From That Hideous Strength:
At the very moment when her mind was most filled with another man there arose, clouded with some undefined emotion, a resolution to give Mark much more than she had ever given him before, and a feeling that in doing so she would be really giving it to the Director. And this produced in her such a confusion of sensations that the whole inner debate became indistinct and flowed over into the larger experience... she was in the sphere of Jove, amid light and music and festal pomp, brimmed with life and radiant in health, jocund and clothed in shining garments. ... And she rejoiced also in the consciousness of her own beauty; for she had the sensation--it may have been false in fact, but it had nothing to do with vanity--that it was growing and expanding like a magic flower with every minute that passed. In such a mood it was only natural, after the old countryman had got out at Cure Hardy, to stand up and look at herself in the mirror which confronted her on the wall of the compartment. Certainly she was looking well: she was looking unusually well. And once more, there was little vanity in this. For beauty was made for others. Her beauty belonged to the Director. It belonged to him so completely that he could even decide not to keep it for himself but to order that it be given to another, by an act of obedience lower, and therefore higher, more unconditional and therefore more delighting, than if he had demanded it for himself."
Showing posts with label Mirrors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mirrors. Show all posts
Monday, March 7, 2011
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
A mirror within a mirror...
My friend Laura recently blogged about homosexuality. Between the lines of what she wrote, I sense that she wants to trust in God's Biblically revealed truth about homosexual acts, but has trouble reconciling it with His love.
In thinking about this, it struck me that the pain that two people of the same sex who have fallen in love experience when committed to obeying God's word is the same as our Lord's pain for us.
It is the pain of self denial. The pain of restrained love. The pain of wanting to unleash love and comfort and giving and sharing but having to stop. Having to hold back out of a greater love, out of a greater desire for the best of the beloved. He could simply do it, simply unleash His love on all of us, and in doing so, remove our ability to chose to love Him in return. Instead, he gives us the opportunity to chose love ourselves, mimicking Him by also having to deny ourselves in order to fully accomplish that love.
And so our Lord aches to consummate, throughout the eons.
He must have a very special place set aside for those committed Christians who also ache to consummate with their mirror images, but do not.
In thinking about this, it struck me that the pain that two people of the same sex who have fallen in love experience when committed to obeying God's word is the same as our Lord's pain for us.
It is the pain of self denial. The pain of restrained love. The pain of wanting to unleash love and comfort and giving and sharing but having to stop. Having to hold back out of a greater love, out of a greater desire for the best of the beloved. He could simply do it, simply unleash His love on all of us, and in doing so, remove our ability to chose to love Him in return. Instead, he gives us the opportunity to chose love ourselves, mimicking Him by also having to deny ourselves in order to fully accomplish that love.
And so our Lord aches to consummate, throughout the eons.
He must have a very special place set aside for those committed Christians who also ache to consummate with their mirror images, but do not.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
George MacDonald on Dying of Desire (II)
From Phantastes:
"He could not come near her, could not speak to her, could not hear a sound from those sweet lips, to which his longing eyes would cling like bees to their honey-founts. Ever and anon he sang to himself: "I shall die for love of the maiden;" and ever he looked again, and died not, though his heart seemed ready to break with intensity of life and longing. And the more he did for her, the more he loved her; and he hoped that, although she never appeared to see him, yet she was pleased to think that one unknown would give his life to her. He tried to comfort himself over his separation from her, by thinking that perhaps some day she would see him and make signs to him, and that would satisfy him; "for," thought he, "is not this all that a loving soul can do to enter into communion with another? Nay, how many who love never come nearer than to behold each other as in a mirror; seem to know and yet never know the inward life; never enter the other soul; and part at last, with but the vaguest notion of the universe on the borders of which they have been hovering for years?"
"He could not come near her, could not speak to her, could not hear a sound from those sweet lips, to which his longing eyes would cling like bees to their honey-founts. Ever and anon he sang to himself: "I shall die for love of the maiden;" and ever he looked again, and died not, though his heart seemed ready to break with intensity of life and longing. And the more he did for her, the more he loved her; and he hoped that, although she never appeared to see him, yet she was pleased to think that one unknown would give his life to her. He tried to comfort himself over his separation from her, by thinking that perhaps some day she would see him and make signs to him, and that would satisfy him; "for," thought he, "is not this all that a loving soul can do to enter into communion with another? Nay, how many who love never come nearer than to behold each other as in a mirror; seem to know and yet never know the inward life; never enter the other soul; and part at last, with but the vaguest notion of the universe on the borders of which they have been hovering for years?"
Monday, April 6, 2009
George MacDonald on Reflections
From Phantastes:
"Why are all reflections lovelier than what we call the reality? — not so grand or so strong, it may be, but always lovelier? ... All mirrors are magic mirrors. The commonest room is a room in a poem when I turn to the glass. ... In whatever way it may be accounted for, of one thing we may be sure, that this feeling is no cheat; for there is no cheating in nature and the simple unsought feelings of the soul. There must be a truth involved in it, though we may but in part lay hold of the meaning. Even the memories of past pain are beautiful; and past delights, though beheld only through clefts in the grey clouds of sorrow, are lovely as Fairy Land. But how have I wandered into the deeper fairyland of the soul, while as yet I only float towards the fairy palace of Fairy Land! The moon, which is the lovelier memory or reflex of the down-gone sun, the joyous day seen in the faint mirror of the brooding night, had rapt me away."
"Why are all reflections lovelier than what we call the reality? — not so grand or so strong, it may be, but always lovelier? ... All mirrors are magic mirrors. The commonest room is a room in a poem when I turn to the glass. ... In whatever way it may be accounted for, of one thing we may be sure, that this feeling is no cheat; for there is no cheating in nature and the simple unsought feelings of the soul. There must be a truth involved in it, though we may but in part lay hold of the meaning. Even the memories of past pain are beautiful; and past delights, though beheld only through clefts in the grey clouds of sorrow, are lovely as Fairy Land. But how have I wandered into the deeper fairyland of the soul, while as yet I only float towards the fairy palace of Fairy Land! The moon, which is the lovelier memory or reflex of the down-gone sun, the joyous day seen in the faint mirror of the brooding night, had rapt me away."
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