"A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense"

I realize that I mention George MacDonald in just about every other blog entry, but it cannot be helped! I am currently reading The Back of the North Wind as well as his Unspoken Sermons. One common theme in his writings is that of Love and the different reactions of Love in hearts of different states of being. For instance, to the soul that has willfully invited Love to dwell within him or her, that person will experience joy and blessedness. For the person that is living in sin, Love is a thing of terror, misery and agony.

"The terror of God is but the other side of his love; it is love outside the house, that would be inside." -MacDonald, The Cause of Spiritual Stupidity

In The Back of the North Wind, the little hero Diamond hears his drunken neighbor abusing his wife and making his baby cry. Diamond, who has been to the back of the North Wind (of which the narrator reminds us rather often), wakes up and quietly creeps into his neighbor's house to comfort the baby. When the drunken neighbor eventually sobers up, he is absorbed with misery. MacDonald writes, "this misery was the voice of the great Love that had made him and his wife and the baby and Diamond, speaking in his heart and telling him to be good. For that Great Love speaks in the most wretched and dirty hearts; only the tone of the voice depends on the echoes of the place in which it sounds. On Mount Sinai, it was thunder; in the soul of St. John it was perfect blessedness."

Praise God for the times when Love echoes within our hearts in tones of stabbing agony. When misery encompasses us, let us be driven to invite Love inside our house, so that His voice may echo in blessed tones.

AWAKE, THOU THAT SLEEPEST, AND ARISE FROM THE DEAD!

I love George MacDonald. He is the type of person whom I would love to have as a grandfather or uncle, alongside Lewis and Tolkien. Like Lewis' main character in the Great Divorce, I imagine I will have long and lovely conversations with him in Heaven. I appreciate and deeply relate to his literature due to his romantically poetic language through which he conveys the most profound truths by use of allegorical myth. Much like beautiful music, MacDonald's allegories sing eternal truths to my soul. He is a nice one.

Currently I am reading Lilith, in which a man inherits a house passed down for generations, which has a rather extensive library. This man meets a mysterious sexton, Mr. Raven, who has apparently been the librarian since it has been in existence (at least since the man's great great grandfather possessed the house). The nameless owner of the house follows Mr. Raven through an old mirror in a forgotten chamber into another world, in which the only way out is to go further in. After bringing him to his home, Mr. Raven offers the man a bed to sleep in amongst others who are peacefully sleeping (or dead?), blanketed in the healing rays of the moon. The man reflects to himself, "I thought at first their sleep was death, but I soon saw that it was deeper still--a something I did not know". The sexton also refers to this deathly room as one of the cellars he was placed to watch, adding: "much wine is set here to ripen!--But it is dark for a stranger!"

The man exclaims:

"'But these are all dead, and I am alive!' I objected, shuddering.

'Not much,' rejoined the sexton with a smile, '--not nearly enough! Blessed be the true life that the pauses between its throbs are not death!'"

These people in MacDonald's story are becoming alive by dying. The man in the story seems to be alive, but is more dead than those who seemingly lay in death! He is not really alive--he does not possess the true life, which can only be possesed through the complete giving up and dying to oneself.

"Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it" ~Matt 10:39

"We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life" ~Rom 6:4

"AWAKE SLEEPER, AND ARISE FROM THE DEAD, AND CHRIST WILL SHINE ON YOU" ~Eph 5:14

Sometimes I wish that I could enter one of MacDonald's mythical worlds. If only I could stumble my way into the Raven's world to find a bed amongst those who are dying and simultaneously becoming more and more alive until they are wakened to newness of life. However, I can hear what MacDonald would say to me..."Laura, you are in Mr. Raven's world."