"Mother" Knows Best, or Does She?... by Jac

I enjoy movies, although, I'm extremely picky about them. Why waste my time with anything that doesn't leave me feeling like I want to be a better person? I love movies that create an intense emotional connection with application to real life—my real life—and have deep contemplative qualities.

Tangled is a real treat. I can't even tell you how many times I've watched it. But it only took me once to find the wondrous significance it holds to life.

You see, we are all like Rapunzel (you too, guys—of course, in a much more manly way). We are born with light and blessed with gifts and talents. We have been given all of the tools we could ever need—and more—to succeed in this life. Yet we each have a wicked "mother" holding us back, smothering our light and happiness, degrading, manipulating and destroying us, dragging us down, blinding us. These "mothers" are the chains of hell—whatever the form: a real person, a situation, a train of thought, or all of the above. 

Captivity stinks, but when we are there, we don't feel capable or worthy to be freed. And let's be honest, if those chains were broken, what then!? Change is scary sometimes, especially when we don't know what to expect. We get comfortable where we are at—even in an awful, deep, dark hole—because it's easier than breaking down our walls or coming down from our towers where we are vulnerable to the world, men with pointy teeth, and rhino's who trample us.

Once in a while, we get glimmers of hope or glimpses of something better. But then we get squashed again. And it hurts! So we fall back to where we think we are protected. The cycle repeats until eventually we feel hopeless. (What most of us know, but don't really understand, is that we are never completely broken. We are never unworthy of being rescued. It is never too late to rebel against "mother", to dream, to leave the tower and go see the lights! After all, the lights are meant for us—we who have lost our way, we who are living beneath our privileges.)

Then Flynn Rider comes along. He revives the light inside of us and we break out! But it's not easy. Our evil "mother" is always following us, reminding us that we are nothing, that we will only be safe if we return to her. And sometimes we do. And we pay for it dearly. With each return, the escape becomes more and more difficult, because "she" becomes more and more powerful and dangerous. "She" strikes blows in the most painful of places—the areas where we are most weak and vulnerable.

I've experienced the different stages of the life of Rapunzel. so my emotions run high. I hate with a passion anything that strangles light and goodness and tears people down. Tyranny angers me to the point of tears. 

Life is quite the adventure! We can't give up, my friends. We have to fight—always seeking for the light—doing whatever it takes. That is how lost princesses (and princes) are found!

There is much light and goodness in all of you. Let it out, Rapunzel! Let down your hair!