The modern fairytale of Faith, Hope and Love

In a small village called Reality, nestled between the Rhodope hills, lived three twin sisters. Although, they had several common characteristics, they were very different and this could be seen with a naked eye. What they had in common was that they shared one home and one date of birth. And the same parents. But the differences… Oh, they were so many. One of the sisters - tall, beautiful, natty. Always optimistic and therefore sometimes a little bit blind for the reality. People admired her and when they would see her, they did not want to let her go. That was Hope. The second - medium height, with a very warm appearance, she always knew the right direction. She didn't need maps or GPS. The problem, however, was that most of the countryside men, who crossed her path, still lacked something in order to follow her, and for this reason they often wandered alone and got lost in the narrow forest paths. That was Faith. The third one was the shortest. She was under the noses of those around her, so they almost always passed her without even seeing her. She was not affected by that because she was filled with humility. She knew that everyone had their tasks and was in a hurry to finish them. But deep down she also knew that someday she would be noticed. Despite her modest and short stature, she possessed some qualities of both her sisters - the wide-open and beautiful eyes of Hope and the warm soul of Faith. Her name was Love.

Faith, Hope and Love studied at the humanitarian high-school in the village. Each of them had a favorite subject and had already chosen what profession to dive in. Faith loved history. She knew that it contained many terrible and sad lessons, but she was of the opinion that we could learn from the examples of the past and thus build a better future. That's why Faith wanted to become a teacher. Her desire was to teach the children to believe in themselves and develop their talents. After all, "children are our future," she often told herself. Hope was fascinated by art and her motto was "with beauty to progress". She chose the profession of an actress. As soon as she got on stage all eyes focused on her. No one could convince her that anything but beauty would save the world. Love loved biology. She admired nature and its riches and took care of it every day - watering the plants, feeding the birds, caressing every animal around her, and, as they say, she could not say boo to a goose. Unlike humans, animals not only could see her, but they fell in love with her and sought her presence on their own. She wanted to be a healer. Not a doctor, because that would limit her - to help only people or only animals. No, Love wanted to help everyone, because in her eyes all beings were equal.

The parents of Faith, Hope and Love were ordinary people, no different from most of the inhabitants of the small villages. Their mother, Milka, was a librarian and worked at the local village library. The woman loved the books like her own children and took care of them, keeping a close eye on which books were given to whom, which were not returned on time, what was their condition, whether the alphabetical and at the same time chronological order on the shelves was observed, etc. If a man returned a book taken from the library in poor condition, Milka would get shocked. She would yammer, cross herself, then chase the man with a homemade cork rolling pin, and, of course, in the end the man would be forbidden to enter the library. Their father, Spas, was a carpenter (that's why Milka had the confidence that she could make a rolling pin herself). He made corks for wine and thus contributed to the local production of the divine drink. Every day, with great obedience and devotion, Spas cut corks. Sometimes, to motivate himself even more, he would open a bottle of wine, a gift from his wine-making friends, and the force would be on his side (or so he thought). It was no coincidence that Spas and Milka were endowed with triplets, because despite everything, they were good and responsible people, always helpful when someone asked them for something.

At the time when Faith, Hope and Love were born, there were no such thing in the village like an ultrasound (not that there was now) and, to put it mildly, Spas was surprised when he found out that he had not one, not two, but three daughters at once. When the midwife told him the good news, Spas nearly fainted. People had to give him wine to stop him from shaking. Of course, the midwife was told that it was a tea from mint, hawthorn and valerian. However, they were in a hospital and the alcohol was not allowed for consumption within the health facility. This way Spas overcame the shock of the good news and the next day he hardly remembered what had happened. He had to be reminded that he was already a father of three, and the incident of the previous day had repeated itself a little bit. Thus passed the first few months of the appearance of the triplets. Although, to this day Spas is not very sure if he really had three daughters or he was seeing triple. But that's another story. Milka, on the other hand, was not very "here and now" when she was giving birth. Despite the pain and the strong contractions, the woman kept thinking about whether she had forgotten to put the returned books back in their proper places, whether that waster woman Zhivka had finally returned "Fifty Shades of Gray" or Milka would have to seek her, but this time using her faithful assistant – the cork rolling pin… Such thoughts occupied the head of the mother and she did not even understand when exactly she became a mother of three. Since she was busy working while she was pregnant, Milka did not have time to come up with a name for the baby, and in the end it turned out to be three, after the birth she decided to improvise and naturally named her daughters after her favorite poem by Rumen Chenkov, named "Faith, Hope, Love". That way, she would not have to force herself to remember three new names and be distracted from her mission - the books. Spas did not seem to mind. He was very calm and cheerful the day after the birth, when Milka told him the names she had chosen. She did not understand exactly how Spas had come to this nirvana state, but other things excited her to be interested in that.

The days went by. Faith, Hope and Love were developing in the areas that attracted them, and nothing could distract them from their dreams. Their parents enjoyed healthy and beautiful girls, each of them entering the bloom of her own live.

The girls grew up and it was time for each to go her own way. However, when it came to the folk habits for girls to marry young, Spas and Milka were too busy and devoted to their careers to pay attention to those old traditions. So the three girls separated for the first time since they came into this world. Hope went to the capital to study "Acting for Drama Theater" and her whole being was filled with the idea that one day she would conquer the big stage of the National Theater "Ivan Vazov". Faith moved to Plovdiv, where she enrolled to study “Sociology and Human Sciences” and from the second year she enrolled to study “Pedagogy”. She was one step away from her dream to develop the future of Bulgaria – the children. Only Love decided to stay in the village of Reality and slowly learn from the local herbalist how to heal not only the body, but also the soul.

Time passed and the girls changed more and more, as did their feelings, as a result of their high expectations. Hope graduated from the National Academy of Theater and Film Arts with honors and reached the big theater in no time. It happened so that everyone who would see her wanted to touch her, to take photos with her, to be like her. When people looked at her, it was as if everyone saw their bright future. She was now recognizable and could not walk undisturbed on the street without hiding behind a hat and glasses. Hope began to lose her optimism, as well as herself in the crowd. She did not remember who she really was, she became different with everyone, and that hurt her. She could not identify a specific body part, but it hurt to death. Her material wealth and the people around her multiplied, but she felt increasingly poor, invisible, and empty. Ironically, after everyone around could see her, as well as her expensive clothes and jewelry.

Faith graduated from Plovdiv University successfully with two specialties and devoted herself to her mission - to develop the children. She started teaching in a public school, but soon reality shook her. She was not allowed to teach whatever she wanted and as she wanted to the children, as she had a strict curriculum and rules. If the children were innovative and did not give the answers indicated as correct in the textbooks, she had no right to encourage them, on the contrary - she had to write low grades. This tore her heart open because she believed that children were talents, touched by a higher creative energy that kept their souls pure. The longer she observed these restrictions, the more the light in her fade away and she lost her direction.

Only Love was at peace with herself and her own aspirations. She continued to learn from the village herbalist, and even became her assistant and was able to treat the needy on her own. Of course, "the needy" also meant local stray or wild animals. In addition to her herb and vegetable garden, Love had a whole zoo, full of fluffy and loving friends - dogs, cats, rabbits, chickens, foxes, and even from time to time a wolf, which she raised from a baby. It is important to note that she was no longer so invisible to others, especially to the people whose ailments she had cured. Many of her countryside men admired and respected her, and yet from time to time they unknowingly passed her, but she was not mad. She was happy to help them get on with their lives without pain, and that was enough for her. Meanwhile, Love took care of her parents, who were already elderly and sometimes needed some support. Her father, Spas, often forgot where he was going to, where he had left things, what he was asked to buy, etc., either because of his age or because of his first love, the bottle. There was a case in which his wife sent him to borrow a jar of pickles from the neighbors, and he returned with a bottle of brandy. Milka, on the other hand, became more and more interested in books (one would wonder - could it be more?). She had read “Anna Karenina” by Tolstoy so many times that sometimes she would call Spas - Stepan. Of course, Spas did not oppose simply because he would forget and could not remember.

When April came, Faith and Hope decided to go home to their loved ones for the Easter holidays. They arrived in the village at the beginning of the month and the two began to talk around about how nice it was to live in the big city and how much they loved their jobs. But they did not mention the part with the disappointments (which was most of their experience). Faith seemed to be hiding something, as she was a very sincere person. And she would always like to take the initiative and show the right direction. While this time she seemed more shrunken and insecure. Hope, on the other hand, was the perfect actress. She played her role very well and did not even shiver from the outside when young children, listening to her stories, said that one day they too will become actors in a big city like her. But internally she wanted to scream the opposite. Love figured her two sisters out without having to ask them anything. She had a very strong intuition that she used to feel her sister's pain from afar. However, she did not press them because she knew they would open to her whenever they were ready.

One early afternoon, just 3 days before Easter, a stranger arrived in a large and modern car. He stood in the center of the village square and all the villagers gathered around him. He introduced himself - Boyko Golemanov, the newly appointed mayor of the town of Smolyan, within which the village of Reality was located. Boyko was a resident of the capital who recently moved to Smolyan, given the task to transform the city and the surrounding area to look more European or, as he put it, more “eye friendly” to the West (only Faith and Hope understood his words). To do this, the municipality planned to cut down 10-are field of trees on the northern border of the village, as a large hotel with its own Spa complex and a ski slope nearby was to be built there. This would be a top place for visitors from Western Europe and they would invest a lot of money to build it. The ordinary peasants, confused by all the modern words used by this strange man, seemingly rejoiced that they would have money and guests from the Great West. Love, not so far ahead with the foreign and modern words as her sisters, but as always humble, felt the bad intentions in Golemanov's tone and her heart sank at the thought that trees would be killed - children of nature, giving everyone fresh air, and for some "investments", whatever the meaning of the word was. "No one has the right to invade Mother Nature, because no one can create in her likeness," thought Love. Faith and Hope initially showed no interest, they already had their own homes, far from the village. In the evening, however, the two saw Love crying and sat down next to her to try to calm their sister. When Love told them why this man did not come to them with good intentions and how this would affect their village and all living beings, something ignited in Faith and Hope. They found their youngest sister a little strange, but they also knew that she had an inner talent, namely to warm the souls. Their souls, frozen from the life in the big city, that forgot their passion, had just warmed up. Faith felt the wind and the direction in which it was blowing again, and Hope saw the bright future and felt the optimism filling her essence. Tonight the three sisters decided that they had to do everything in their power to stop this madness, knocking on the gates of the village. But for this purpose they had to convince the villagers of Reality that Boyko Golemanov was not a good man with good intentions. They had 3 days to do so, because the first trees would be cut down on the day after Easter Monday.

The three sisters wondered exactly what to do. Then Faith drew up an action plan to attract everyone's attention in Reality. As Easter was approaching and normally people were celebrating it together, usually with various events organized in the central square of the village, the three sisters decided to put on a theatrical play. Naturally, in the main and only role would be Hope, the script - written by Love, and the play - directed by Faith. Thus, the triplets had two days to compose and rehearse the performance so that it could be presented at the days of the bright holiday.

As Easter Sunday came and, as usual, everyone was in the central square. Golemanov also arrived in the village to celebrate with his peasants (as they had to bring him investments). The girls were worried, not knowing that the mayor would be among them. However, they did not give up. Hope came on stage and, as always, everyone's eye focused on her. But something did not seem to be going according to the plan. Everyone seemed overwhelmed, but somehow they did not understand what was going on on stage. They rejoiced, applauded, wanted more, but understood nothing. The parents of the three sisters were also there, busy with their own staff. Spas shared another bottle of wine with his fellow villagers, and Milka, with a cork rolling pin under her arm, searched the crowd for another book criminal who had the audacity to be late with returning the books taken from the library.

After the show, the three sisters got together and tried to figure out what to do. It seemed that all the inhabitants of Reality lived in complete illusion. Desperate and humble, Love did something unthinkable for her for the first time - she went on stage, above all, and began to speak in her quiet but loving voice. She spoke of Mother Nature, of her gifts, and of the fact that by killing her children, all of them were doomed to a slow death. At first no one heard her. Everyone was doing their own thing. But, slowly, one could hear her quiet voice, warming them from the inside. And so, slowly and gloriously, one by one, all the villagers turned their heads to hear the words of Love. Even Spas and Milka! Only then did everyone notice that her eyes reminded those of Hope, and in their depths they could see the soul of Faith. Love was noticed. She opened everyone's eyes in Reality to the terrible truth, but at the same time she warmed their souls. Then Faith went on the stage next to her. She hugged her sister and pointed to the northern hills, that would be destroyed in a day. The villagers became angry, furious and grumbled against the mayor. Hope came out and stood next to her sisters, all three of them holding hands, giving faith and hope to everyone that with love the forests, as well as the village, could be saved. But that would be possible only if everyone was united and together opposed the mayor's office.

And so it happened. The villagers jumped against Boyko Golemanov, not with anger, but with love. Although, there was a cork rolling pin showing among the people in the crowd, no injuries were reported. Golemanov was expelled from the village, and with the help of the local government the forests around the village of Reality were protected with an act and no intruder, not even from the capital, had the right to invade them. And all this thanks to Faith, Hope and Love, who no longer separated from each other, because Faith and Hope returned to Reality. The first began teaching the children in the village, and the latter opened and headed the first theater of its kind in the village, called theater “True Reality”.

Autor: Vania Dzhoneva - Soul Healer

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Photo: Internet