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THE MAGIC GLASSES

Once upon a time in a kingdom far away a prince was born to a king and queen. The palace was filled with love for the prince. One day the clouds grew dark and a terrible war with bitter fighting came to the kingdom. The little prince saw the war breaking out in first one place and then the other, so that often he couldn't even tell which side was which. Finally he became so sad, confused and afraid that he stopped talking and sharing, and was always by himself in order to make it through each day.

The queen told the little prince that if he would only wear magic glasses she had, he would feel better; she put the magic glasses on him, letting him know that his eyes needed to be protected from the war and demanding that he wear them at all times. However, when the prince went around to the king, the king would throw away those glasses saying that his glasses could protect the prince, not the queen's glasses, and that the powerful glasses strength were what the boy should wear in order to see better and get rid of his sadness. The poor prince seemed always to be changing glasses - first wearing those from the king, then having to change into the queen's glasses when she was around. The fighting over the glasses went on all the time, and to tell the truth, the prince found it very difficult to see through either pair of glasses. Whenever he had them on and looked around, the world looked dark and gloomy - all black and red. Sometimes the prince wore both sets of glasses at once, and this really caused the world to appear scary and strange.

Because the little prince spent so much time changing from one pair of glasses to another and trying to remember which pair he should be wearing, he had trouble learning, growing, and making friends. He became lonelier and even more withdrawn, and deep within him was a longing that he couldn't explain. One day he was in the palace garden trying to look at the trees and flowers. As usual, he was having trouble seeing where he was going because of the glasses; on this particular day he had both sets of glasses on. Suddenly he heard a tiny giggle. As he tried to locate the sound, the giggle turned into a louder laugh, but because of the glasses, the poor prince could not see where it was coming from. Not far from him foot was a another boy holding his stomach in laughter as seeing this strange sight of a prince wearing two sets of thick, cloudy glasses. The more the boy giggle, the more angry the prince became.

"Who's that laughing at me?" he cried.

"It's me!" replied a voice near the ground.

"Where are you? Show yourself this very minute!" commanded the prince, trying to sound as royal as possible."I'm right here in front of you," said the boy. "If you would only take off those glasses, you could easily see me!"

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"But I can't!" said the prince sadly. "I have to wear at least one pair all the time, and sometimes two! The king and queen have said so!"

"What is it like when you look through them?" asked the boy.

"Well, it doesn't look good," replied the prince. "It looks ugly and sad and angry."

"The world is really not like that," said the boy, who was no longer laughing. "It's time you realized you have a choice. You may keep wearing the glasses, or you may take them off. Why don't you try taking them off and looking at the world as others sees it? Then you can decide whether you want to put them back on again or not."

The prince was a little afraid to take off the glasses; recalling his parents demanding over and over that he war them because they said so. But he really wanted to be able to see where he was headed, too, so he removed the glasses. Turning his head from side to side, he beheld the beauty of the garden with its rainbow of colors, and was filled with joy. Looking ahead he saw the smiling face of the boy.

"The choice is yours now," said the boy. "You really don't need glasses at all. Your eyes are the best of anyone around, and it would seem silly to wear glasses that make the world look different than it really is."

Nobody had ever talked to the little prince in that way before, and he thought about what the boy had said. Then he knew: he did have a choice! He wanted from that day forward to see the world without those glasses! The prince and his new friend talked and talked after that about life, and seeing, and the beauty that was all around.

The king and queen, of course, very hopping mad that the boy no longer wore their glasses, and demanded that he put them on again at once. But the prince refuses; he could see in a different way now and said that his vision was perfectly fine. He told them that he was able to look at the war and confusion in the kingdom in a new way which wasn't so scary, and he enjoyed seeing all the colors and the beauty around him. The boy helped the prince realize that his world was not so full of conflict and doubt as he had feared before; that he was free to make new friends and to learn and to grow as he was intended to do. When the prince grew to be a man and became king himself, he ruled the kingdom in a very different way than his parents had.

And he made sure that he never wore glasses that he didn't need.

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Courtesy of

Shalom Counseling

(443) 846-4981 or projectshalom1@aol.com

 

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