City Of God 3

First, a word from that Scottish theologian and novelist of the nineteenth century, George Macdonald, in his famous work of fantasy, Lilith: "Was I making game of you when you discovered me looking out of your star-sapphire yesterday?" "That was this morning--not an hour ago! "I have been widening your horizon longer than that, Mr. Vane; but never mind!" You mean you have been making a fool of me!" I said, turning from him. "Excuse me; no one can do that but yourself!" "And I decline to do it." "You mistake." "How?" "In declining to acknowledge yourself one already. You make yourself such by refusing what is true, and for that you will sorely punish yourself." "How, again?" "By believing what is not true." "Then, if I walk to the other side of that tree, I shall walk through the kitchen fire" "Certainly. You would first, however, walk through the lady at the piano in the breakfast-room. That rosebush is close by her. You would give her a terrible start!" There is no lady in the house!" "Indeed! Is not your housekeeper a lady? She is counted such in a certain country where all are servants, and the liveries one and multitudinous!" "She cannot use the piano, anyhow!" "Her niece can: she is there--a well-educated girl and a capital musician." Excuse me; I cannot help it; you seem to be talking sheer nonsense!" "If you could but hear the music! Those great long heads of wild hyacinth are inside the piano, among the strings of it, and give that peculiar sweetness to her playing!--Pardon me: I forgot your deafness!" "Two objects", I said, "cannot exist in the same place at the same time!" 'Can they not? I did not know!--I remember now they do teach that with you. It is a great mistake--one of the greatest ever wiseacre made! N o man of the universe, only a man of the world could have said so!" "You a librarian, and talk such rubbish!" I cried. "Plainly, you did not read many of the books in your charge!" "Oh, yes! I went through all in your library--at the time, and came out at the other side not much the wiser. I was a bookworm then, but when I came to know it, I awoke among the butterflies. To be sure I have given up reading for a good many years--ever since I was made sexton.--There! I smell Grieg's Wedding March in the quiver of those rose-petals!" I went to the rose-bush and listened hard, but could not hear the thinnest ghost of a sound; I only smelt something I had never before smelt in any rose. It was still rose-odour, but with a difference, caused, I suppose, by the Wedding March. When I looked up, there was the bird by my side. 'Mr. Raven", I said, "forgive me for being so rude: I was irritated. Will you kindly show me my way home? I must go, for I have an appointment with my bailiff. One must not break faith with his servants!" "You cannot break what was broken days ago!" he answered. "Do show me the way", I pleaded. "I cannot|, he returned. "To go back, you must go through yourself, and that way no man can show another."...………………………………………….Once again, let me apologize for the lack of formatting. Microsoft did something nasty to my laptop and now this is the only way I can right on these pages. thank you for understanding. Reading this passage from Lilith reminds me again of how trapped we usually are in appearances,. There is often something lacking in the human imagination that prevents us from seeing behind the veil that we take for reality. I am thinking particularly here of many of the clients I have worked with in mental health services. I have often encountered, a purity, and beauty, something you could call holy and sacred, in many of the people I am privileged to work with. I think it's chicken and egg. I mean, as to whether it is that these people are already something of a holy and royal priesthood of beings that has marginalized and made them ill; or if it is the whole humiliation and abasement and stigma they are burdened with which brings out this beauty. All I know is that some of the most wonderful and gifted people I have ever known have also been diagnosed as mentally ill. I am thinking of one particularly poignant example. In a small psychiatric hospital where I used to work there was a patient, an older woman, a person whom I could only describe as a phenomenally beautiful person. She had a lovely soul, a sharp intelligence and a deep compassion for others. I was also so saddened to here that soon after she attempted suicide, just thinking of the loss to the rest of us of such beauty, and because she could no longer go on carrying these burdens. We live, alraady, in the City of God. Almost never do we seem to know this. Maybe that's a mercy, Gentle Reader.