Alice laughed. 

“There’s no use trying,” she said.  

“One can’t believe impossible things.”

 “I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen.  

“When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day.  

Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” 

Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland was a strange story before it was made into a movie. But seeing it played out on the big screen, in 3D no less, in an adaptation by Tim Burton, was an amazing experience.  Alice is thirteen years older now and accidently returns to Underworld, though she has no memory of her previous visit as a child.  She meets again, but to her for the first time, the strange cast of characters whom she encountered in her previous visit – the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, March Hare and the Dormouse   She finds herself in the middle of a war between the Red Queen and the White Queen and is told that she is the only one who can recover the Volpor Sword and slay the Jabberwockey dragon.

As she prepares to battle the Jabberwockey, she remembers a conversation she had with the white queen when she was a much younger girl, when the queen shared with her things she found hard to believe (especially that she was as old as she was).  The White Queen told Alice that in her youth she could believe “six impossible things before breakfast” and advised Alice to practice the same.  Alice began going through her list of impossible things she believed and the final one on the list was that she could defeat the Jabberwockey.  And she did.

We all at times struggle to believe.  We all at times face seemingly insurmountable obstacles or apparently undefeatable opponents.  Some of us fear the future will always remain uncertain or doubt that we will ever be truly known for who we are.  But there is wisdom to be found in the advice of the White Queen.   We must cultivate the practice of believing in the impossible.  We all need a list of at least six impossible things to believe before breakfast. 

Some may think it crazy to practice believing the impossible, and to a certain degree it is, but, as Alice told the Mad Hatter when he asked her if he had gone mad, 

“I’m afraid so, you’re entirely bonkers. 

But, I’ll tell you a secret.

All the best people are!”

What are the Jaberwockeys in your life? 

What six things make up your list?