their own hearts and kept them from the path..." We can go wrong in so many places. And do. The Devil that masks our intentions can be fear, anger, or a million other unnameable things. And the masking can happen within us or in our audience. Our messages are not always received.

But our intentions remain. And they were always good.


Happy Chahar Shanbeh Suri, everybody. Sometimes lighting a fire when a fatwa tells you not to is the most loving, patriotic thing you can do. Sometimes protesting is patriotism. Sometimes fighting is friendship. Intentions matter.


Day 15- Senjed. Love.

Peace.