The strong majority of fairy tales – the ones we know best – deal with the issues and psychology of youth. They are designed to help young people cross the difficult and dangerous bridge leading from childhood and adolescence to adulthood and maturity.
But what happens after you’ve crossed the bridge and find yourself in the land of “happily ever after”? As it happens, there are also some fairy tales where the protagonists are in their middle years, tales very different in both form and content. This sermon, the second in a series of three sermons related to the distilled wisdom of fairy tales, will indicate what values these mid-life fairy tales bring forward for the middle years.