My Lord, I have no clothes to come to Thee;
My shoes are pierced and broken with the road;
I am torn and weathered, wounded with the goad,
and soiled with tugging at my weary load:
The more I need Thee. A very prodigal
I stagger into Thy presence, Lord of me:
One look, my Christ, and at Thy feet I fall!

-George MacDonald (Diary of an Old Soul) (1880)

Oh for a greater realization that we come with nothing more than filthy rags, yet we are adopted into the family and given the riches of salvation and justification, sanctification, and glorification.  We, who once were enemies, now made children!  Praise God for this awesome mystery!!!

“I woke up and wished that I was dead.”

“I want to kill myself, I am just saying …”

“… [S]omeday you will die, and I’ll be close behind.”

Why are all my favorite saddest songs about death?

I miss George MacDonald.  He wrote about how we say we wish we were dead and that isn’t what we really mean.  What we mean is that we are fed up with the pale, pasty imitation of life we have.  We want more.  We want rich, vibrant, loud, joyous life.  Not the dull, horrible, and soul-numbing thing we are experiencing.

So, we want more.  We want the sham of a life to end and real, wonderful life to begin.  But sometimes we forget it is possible.

I have been struggling with that this week.  Really violent urges to rip the death in my life out, but through the really misguided attempt of ending my life.  Sometimes it’s a dull, dark black cloud of hopelessness and hate and sometimes it’s restless, frantic, mindless urge to plunge sharp finalitude to quiet the mania.

But I can’t forget that real life is possible.  I miss real life.  Life with laughter, hope, and love.

… that the happiest people are not ones who all their relationships (family, friends, significant other, etc.) are good. (This was a real study to…)  The happiest people are the ones who have an satisfying understanding of why the less good/bad relationships (and the good ones too) are the way they are.

I thought that was so interesting.  And of course, I want to apply it in my life.  Right now with China Man.  I think I’m doing a good job too.  It really helps me a lot to understand why it hurts so bad sometimes, like I tried to do in my last post (“Alone in My Fight”).

You  know, sometimes I feel like I’ll never figure this out.  I feel like I’ll love him forever and will always be trying to soothe myself, tell myself it’ll be okay, but then it’ll never be okay.

I can suck it up if I see him dating other people.  I feel well acquainted with loneliness and grief.  If I knew that was what I was up against, then I could set everything hope and thought in me toward recovery.  Toward making peace.

But it feels so much harder when I’m just not sure how things will turn out.

I was in Barnes & Noble the other day and I was, as usual, in the “Psychology” section.  As I perused the titles there, I picked up the Cognitive-Behavioral Workbook for Depression.  One of the things I remember reading was an instruction to let there be room in your mind for unknown.

That really helps me in this circumstance.  I just accept that at this point, I don’t understand nor do I know how things will turn out.  Right now, I just don’t know.  It doesn’t feel okay, but it IS okay.

Hope complicates things enormously.  If I didn’t wish for him to desire me, then I’d be set, like if I was okay with not knowing AND didn’t care what happened.

As it is though, I take two steps forward when I make peace with not knowing, then one step back when I hope for a certain outcome.

I wish for the security of being loved.

I’m not.

And that’s okay.  I don’t know what will happen with China Man, but I know somehow, some way, some day… I’ll survive.  It may not be pretty.  I may not do it all right between now and then.  I may never be loved how I want.  But I’ll make it through.

I’m not the perfect girl, but I do the best I can.  And that’s good enough for me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I knew now, that it is by loving, and not by being loved, that one can come nearest the soul of another.  ~George MacDonald, Phantases

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

But what is left for the cold gray soul,

That moans like a wounded dove?

One wine is left in the broken bowl –

‘Tis to love, and love, and love.

Better to sit at the water’s birth,

Than a sea of waves to win;

To live in love that floweth forth,

Than love that cometh in.

Be thy heart a well of love, my child,

Flowing, and free, and sure.

For a cistern of love, though undefiled,

Keeps not the spirit pure.

~George MacDonald, Phantases

If we might sit until the darkness go,
Possess our souls in patience perhaps we might;
But there is always something to be done,
And no heart left to do it…
O victorious one,
Give strength to rise, go out, and meet thee in the night.

George MacDonald, Diary of an Old Soul November 4

The chorus of this song is based on a poem by George MacDonald, 19th Century author best known as a major influence on Tolkien, Chesterton, and C. S. Lewis (he’s sort of the Townes Van Zandt of early 20th Century British authors). I began humming a tune to the words, and, 5 months later, the poem and melody where still lodged in my brain. While home for Christmas I added two verses at my parent’s kitchen table.

The song, like the poem, is about rejecting the desire to flee our present circumstances because of hardship. “Escape from this life isn’t found in the fleeting but a turning of a heart to Thee.”

The chorus features the best harmonies on our album. Amy Leach exchanges her violin for a fiddle on the solo. Recorded at RaxTrax Studios in Chicago on December 21st, 2008.

Download “Into My Heart Went He” here.

Ernest Rhys & M. Larigot (ed.) – The Haunted And The Haunters (Donald O’Connor, 1921;  Aegypan, 2007)

Reissued by Aegypan Press of North Hollywood, 2007. Prefer to read it all online? Short, Scary Ghost Stories

Cover of 2007 reissue

Ernest Rhys – Introduction

I. GHOST STORIES FROM LITERARY SOURCES

Edgar Allan Poe – The Fall Of The House Of Usher
George MacDonald – The Old Nurses Story
Thomas Hardy – The Superstitious Man’s Story
Boccaccioa – A Story Of Ravenna
Douglass Hyde [Trans] – Teig O’Kane And The Corpse
E. Bulwer Lytton – The Haunted And The Haunters
R. S. Hawker – The Bothanan Ghost
Arnold Bennett – The Ghost Of Lord Clarenceux
Arthur Machen – Dr Duthoit’s Vision
John Wilson – The Seven Lights
Anonymous – The Spectral Coach Of Blackadon
William Hunt – Drake’s Drum
William Hunt – The Spectre Bridegroom
Greville MacDonald – The Pool In The Graveyard
William Carleton – The Liahan Shee
Sir George Douglas – The Haunted Cove
Sir Walter Scott – Wandering Willie’s Tale

II. GHOST STORIES FROM LOCAL RECORDS, FOLK LORE, AND LEGEND

Anonymous – Glamis Castle
Anonymous – Powys Castle
Augustus Hare – Croglin Grange
Joseph Glanvil – The Ghost of Major Sydenham
Anonymous – Miraculous Case of Jesch Claes
Anonymous – The Radiant Boy of Corby Castle
Anonymous – Clerk Saunders
Mrs Catherine Crowe – Dorothy Durant
C. K. Sharpe – Pearlin Jean
Anonymous – The Denton Hall Ghost
Anonymous – The Goodwood Ghost Story
Dale Owen – Captain Wheatcroft
Mrs Catherine Crowe – The Iron Cage
William Hunt – The Ghost of Rosewarne
Joseph Glanvil – The Iron Chest of Durley
Anonymous – The Strange Case of M. Bezeul
Anonymous – The Marquis de Rambouillet
Anonymous – The Altheim Revenant
Anonymous – Sertorius and His Hind
E. W. Godwin – Erichto

III. OMENS AND PHANTASMS

E.H. Blakeney [Trans] – Patroklos [from The Iliad]
“Arise Evans” – Vision of Cromwell
Rev. John Mastin – Lord Stafford’s Warning
Ferrier – Kotter’s Red Circle
Anonymous – The Vision of Charles XI of Sweden
Drummond – Ben Jonson’s Prevision
Anonymous – Queen Ulrica and the Countess Steenbock
Anonymous – Denis Misanger
Anonymous – The Pied Piper
Ferrier – Jeanne D’Arc
Anonymous – Anne Walker
Henderson – The Hand of Glory
Anonymous – The Bloody Footstep
Anonymous – The Ghostly Warriors of Worms
Anonymous – The Wandering Jew in England
Edmund Jones – Bendith Eu Mammau
John F. Campbell – The Red Book of Appin
Anonymous – The Good O’Donoghue
William Hunt – Sarah Polgrain
William Godwin – Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester

The Aegypan edition drops the co-credit although it’s clear from Rhys’ introduction that this compilation of folklore, fact, ‘fact’, legend and fiction is all the mysterious M. Larigot’s work!

In this Ghost Book, M. Larigot, himself a writer of supernatural tales, has collected a remarkable batch of documents, fictive or real, describing the one human experience that is hardest to make good. Perhaps the very difficulty of it has rendered it more tempting to the writers who have dealt with the subject. His collection, notably varied and artfully chosen as it is, yet by no means exhausts the literature, which fills a place apart with its own recognised classics, magic masters, and dealers in the occult. Their testimony serves to show that the forms by which men and women are haunted are far more diverse and subtle than we knew. So much so, that one begins to wonder at last if every person is not liable to be “possessed.”

Vere H. Collins – More Ghosts and Marvels: A Selection Of Uncanny Tales from Sir Walter Scott to Michael Arlen (H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1927)

Help! Cover Wanted!

Sir Walter Scott – The Tapestried Chamber
Edgar Allan Poe – The Facts In The Case Of M. Valdemar
Elizabeth Gaskell – The Old Nurses Story
Charles Dickens – No. 1 Branch Line: The Signalman
J. Sheridan Le Fanu – Squire Toby’s Will
George MacDonald – The Lady In The Mirror
Walter Besant & James Rice – The Case Of Mr. Lucraft
Henry James – The Great Good Place
F. Marion Crawford – The Upper Berth
Arthur Machen – The Novel Of The White Powder
H. G. Wells – The Door In The Wall
E. F. Benson – Negotium Perambulans
Algernon Blackwood – Running Wolf
Lord Dunsany – The Bureau D’Exchange De Main
Katherine Fullerton Gerould – Loquier’s Third Act
Michael Arlen – The Ancient Sin
Maurice Baring – Venus
R. S. Hawker – The Bothanon Ghost
John Metcalfe – Nightmare Jack
May Sinclair – Where Their Fire Is Not Quenched

The water rose and rose. It touched his chin. It touched his lower lip. It touched between his lips. He shut them hard to keep it out. The princess began to feel strange. It touched his upper lip. He breathed through his nostrils. The princess looked wild. It covered his nostrils. Her eyes looked scared, and shone strange in the moonlight. His head fell back; the water closed over it; and the bubbles of his last breath bubbled up through the water. The princess gave a shriek, and sprang into the lake.

[George MacDonald]

“The Christian faith has not been tried and found lacking; it has been found difficult and been left untried.”

-George Macdonald

I must confess up front that I am not a coffee drinker.  I neither like the taste of it nor the smell of it, nor do I have any compulsion to infuse it with a variety of sweeteners to try and mask its otherwise awful taste.  This is not a criticism of those who like coffee (my wife is one of them), it is simply a statement of fact, and to set the record strait, it is not that I do not also have a morning crutch, but for me it is tea—“Earl Grey, hot,” as Captain Picard used to say.

All of that being said, what I find interesting is the popularity of the specialized coffee drinks in our society.  People flock to one of dozens of corner coffee stores to buy the latest “Chunky-Monkey-Sola-Frappe” concoction or if they are more frugal, they will get a designer coffee machine for their home to whip up their favorite concoctions.  Now, I see nothing inherently wrong with this practice (I like stacking onions, pickles, lettuce, and ketchup on my hamburgers), what I find interesting is that by the time everything is said and done, one can barely taste the original coffee flavor—and for some, I know that is the objective.

Imagine a world, for a minute, where coffee is only ever served in this fashion (this should not be too hard as we are close to that now).  Imagine that you have never tasted “black” coffee, but that it has always been filled with the additives that we might see at a specialized coffee place.  And imagine that this is the way coffee has been served for several generations.  You may have heard stories of coffee being served black, but only in the old days when the people were so poor or backwards that they did not know any better.

Then imagine, one day, something changed in the world around you.  Imagine that you, and everyone around you, were served black coffee—no milk, no sweetener, just straight brewed coffee.  What do you imagine might be the response.  My guess is that most people would quickly spit it out in disgust.  They might curse what they were served and leave in search of “real coffee”—or at least coffee that was diluted with the sweeteners that people were used to.

I imagine, though, that there might be a few people (likely a very few), who will have something confirmed in their hearts.  Deep down, while they have been drinking all of the concoctions, they have sensed that there must be something more out there—that that there must be something stronger and more robust in this thing called coffee than what was being served.  The taste might not totally agree with them, but they know deep down that this coffee, black and strong, is what they have been looking for all along and for them to go back to anything else is something they have no desire to do.

It is imaginable, that the majority of the “coffee” drinkers would take offense to those who began serving and drinking black coffee.  They might see them as unsophisticated and seeking to undo great social advances.  It is imaginable that the majority might even legislate to try and restrict the “black coffee drinkers” from being able to proselytize and win others to drinking black coffee.  There might even be some that would go back to drinking the stylized coffees just to more comfortably fit into their communities.  There may even be some that would become secret black coffee drinkers, drinking the concoctions in social settings for the business contacts, but only drinking black coffee at home.  There would be some who would even go to the other extreme, gathering with other black coffee drinkers and living separate from non-black coffee drinkers to eliminate any outside influence upon their families.  Yet there would be some who, despite regulations and litigation against the black coffee establishments, would continue drinking their black coffee while remaining in society, being willing to have the honest discussion about coffee and to answer questions from the skeptical but curious who still are drinking the fancy mixes.

Okay, so what does this have to do with Christianity?  If you haven’t anticipated it, my suggestion is that we have a lot of “doctored up” Christianity in our culture today.  It may have at its most basic root, genuine Christian belief, but because true Christianity is vibrant, strong, and offensive to the broader culture, churches have been quick to dilute it with all kinds of sweeteners and additives to hide the taste.  C.S. Lewis called this kind of liberal Christianity as “Christianity in water”—something almost unrecognizable as Christianity because it has been so diluted.  It is no wonder, given our culture has strayed so much from “straight-black” Christianity (to keep the coffee analogy), that so many people react so violently against the preaching of the wrath to come and the need for Christians to take up their cross and die daily to this world.  The Gospel of Jesus Christ has been reduced to love and fuzzy feelings rather than about a mighty God who chose to take on flesh and live in the midst of wicked, fallen, and hateful men to redeem some of them to glory, bearing the judgment for their sins on his shoulder.  All we are, we owe to him.

Drinking this kind of “coffee” will earn you the title of being intolerant, unsophisticated, and backwards.  It requires a whole new view of the world.  But this is true Christianity.  Lewis argued that while most people would be reviled if they were confronted with real Christianity, there would be some who would find that it was what they were looking for all along and find the real stuff to be “red meat and strong beer.”  How many of our churches look more like Starbucks in their theology and social stance than like the strong, black coffee of the Scriptures.

“O Filho de Deus sofreu até a morte. Não que os homens não possam sofrer, mas que seus sofrimentos possam ser como os dele.”

George Macdonald – Sermões não proferidos, primeira série.

Retirado do livro O Problema do Sofrimento de C.S. Lewis

A man may take the dark for light, but he canna take the light for darkness.

- George MacDonald, The Minister’s Restoration (Minneapolis: Bethany House Pub., 1988), 62.

The good minister, whose heart was the teacher of his head…

- George MacDonald, The Minister’s Restoration (Minneapolis: Bethany House Pub., 1988), 84.

God can wait foryer prayer better than you…

- George MacDonald, The Minister’s Restoration (Minneapolis: Bethany House Pub., 1988), 92.

Eternal spaces where there is no remembering and no forgetting.

- George MacDonald, The Minister’s Restoration (Minneapolis: Bethany House Pub., 1988), 120.

The Spirit, forever distinguishsed yet never divided from the Lord.  

- George MacDonald, The Minister’s Restoration (Minneapolis: Bethany House Pub., 1988), 187.

George MacDonald died this date, 9/18/1905, Scottish minister, novelist and poet who wrote  At the Back of the North Wind, The Baronet’s Song, The Golden Key, Salted with Fire.  He was born 12/10/1824.

I see a door, a multitude near by,
In creed and quarrel, sure disciples all!
Gladly they would, they say, enter the hall,
But cannot, the stone threshold is so high.
From unseen hand, full many a feeding crumb,
Slow dropping o’er the threshold high doth come:
They gather and eat, with much disputing hum.

Still and anon, a loud clear voice doth call—
“Make your feet clean, and enter so the hall.”
They hear, they stoop, they gather each a crumb.
Oh the deaf people! would they were also dumb!
Hear how they talk, and lack of Christ deplore,
Stamping with muddy feet about the door,
And will not wipe them clean to walk upon his floor!

But see, one comes; he listens to the voice;
Careful he wipes his weary dusty feet!
The voice hath spoken–to him is left no choice;
He hurries to obey–that only is meet.
Low sinks the threshold, levelled with the ground;
The man leaps in–to liberty he’s bound.
The rest go talking, walking, picking round.

If I, thus writing, rebuke my neighbour dull,
And talk, and write, and enter not the door,
Than all the rest I wrong Christ tenfold more,
Making his gift of vision void and null.
Help me this day to be thy humble sheep,
Eating thy grass, and following, thou before;
From wolfish lies my life, O Shepherd, keep.

From Diary of an Old Soul by George MacDonald

(121:  Clouds and leaves on the pond.  Photo © 2009 by Robin)

Work is not always required.  There is such a thing as sacred idleness, the cultivation of which is now fearfully neglected.

~ George Macdonald

I’m having no problem with idleness.  I don’t think I’ve managed to do one productive thing today.

“El entendimiento es el premio de la obediencia. La obediencia es la llave de toda puerta.”

George MacDonald

“I don’t quite understand you North Wind. You tell me what then.” “Well I will tell you . If you see me with my face all black, don’t be frightened. If you see me flapping wings like a bat’s, as big as the whole sky, don’t be frightened—you must believe that I am doing my work. Nay, Diamond, if I change into a serpent or a tiger, you must not let go your hold of me, for my hand will never change in yours if you keep a good hold. If you keep a hold, you will know who I am all the time, even when you look at me and can’t see me the least like the North Wind. I may look something very awful. Do you understand?”

“Quite well,” said little Diamond. (At the Back of the North Wind-George Macdonald)

I am learning to be like Diamond, though not ready to say, “Quite well” with as much belief behind it. God is under no obligation to explain things to me. Yet He does whisper, don’t be frightened. He is under no pressure to move in my timing and He tells me, “I make all things beautiful in My time.” He doesn’t have to look like the God I picture Him to be, or the sweet little Jesus portrayed by some Master Painter. He is the Great I Am. How does one picture this?

So when the rug again gets tugged and I land on my back side looking up and weeping because I don’t get it, I must realize that all I have to do is keep holding onto His hand. If I hold onto Him, I will know who He is at all times. Many times, I don’t hold on, or at least I loosen my grip and don’t feel the indents of His nail scarred hands and then I begin to question and fear. But it is I who have let my hold lessen when the darkness of the situation is upon me. The time I need to cling to the light, I panic and squirm to get to what I think is a reasonably safe place to be, yet He is all Goodness and Truth and will never let me go.

The beautiful thing about the Hand of God is His scars that touch my life remind me of the Love He has for me. If the circumstances of my life appear dark, I can feel His hand and remember that dark Friday when the scars were fresh wounds. The darkness of that day gave way to eternal beauty and the glory of the Lord reigned in heaven and on earth. The tears that I have cried today are not forgotten by my God. His hand reaches down and wipes my cheek while His voice whispers, “Peace, be still, do not be afraid.” I may not recognize His shape at times, but I hear His voice and know Him and He knows me. I feel His hand and know the marks that represent my salvation, will faithfully guide and protect me. I know that the tears that have fallen and the prays that have been cried are worship to God’s ears and that He loves me and hears my desperation.

The North Wind blows and I know not where it comes from or where it goes, but I believe….

Olha eu aqui de novo!! Antes de mais nada, gostaria de dizer que a enorme temporada sem posts aqui no blog foi apenas um bloquei criativo meramente temporário. Não estou cheio de ideias, mas a vontade de reerguer o blog ao lugar que ele merece é mais forte, after all.

E, indo diretamente do assunto, venho aqui falar do que eu considero o maior escritor de fantasia de todos os tempos, e que, inexplicavelmente, é conhecido somente no Hemisfério Norte. Muitos dos escritores de fantasia brasileiros que hoje conhecemos não tem nem ideia de quem possa ser George MacDonald, o autor em questão. Isto é, relativamente, estranho: MacDonald pode ser considerado o pai da fantasia moderna, visto ser a maior influência de muitos importantes escritores fantásticos do século XX, como J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chestertone, Madeleine L’Engle e até mesmo o cético e debochado Samuel Clemens (conhecido por nós como Mark Twain).

Poeta, Ministro Cristão e natural da Escócia, MacDonald fez história criando uma nova geração de contos de fadas e histórias fantásticas, que incorporavam elementos da mitologia grega e nórdica e, ao mesmo tempo, lições de vida cristãs. A Princesa e o Goblin, inclusive, uma de suas obras primas mais conhecidas (e, pelo visto, a única traduzina para o Brasil também), foi o livro que inspirou Tolkien a criar O Senhor dos Anéis e tudo que veio junto.

E, com isso, lá vem mais influências na cultura pop: Lewis Carroll, autor do mega-clássico Alice in Wonderland, foi discípulo cristão de MacDonald, e levou muito de seu estilo para a sua escrita, repleta de alusões absurdas e personagens criativos, cena típica dos contos de fadas tradicionais.

Da mesma forma como escritor e poeta, MacDonald foi também um importante teólogo, desenvolvendo ideias cristãs que iam contra algumas que eram pregadas pelo anglicanismo na época (século XIX), como a de que Cristo veio à Terra para salvar os humanos de seus pecados, e não para salvá-los de uma punição divina.

Para você, que ainda não o conhece, mas que simpatiza com alguns dos quais foram inspirados por ele, digo que vale a pena, não só pelas histórias por si só, mas por todas as mensagens que permeiam todas elas. G.K. Chestertone, inclusive, citou A Princesa e o Goblin (The Princess and The Goblin, olha ele aí mais uma vez) como o livro que fez diferença em toda a sua existência (não achei tradução pior para a citação na wiki em inglês).

E, pra mim, George, we just have to thank you for the people you have made.

]]> http://1eyedmonkee.wordpress.com/2009/08/22/spelunker/ Sat, 22 Aug 2009 20:09:39 +0000 1eyedmonkee http://1eyedmonkee.wordpress.com/2009/08/22/spelunker/

After a hard week of soundtrack work in Nashville for Shop Girl, her swelling belly brought about a rabid desire for nesting.  Homeward bound – nothing was going to stop my Fast for a minute longer than a necessary pee and some peanut butter crackers for sustenance.  Early morning fog softened the vistas through Tennessee and Kentucky taking me to places long forgotten but dreamy in the recesses of my memory.

Vacations for Billy were generally spent close to home doing the things to keep the house in repair…painting inside and out.  Finances never allowed those fantasy vacays to Disney.  But somewhere along the line, I don’t suppose I was more than 7 or 8 (sibling memories could help here), we headed South.

One of our stops was at the famous stables of the Kentucky Downs racetrack.  I was thoroughly entrenched in that love-of-horse phase that so many pigtailed girls go through and I still remember the marvel of the sleek chestnut bodies and silky black manes towering over me.  The wonder of wonder was being allowed to stop in the souvenir shop and three items were purchased specifically for me.  Somehow I recall some whining from the bro/sis combo to the tune of, “She’s a spoiled brat!” and “Who cares about dumb horses anyway! I just want to get home!”… if I was about a 3rd grader – that made them tweens and what is worse than being stuck in the backseat of a family car with no air conditioning, dvd player, radio or space for that matter.  This was sometime before 1965 or so, people!

But the pièce de résistance of that trip was a tour of the Mammoth Cave.  I am not even sure if that was actually our final destination or just another stop along the way.  Regardless, it marked me for life.  Fear gripped me as we began the steep descent into the bowels of the earth.  Shivers worked up my spine not just from the change of temperature but from the mere fact that I was being held captive by tons of limestone.

Eyes wide open, peering down crevices that could swallow me whole – my heart pounding so loudly in my chest it buzzed in my ears…once all senses adjusted, it became the most spectacularly magical space.  Colored lights highlighted the stalactites and stalagmites.  Underground rivers flowed silently by into inky black. Musty, dank air hung thick.

When Best Boy and Shop Girl were about that same age we read George MacDonald’s children’s fantasy novel  The Princess and the Goblin and its sequel The Princess and Curdie out loud around the dinner table.  MacDonald launches into his ideas of mountains and caves within the first pages of the second book:

A mountain is a strange and awful thing.  In old times, without knowing so much of their strangeness and awfulness as we do, people were yet more afraid of mountains.  But then somehow they had not come to see how beautiful they are as well as awful, and they hated them – and what people hate they must fear.  Now that we have learned to look at them with admiration, perhaps we do not feel quite awe enough to them.  To me they are beautiful terrors.

He continues a few paragraphs later,

All this outside the mountain!  But the inside, who shall tell what lies there!  Caves of awfullest solitude, their walls miles thick, sparkling with ores of gold or silver, copper or iron, tin or mercury, studded perhaps with precious stones – perhaps a brook, with eyeless fish in it, running, running ceaselessly, cold and babbling, through banks crusted with carbuncles and golden topazes, or over a gravel of which some of the stones arc rubies and emeralds, perhaps diamonds and sapphires – who can tell? – and whoever can’t tell is free to think – all waiting to flash, waiting for millions of ages – ever since the earth flew off from the sun, a great blot of fire, and began to cool.

Not too many months later, we found ourselves on a sweltering day under a blistering Washington D.C. sun, queuing up at the Smithsonian with Shop Girl and Best Boy in a full melt down.  Once inside we mapped out our visit including my one MUST SEE.

We were ushered into a room where all the lights were turned off and told to stand in the center and wait.  Suddenly, the recessed display cases set deep into the walls like mini caverns were set ablaze and sparkled with the most gorgeous display of gems in every color of the rainbow – exposed from where they had been hidden miles below the earth’s surface for centuries.  Suddenly the deep underworld of Curdie, the miner’s son, was brilliantly brought to reality.

Caves.  Me.  Facing fear.  Getting choked by the demons of claustrophobia or delighting in spelunking to discover precious veins buried deep within?  That is where my mind has taken me in the last few days.  Sparked by a conversation on the porch with Shop Girl and Mimi about facing our greatest fears and finding buried deep within ourselves those treasures – valuable resources – veins of gold and silver that steel our souls and weave through us – belying the hard, gray exterior that can seem cold to the touch.  Who are we really – deep in the core?

During my treks back and forth to Indiana over the weekends of the last few years, I had spent a good deal of time fearing the death of my father.  How was I going to face that?  What would it look like?  Feel like?  I planned the funeral in my head.  I talked through eulogies.  I wrote in notebooks while I drove.  What would his face look like when the real Billy was headed through the ceiling of the room that confined his physical body?  How would the Mrs. survive?

We have crawled through some dark twisty passageways this year.  The Mrs.’ voice echos off the walls.  But the thrill of every caver’s life is finding yet another tunnel, another underground waterway, another secret grotto – slogging through the mud and muck to chart new passages. These twelve months have been that journey for me.  Sometimes coming out into a wide space – a chamber – where standing upright I blindly pat the perimeters of the hard space. Other days I find myself crawling on my belly – squeezing through impossibly tight spaces.

So here’s to facing fears and finding the gemstones hidden deep within.  New adventures, new discoveries, new pains, new joys await. It takes hours of tumbling in the grit for the shine of those stones to come to light. Keeping my headlamp burning bright and forging ahead – daring fear to block my way.

After weeks of spelunking in Billy’s basement with all its similarities to the Mammoth Cave, I feel like yesterday my eyes had become so adjusted to the filtered gray light that I finally looked up and could almost see three of the four walls.  I have dug deep this year – quite literally – and as each layer is uncovered, I am in awe of the precious gems I keep unearthing.  Do you still have all your marbles?  I sure don’t.

Just in case you are lying around today with nothing better to do and you’ve never read MacDonald’s books you can read them here and here for free on line.  No need to even get off the couch.  Thank you Google.