Wise Beyond Her Years

We came home from Nashville and re:create last night.

My seven year-old asked a lot of questions. She wanted to know every detail.

She was especially excited to hear I had a chance to sit and talk with Rick Dempsey. Rick Dempsey is the Senior Vice President of Disney Character Voices and Disney Character Voices International.

Rick showed us a clip from Disney’s new movie, “Enchanted.” Enchanted tells the story of a beautiful princess (played by Amy Adams) who is banished from a classical animated land and placed in modern-day Manhattan.

I told Kasidy about the clip we had the privilege of viewing where Amy Adams sings a song with various vermin who help clean her apartment.

Kasidy lit up when I told her about the clip. “What else happens, Daddy?” “I don’t know, baby. All I know is that she can’t live in cartoon land anymore—she has to live in New York.”

I loved what she said next.

“Yeah, but what problems does she have to face before the end, Daddy?”

A very smart observation. In her seven year-old mind, a story wouldn’t be a story without the conflict.

My daughter summed up an accurate description of what Kurt Bruner calls, “The Hero’s Journey.”

According to Bruner, there is a common pattern in all great stories—an understanding of which is innate in all of us. It is innate in all of us because it is the story of the gospel.

Bruner describes the recipe like this . . .

1. The central character is living in a comfortable zone (ordinary life). 

2. Something throws his life out of balance; a quest for an “object of desire”

3. The “hero” must overcome many obstacles, with increasing difficulty, to “regain equilibrium” in his life or world.

4. Finally, the hero has to sacrifice something precious, either his health, his family, or his life, to attain the “object of desire” and retain equilibrium.

Not a bad lesson to learn at 7.