Yes, Virginia

     Since writing The Fairytales of Lightfall Hollow, several people have asked me the same question. Do I believe in fairies and other magical creatures?

     My answer is an emphatic “No.” It is also an equally emphatic “Yes.”

     No, I do not believe in the physical existence of fairies. The same goes for unicorns, mermaids, giants, Boogeyman, and all the other supernatural creatures I wrote about in the fairytales.

     The magical creatures in my stories are my inventions. They are my imagination’s endeavor to give bodies to what is bodiless, substance to what has no materiality, and words to what is beyond words.

     Which is not to say I made up my fabrications from nothing. Like all inventors, I started with something in existence and built upon it.

     That bodiless, incorporeal, ineffable something is the spirit that is present in nature. It is my view that every natural thing has a spirit, from lands and animals to waters and plants to air and stars to fire and even rocks. As I see it, they all have a spirit.

     It is a mysterious spirit, far beyond my human capability to understand. Nonetheless, it is a spirit I recognize, connect to, cherish, and absolutely do believe in.

     And it is this omnipresent, unknowable, familiar, beloved, and trustworthy spirit that was my raw material for creating the fairies and other magical beings of Lightfall Hollow. Consequently, I can honestly say that, in an abstract sense, I do believe in fairies and other magical creatures.

     While how strange it is that the magical creatures of my invention turned out to be so very human. Or not.

     Writing the preceding has recalled to me another, far more superior writing that is also an answer to a question similar to the one I have gotten. I first read this true masterpiece in 1997, shortly after my then eight-year-old son asked: “Mom, is there really a Santa Claus?”

     It was a question for which I had no immediate good and honest answer. So, I stalled for time, and the next morning I went looking for help at our local public library. There, I came across a newspaper editorial written a century before by Francis Pharcellus Church, “Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus.”

     In 1897, Mr. Church was an aging and relatively unknown American editorial writer who most frequently commented on religious topics, typically with quite a bit of skepticism toward matters of faith. He had been a correspondent during the Civil War, and the horrors of man’s inhumanity to man he witnessed during that war turned him into a bitter, distrustful, reclusive

curmudgeon.

     But then one day, while working for a New York City newspaper, The Sun, Mr. Church’s managing editor gave him the assignment of responding to a letter written by eight-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon. In the letter, the little girl asked, “Please tell me the truth: Is there a Santa Claus?”

     With that question, Virginia O’Hanlon opened the hardened heart of Francis Pharcellus Church, and he wrote back to her the 416 hopeful and loving words that would become the most re-printed editorial of all time. Glorious words that also radiate both a childlike sense of wonder and the steadfast faith of a child that there is goodness in this world, and it prevails.

     I highly recommend “Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus” to anyone, regardless of their particular faith and spiritual beliefs. It is an inspiring and encouraging read that reveals the presence of the the universal spirit that lives in all people. Evincing what is, as Mr. Church wrote, “real and abiding.”

     And with that, I will close with the 6 words that reflect the fervent yearning of every human heart.

     Peace on Earth. Goodwill to All.