Obedience

George MacDonald, fantasy writer par excellence

I said: “Let me walk in the fields.”

He said: “No, walk in the town.”

I said: “There are no flowers there.”

He said: “No flowers, but a crown.”

I said: “But the skies are black;

There is nothing but noise and din.”

And He wept as He sent me back –

“There is more,” He said; “there is sin.”

I said: “But the air is thick,

And fogs are veiling the sun.”

He answered: “Yet souls are sick,

And souls in the dark undone!”

I said: “I shall miss the light,

And friends will miss me, they say.”

He answered: “Choose tonight

If I am to miss you or they.”

I pleaded for time to be given.

He said: “Is it hard to decide?

It will not seem so hard in heaven

To have followed the steps of your Guide.”

I cast one look at the fields,

Then set my face to the town;

He said, “My child, do you yield?

Will you leave the flowers for the crown?”

Then into His hand went mine;

And into my heart came He;

And I walk in a light divine,

The path I had feared to see.

Obedience - George MacDonald

Such gut-wrenching poignant truth in economy of words! How I wish I could encapsulate what I want to convey in a similar manner rather than blather on and on...  (I come from a church background where multiplicity of words is almost a dogma.)

I suppose I was led to MacDonald by Lewis, possibly in his reference:

“Turning to the bookstall, I picked out an Everyman in a dirty jacket, Phantastes, a Faerie Romance, George MacDonald. Then the train came in. I can still remember the voice of the porter calling out the village names Saxon and sweet as a nut—‘Bookham, Effingham, Horsley train.’ That evening I began to read my new book.

“The woodland journeyings in that story, the ghostly enemies, the ladies both good and evil, were close enough to my habitual imagery to lure me on without the perception of a change. It is as if I were carried sleeping across the frontier, or as if I had died in the old country and could never remember how I came alive in the new” (Lewis, Surprised by Joy).

Finding a paper copy of Phantastes took many years - now it is available for free download on the internet. Of his other fantasy stories I suppose I love At the back of the North Wind the best as discussed elsewhere.

Macdonald was not accepted by the Christian status-quo in his time - this alone has tended to attract him to me. Some paint him with the heresy of universalism but this in-depth treatment seems to say otherwise. MacDonald is said to have burst into tears when the concept of predestination was first explained to him. Interestingly I, too, recoiled from the idea as explained to me by someone at college who took a hard, Calvinistic line.

Lewis regarded MacDonald as his mentor as is evident in his The great divorce.  In his preface to "George MacDonald. An Anthology" he says "I have never concealed the fact that I regarded him as my master; indeed I fancy I have never written a book in which I did not quote from him."  And of Phantastes he writes “After this I read Macdonald’s Phantastes over my tea, which I have read many times and which I really believe fills for me the place of a devotional book. It tuned me up to a higher pitch and delighted me.”

I could go on and bore you with my favourite passages from MacDonald's writings. Maybe another time...