Something that would quite satisfy

I have referred a little lately to believing the good in God’s providence, and Nicole has blogged of this recently also. I have recently been re-reading through Phantastes by George MacDonald, just here and there and on the bus, and I was reminded of this point yet again. This book is in some sense allegorical, though that is not always quite so parallel or explicit as say the work of C.S. Lewis (and I am well aware of some of the major points of divergence with MacDonald’s theology). In Chapter XIX, the hero of the story, Anodos, has been wandering for some time through fairy land, coming to both good and ill, when he arrives at the cottage of the ancient wise woman, whose eyes were yet young. She comforts and restores him for a good while after his recent misadventures. There are four doors leading out of her cottage and once Anodos is back to health he feels compelled to venture out of each one in turn. The first door isn’t named but is clearly the door of tears or of grief. That is the door through which Anodos came and that is what he finds out there again before he returns to the cottage. The second door is the door of Sighs, the third the door of Dismay. Anodos ventures through each door and finds the thing indicated. He ignores the woman’s pleas and disappears lastly out the fourth door, the door of the Timeless, and through this door the old woman must venture after him to bring him back. This brings certain calamity on the old woman and she sends Anodos away before it comes. However, this is what she says on his departure:

“But I beg of you, for my sake, my dear child, to do one thing. In whatever sorrow you may be, however inconsolable and irremediable it may appear, believe me that the old woman in the cottage, with the young eyes” (and she smiled), “knows something, though she must not always tell it, that would quite satisfy you about it, even in the worst moments of your distress.”

The book later concludes with these two sentences:

“Yet I know that good is coming to me – that good is always coming; though few have at all times the simplicity and the courage to believe it. What we call evil, is the only and best shape, which, for the person and his condition at the time, could be assumed by the best good.”

I loved it. And yet I have often not be quite satisfied with sentences like the last one, because it gives a small nagging voice in me somewhere cause to wonder about the “condition” of a person that necessitates the circumstances. I actually started writing this post last night, and was going to elaborate on that idea, and then just before I left work today I was blog flicking and read this post by Jean, in which she actually does so very nicely, and then I read this post by Simone. The SolaPanel has also been posting a series that relates by Peter Bolt. So, I might leave you to all those wise words, conserve cyber space and take the advice of Nicole over here and go and read a book!