Silver Tales

When I was nine years old I was loaned reading material by the dreaded, taciturn old maid who represented the gauntlet of Second Grade. I had somehow missed being placed in her class, and in successive years usually stayed below the radar of her stern gaze.  Even now I cannot conjecture a scenario in which the exchange occurred, but I know it happened because I had the proof stacked under my bed for years.  The very first I delved into was “The Princess and the Goblin” and I was captivated.  George MacDonald wrapped morals in a robe of fantasy – and the true things were made more so by the fairy tale that delivered them.

At that time of my life I already knew of ugly things and terrifying things and the weight of living.  And then I was introduced to a beautiful princess with a magic silver thread that would lead her back to safety – even through winding goblin caverns.  One dreadful day she forgot to use it and became vulnerable in her blind panic, despite the deliverance coiled in her pocket.

“It was foolish indeed - thus to run farther and farther from all who could help her, as if she had been seeking a fit spot for the goblin creature to eat her in at his leisure; but that is the way fear serves us: it always sides with the thing we are afraid of.”

If I learned of dark caverns, I also learned to trust a God who always hears my cries and who "...gives light to those who sit in darkness...to guide our feet into the way of peace."  I suspect all grownups need to find ways to remember that frequently, particularly as fairy tales are not on the daily board of intellectual fare.  Too many times my heart becomes entrapped by the terrible thing that might or will happen, instead of reaching for the strand that leads me back to security and safety despite the circumstances.

I never returned the books.  As I entered ninth grade, Miss Ruth Williams died of cancer at the age of thirty-two.  It hurts to think how young she was when I thought her old.  Still, I'm thankful for the kindred impulse that prompted her to share those dear stories with me.  And I am comforted by the foundation of her hope as she faced things that surely must have frightened her.  

“The world...is full of resurrections... Every night that folds us up in darkness is a death; and those of you that have been out early, and have seen the first of the dawn, will know it - the day rises out of the night like a being that has burst its tomb and escaped into life.”   George MacDonald

Middle of the Story

“Sing in me, Muse,
and through me tell the story
of that man skilled in all ways of contending,
the wanderer, harried for years on end.”

So says Homer, the blind poet attributed with transcribing the 8th century B.C. journey of Odysseus. Much of the original work survives and has been translated and debated by scholars of Western Literature. However, the authorship and historical legitimacy of the geography and events encountered by the hero in the years following the Trojan War are not so very important to me.
I appreciate best the following pared-down summary of all twenty-four books (or chapters): “It’s a story about a guy who is trying to get home.”

Odysseus confronts storms at sea, cannibals, monsters, typhoons, enchantments and interfering deities in his attempt to return to his wife and son. He is a flawed hero, often momentarily distracted by beguiling options. But fundamentally, he is steadfast in his determination.

He is admirable, and I like to imagine what his story inspired in the listeners from the days when news was conveyed by barefoot runners and history was recounted by nomadic bards. Did his strength or persistence or favor from the gods cause their hearts to be stirred by the telling and re-telling? Were they captivated by his daring? Odysseus’ return to Ithaca is accomplished just past the halfway point, but it takes the remaining eleven books to deal with one hundred suitors that had encamped on his grounds and the final battle he was compelled to wage to win hearth and home.
Is that where the appeal was for Homer's contemporaries?

That is where it is for me. This world has many distractions, dangers, delights and deities. Some years are filled with battle, while others contain months on an enchanted island.

Like Odysseus, I aspire to be "skilled in all ways of contending" -- for righteousness, truthfulness, mercy and love. Despite my flawed and sin-marred self, I want to be an excellent wife, a wise mother, a fair employer, a faithful friend. Hopefully my epic will be filled with redemption, bravery, beauty and forgiveness.

But above all else I want the summary of my life to be, “It’s a story about a girl who is trying to get home.”

“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”          C.S. Lewis

Deeper Still

My husband is an artist by personality, education and vocation. Our early years of dating coincided with his time in art school learning from NYC graphic designers the prevailing philosophy that he has referenced as “the grid beneath.” It is a way of looking at things that gives form and balance to all his designs. 
I like that idea of a defining pattern existing as the foundation –whether or not it is overtly expressed. Therein lies a world of order, clear definition, predictability, and safety.
 
But what do you do when predictable and safe fall apart? 
Speaking metaphorically, I have flailed my arms while the grid beneath shattered.  Despite my dogged rejection of heights and my lifelong clinging to solid ground, I have been in frantic free fall. 
Blessedly, the plummeting eventually ended.  I landed on the grid under the one beneath.

It reminds me of C.S. Lewis’ explanation through Aslan of how the worst was not as devastating as it had at first seemed. In fact, the terrible breaking of everything that had been depended on for strength and victory, was actually a freeing from reliance on the wrong things – to a knowledge of the true source of strength. The Narnia heroes were fighting to avoid death, but the ultimate victory was in the undoing of Death.  

“It means that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards.”

Of course, the story of Aslan’s willing sacrifice is primarily an allegory of the great atonement accomplished to reconcile sinners to God. But the background story of broken dreams speaks loudly as well. Many of my false foundations have been good things – a Christian marriage, a safe family, a supportive community, a strong church body, an excellent reputation. I have used them as the pattern by which I have form and balance.
But in my satisfaction with any of those, I am ignoring the foundation for my life set in “…the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned.”

He is the beginning, and the end, and the grid beneath. 
 
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,
though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble at its swelling.

The Right Place

My sister remembers the trauma doctor explaining to her and my husband that there were fourteen successive obstacles I had to overcome in order to survive. Each time a treatment or surgery was completed my stats would have to return to forty percent before the next could be attempted. The surgeons would do what they could, but the stabilizing in-between was outside their control or skill. Fourteen times my body met or exceeded the target, and with each my survival was one step closer to being a possibility. 
Perhaps it was the same doctor that communicated to them on the eighth day, 
“She has an amazing will to live.”

I wasn’t really there for most of the drama. My heretofore lazy body was doing the work of fighting, fighting, fighting while my mind was following rabbit trails and gathering wool. And I wonder now, what made the difference?
I live in a community peppered with folks on the verge of Adulthood. They are so very torn -- because they want to do something great. They want to be someone spectacular. And they don’t know how to get there.

I’m thinking that was me in the hospital bed. Without the aid of my conscious mind, I was striving toward survival. Because the great thing, the spectacular thing, is to be alive. 
In all its facets of work and wonder, the created world is just right for the created me. The beautiful anticipation in the pre-dawn sky, the certain splendor of a mountainside blanketed with autumn trees, the electric wildness of an evening storm -- all are beyond comprehension. Sleep is a delight. It is a wonder to fill my lungs with air. 
It is exhilarating to push my legs until the muscles burn.

We wonder, question, debate, study...in everything we do. It is a vast world and there is more to know than we have the days for learning. And along the way there is friendship, with hands to hold through the dark places, and the comfort of the nearness of another human being for joys and trials.

When my second lung collapsed my mind joined my body as I became aware of the intense pain, and the medical crisis. I looked death in the face, certain it was upon me, and consciously thought, “Now I get to see what it is really all about.” 
Instead, I live in this present world, for as many more days as God gives me.

It is the right place to be.

Father, I know that all my life is portioned out for me,
The changes that are sure to come, I do not fear to see;
I ask Thee for a present mind  intent on pleasing Thee.

I would not have the restless will that hurries to and fro,
Seeking for some great thing to do or secret thing to know;
I would be treated as a child, and guided where I go.  
(Anna Waring)