Pruning, George MacDonald, and Me

Pruning is a rather ugly business, in my opinion. Everything at the beginning looks so beautiful and lovely. Granted there may be something out of place or that looks deformed but overall, it's not so bad. Then you go and prune the bush. Then it's nothing but ugly branches shooting off to nowhere with nothing but a ragged end and dripping sap. There is nothing pretty about it . . . at the time. The benefits of pruning can only come after time has elapsed, when it's time for the fruit or blossoms to form. Once this happens, the pruning proves to be of extreme importance. Without it, there would be an unnecessary use of nutrients by branches that would no longer flower or produce fruit. Thus they were cut away so that those parts that were producing as they should could get more of what they needed so as to do what they did better.

My soul must unawares have sunk awry.

Some care, poor eagerness, ambition of work,

Some old offense that unforgiving did lurk,

Or some self-gratulation, soft and sly -

Something not thy sweet will, not the good part,

While the home-guard looked out, stirred up the old murk,

And so I gloomed away from thee, my Heart.

~George MacDonald, "February 14" from Diary of an Old Soul

If I should slow diverge, and listless stray

Into some thought, feeling, or dream unright,

O Watcher, my backsliding soul affray;

Let me not perish of the ghastly blight.

Be thou, O Life eternal, in me light;

Then merest approach of selfish or impure

Shall start me up alive, awake, secure.

~George MacDonald, "February 16" from Diary of an Old Soul

These two poems somewhat describe my situation in life at the moment, along with the pruning thing. God has been showing me over the past several weeks a weakness that I had never acknowledged before that has kept me from all that He has for me. Somehow, by some small slip, I have allowed myself to wander from my original purpose and design. However, even though I know what is my problem and how to remedy it, I find myself stalling and sinking further and further away from what what I want and ought to be.

How can I return to that place of openness and vulnerability where God desires I be? How can I loose this strangling hold upon my heart? How do I learn to trust You more?

One Reason I Love George MacDonald

I have discovered a new love in the form of George MacDonald. As of now, I have read The Princess and the Goblin, The Princess and Curdie, The Light Princess, The Giant's Heart, The Golden Key, Phantastes, and Lilith and have heard a dramatized version of At the Back of the North Wind. In my own humble opinion, he's an absolute genius. He seamlessly blends theological and philosophical ideas with wonderful fantasy. And he has an increadible ability with words. Take this quote I found in Lilith.

What a hell of horror, I thought, to wander alone, a bare existence never going out of itself, never widening its life in another life, but, bound with the cords of its poor peculiarities, lying an eternal prisoner in the dungeon of its own being!

Is that not only beautiful but brilliant. Mr. MacDonald so magically captures the horrors of what life would be if it were not for interaction with others, what a terror it would be if we did not share with others. Ahhh, George MacDonald, you have made my life so much better. And thank you, my dear friends (if any of you are reading this) for all the time that you have spent with me, pouring yourselves into my meager life. I pray that God blesses you all for your sacrifices for me.