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    365 Meditations from George MacDonald's Fiction
    365 Meditations from George MacDonald's Fiction
    365 Meditations from George MacDonald's Fiction
    Ebook377 pages1 hour

    365 Meditations from George MacDonald's Fiction

    By David Scott Wilson-Okamura

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    About this ebook

    George MacDonald (1804-1925) was the Victorian author whose fantasy writings and children's stories inspired C. S. Lewis. In addition to his better-known writings, MacDonald also wrote more than two dozen novels. The value of these novels is not literary but spiritual. They are populated with good people who are also good characters. They do not shy away from hard times or hard questions. Some are old, many are young, but they are all versions of the same idea: God is our father and can be trusted.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDavid Scott Wilson-Okamura
    Release dateAug 11, 2014
    ISBN9781310207181
    365 Meditations from George MacDonald's Fiction

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      Book preview

      365 Meditations from George MacDonald's Fiction - David Scott Wilson-Okamura

      This book was inspired by George MacDonald, An Anthology: 365 Readings, edited by C. S. Lewis (1946). Readers who seek an account of MacDonald’s life will find one there, or in Roland Hein’s George MacDonald: Victorian Mythmaker (1993). A selection of MacDonald’s letters, An Expression of Character: The Letters of George MacDonald (1994), has been edited by Glenn Edward Sadler. Most, perhaps all, of MacDonald’s own writings are available free on the internet, many in Kindle format; the bibliography from Wikipedia’s George MacDonald page can be found at the end of this little book.

      Lewis’s anthology is still the best introduction to MacDonald’s ideas. The bulk of it comes from one book: the Unspoken Sermons (1st series 1867, 2nd series 1885, 3rd series 1889). This is entirely meet and proper, and anyone who reads this collection and wants to learn more should read the Sermons next. But MacDonald also wrote a bushelful of novels, in addition to the fantasy books, Phantastes and Lilith, that he is still known for. All of MacDonald’s work was written under financial pressure – he was struggling to support a large family – but the novels show the strain more quickly. Lewis’s judgement of them was severe but correct: few of his novels are good and none is very good (xxxiii). Having read them all, over a period of two years, I cannot disagree; nor can I recommend them to my own students as novels. To date, I have never taught them in a class.

      What is their value then, if not literary? In one sentence: I believe they can help people to find, know, and trust God. They are populated with something rare in fiction: good people who are also good characters. They do not shy away from hard times or hard questions. Some are old, many are young, but they are all versions of the same idea: God is our father and can be trusted.

      New Year

      The winter is the childhood of the year….It is as if God spoke to each of us according to our need: My son, my daughter, you are growing old and cunning; you must grow a child again, with my son, this blessed birth-time. You are growing old and selfish; you must become a child. You are growing old and careful; you must become a child. You are growing old and distrustful; you must become a child. You are growing old and petty, and weak, and foolish; you must become a child – my child…

      Adela Cathcart, vol. 1, ch. 2

      Winter

      It is not the high summer alone that is God’s. The winter also is His. And into His winter He came to visit us. And all man’s winters are His – the winter of our poverty, the winter of our sorrow, the winter of our unhappiness – even the winter of our discontent.

      Adela Cathcart, vol. 1, ch. 2

      Human necessities

      It should not be required of a curate to give money, said Adela. Do you grudge him the blessedness of giving, Adela? Oh, no. I only think it is too hard on him. It is as necessary for a poor man to give away, as for a rich man.

      Adela Cathcart, vol. 2, ch. 3

      Perseverance

      In some measure to endure is to conquer and destroy.

      Adela Cathcart, vol. 2, ch. 6

      Bedside manner

      Patients are more like musical instruments than machines.

      Adela Cathcart, vol. 3, ch. 4

      Second childhood (I)

      Who has not seen, as the infirmities of age grow upon old men, the haughty, self-reliant spirit that had neglected, if not despised the gentle ministrations of love, grow as it were a little scared, and begin to look about for some kindness; begin to return the warm pressure of the hand, and to submit to be waited upon by the anxiety of love? Not in weakness alone comes the second childhood upon men, but often in childlikeness…

      Adela Cathcart, vol. 3, ch. 7

      Arguing (I)

      It is a principle of mine never to push anything over the edge. When I am successful, in any argument, my one dread is of humiliating my opponent. Indeed I cannot bear it. It humiliates me. And if you want him to think about anything, you must leave him room…Let him have a hand in the convincing of himself. I have been surprised sometimes to see my own arguments come up fresh and green, when I thought the fowls of the air had devoured them up.

      Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood, ch. 4

      Arguing (II)

      The defeat of the intellect is not the object in fighting with the sword of the Spirit, but the acceptance of the heart. In this case, therefore, I drew back.

      Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood, ch. 4

      Doubt (I)

      A man may be on the way to the truth, just in virtue of his doubting.

      Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood, ch. 4

      Misreading (I)

      As you will hear some people read poetry so that no mortal could tell it was poetry, so do some people read their own lives and those of others.

      Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood, ch. 7

      Not waiting (I)

      When I thought of a thing and had concluded it might do, I very seldom put off the consequent action. I found I was wrong sometimes, and that the particular action did no good; but thus movement was kept up in my operative nature, preventing it from sinking towards the inactivity to which I was but too much inclined. Besides, to find out what will not do, is a step towards finding out what will do. Moreover, an attempt in itself unsuccessful may set something or other in motion that will help.

      Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood, ch. 21

      Amo ut intelligam (I)

      Intelligence is a consequence of love; nor is there any true intelligence without it.

      Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood, ch. 28

      Repose

      So I turned and lingered by the old mill, and fell a pondering on the profusion of strength that rushed past the wheel away to the great sea, doing nothing. Nature, I thought, does not demand that power should always be force. Power itself must repose. He that believeth shall not make haste, says the Bible. But it needs strength to be still. Is my faith not strong enough to be still? I looked up to the heavens once more, and the quietness of the stars seemed to reproach me. We are safe up here, they seemed to say: we shine, fearless and confident, for the God who gave the primrose its rough leaves to hide it from the blast of uneven spring, hangs us in the awful hollows of space. We cannot fall out of His safety.

      Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood, ch. 29

      Outside things

      When outside things, such as pain or loss of work, or difficulty in getting money, were referred to God and His will, they too straightway became spiritual affairs, for nothing in the world could any longer appear common or unclean to the man who saw God in everything.

      Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood, ch. 30

      Good luck

      "You will be the better for it, he returned. I believe I’ve allus been the better for any trouble as ever I had to go through with. I couldn’t quite say the same for every bit of good luck I had; leastways, I consider trouble the best luck a man can have."

      Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood, ch. 33

      Preparing for darkness

      I know that my mental faculty is growing weaker, but some power yet remains; and I say to myself, Perhaps this is the final trial of your faith – to trust in God to take care of your intellect for you, and to believe, in weakness, the truths He revealed to you in strength. Remember that Truth depends not upon your seeing it, and believe as you saw when your sight was at its best. For then you saw that the Truth was beyond all you could see.

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