George MacDonald (1824-1905) was a Scottish author, poet, minister. His work influenced many other writers including J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, and even, interestingly, Mark Twain. MacDonald offered the following insight around the "deeper truth" of creation:
Ask a man of mere science what is the truth of a flower. He will pull it to pieces, show you its parts, explain how they operate, how they each contribute to the life of the flower. He will tell you where it grew originally, where it can live, what would be the effects of another climate, and what changes are possible to it through scientific cultivation. He will go on to explain what part the insects have in its variations, and doubtless will tell you many more facts about it.
Ask the poet what is the truth of the flower, and he will answer: "Why, the flower itself, the perfect flower, and what it speaks to him who has ears to hear it."
The truth of the flower is not the facts about it, be they correct as ideal science itself can discern them, but the shining, glowing, gladdening, patient thing enthroned on its stalk--the compeller of smiles and tears from child and prophet... What shall it profit a man to know all things, and lose the bliss, the consciousness of well-being, which alone can give value to his knowledge?... Watch that child with the flower! He has found one of his silent and motionless brothers, with God's clothing upon it and God's thought in its face. Behold the smile that breaks out because of the divine understanding between them! Watch his mother when he takes it home to her, though she is no nearer to understanding it than he! It is no old memory that brings those tears to her eyes, powerful in that way as are flowers. Rather, it is God's thought, unrecognized as such, holding communion with her. She weeps with inexplicable delight. Why should she weep--it is only a daisy, only a primrose, only a pheasant's eye narcissus, only a lily of the field, only a snowdrop, only a sweet pea, only a brave yellow crocus! But here to her is no mere fact, no law of nature. Here is a truth of nature, the truth of a flower--a perfect thought from the heart of God--a truth of God! It is not an intellectual truth, but a divine fact, a dim revelation, a movement of the creative soul!
(George MacDonald; Michael Phillips, editor; The Truth in Jesus, pp. 16-22)
Where's the "flower" in your life that you might tend to devalue by not seeing past "the facts"?
Describe "the shining, glowing, gladdening, patient thing enthroned" within your "flower."
Contemplate MacDonald's statement: "What
shall it profit a man to know all things, and lose the bliss, the
consciousness of well-being, which alone can give value to his
knowledge?" What...and where...is the learning?
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