At the Back of At the Back of the North Wind.

[For the Wheatland Mission Youth Group Book Club]
So this is it. The last post for this book. Hope you enjoyed parts of it, at least. (It was a bit more than I remembered...especially the intrusions by the narrator, which really annoyed me after awhile...so apologies if it was a tough one for you to get into.) Spoiler alert, but if you hadn't been expecting it, the end of the book deals with Diamond's death. And if you've had trouble figuring out just who the North Wind is supposed to be, it is clear from one of the passages toward the end of chapter 36 that she is one of God's agents (an angel?), and she hints that some people know her as Death. (Although she refuses to tell Diamond this name, the last time we see her in chapter 38, she comes to Diamond in silence and it doesn't take much reading between the lines to figure out that she has come to cause his death.)

This subject matter should make sense if we think about the main theme of the book, which concerns God's goodness and the presence of evil in the world. In the story of Little Daylight (which I discussed in my previous post), we saw how God (or at least fairies) can turn a situation meant for evil into a kind of blessing. Not only does Daylight escape the witch's curse at the end of the story, but she also meets (and marries, probably) a prince whom she may not have ever met had it not been for that same curse that caused her to be playing in the woods in the moonlight in the first place!

For Christians, death is not far removed from the idea of God turning something meant for evil into a kind of blessing. Death is something (according to Eve) that God linked to eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Genesis 3:1-3), and is traditionally associated with the Fall (see I Cor. 15:21; Romans 5:12-14). Yet, after Christ comes, something has changed so deeply that Paul is able to write, "For me, to live is Christ, but to die is gain" (Phil. 1:21).

I could easily get sidetracked here, so I will try and get back to the story. The final chapter, 38, Diamond and the narrator (who is a tutor he met while living in Kent, after his father went to work for Mr. Raymond) discuss "metaphysics" (which is a term that basically means philosophy).

One of the things that MacDonald wants to leave his reader with is this, the last idea of the book:

"Could it be all dreaming, do you think, sir?" he asked anxiously.
"I daren't say, Diamond," I answered. "But at least there is one thing you may be sure of, that there is a still better love than that of the wonderful being you call North Wind. Even if she be a dream, the dream of such a beautiful creature could not come to you by chance."
"Yes, I know," returned Diamond; "I know."
Then he was silent, but, I confess, appeared more thoughtful than satisfied. 

 These two are discussing whether or not North Wind is real, but a philosopher would read this passage and tell you that they are really taking up a fairly weighty philosophical argument concerning whether or not God actually exists, and the Tutor offers Diamond an answer in the form of an ontological proof of God's existence. If you want to look it up, I would suggest starting HERE. Basically, the idea is this: because we can imagine a God that is perfect, there must be a God that is perfect (that is a really simplified version, but it's not much different from the Tutor's explanation above).

But the reason I love this passage is not because someone offers a "proof" that a loving God actually exists. I love this passage because when Diamond is offered this "proof," he looks unsatisfied.

Now here is what I would like to leave you with: Fancy logic is not a substitute for faith. Reason is the thing that tries to patch all the holes in your leaky boat; faith is what keeps the oar in your hand despite the leaks, aiming to reach the shore. Here Diamond is described as someone who has experienced doubt (after all it is Diamond who asks the Tutor in the beginning whether it could all have been a dream), considered the answers (he tells the Tutor "Yes, I know," after the Tutor's ontological answer), and still remains unsatisfied.

I would tell him this, if I could: "Don't be afraid. The meaning will come with the thing itself." 

ATBOTNW Chapter 28: Little Daylight

[Written for the Wheatland Mission Youth Group Book Club]
So here I will begin to conclude our lengthy, scattered romp through At the Back of the North Wind. The final two readings (chapter 28, "Little Daylight," and chapter 36 through the end of the book) are maybe a bit easier to read than some of the earlier stuff, and are my favorite parts of the book (along with chapter 4, when Diamond first meets the street-sweeper). I will treat the story of Little Daylight in this post.

Little Daylight resembles Sleeping Beauty, especially as it begins with a group of fairies blessing a newborn princess. Of course there is an uninvited wicked witch who comes in with a curse for the child, a curse that is then lessened by two fairies that have been kept in hiding, suspecting the trick. I don't really want to get much more into it than that except to draw your attention to the seventh fairy's blessing, which follows the witch's second curse that Little Daylight, in addition to sleeping all day, also "wax and wane with the moon." At this point the hidden seventh fairy enters and concludes: "Until...a prince comes who shall kiss her without knowing it." The king asks her what she means by this and she simply replies, "Don't be afraid. The meaning will come with the thing itself."

So what does all this mean for us?

Well, I think this fairy tale is a really good insight to MacDonald's view of the problem of good and evil. In my interpretation, Little Daylight is you and me. The fairies are God. And the witch is the presence of evil in the world (if it helps, you can call this Satan). The point of the whole blessing/cursing ceremony at the beginning of the fairy tale is to show us that God really wants to give us good gifts (cf. Matt. 7:11; Luke 11:13), but that, somehow, for some reason, He can't actually prevent bad things from happening to us. (I know this idea goes against what we think of as an all-powerful God who can, theoretically, do anything He wants to, but that's another discussion for another time.) Now even though He can't prevent bad things from happening, He can eventually turn them into something good (this is, in a nutshell, what we mean when we speak of redemption).

Now here is the important part. I know I just got done saying that Little Daylight is you and me, but it turns out that we are also kind of the king. The seventh fairy (God) comes out of hiding and says something about a prince and a kiss that doesn't really make sense to anyone, but is apparently meant to limit the witch's curse (evil's power). Then the fearful king buts in and asks God (seventh fairy) to explain what He (she) means by this. And the king is told 1.) To not be afraid, 2.) That meaning is not as necessary as he thinks it is, and 3.) That what is predicted will come.

And it is this precise moment in the fairy tale that we find ourselves stuck in. You, me, and anyone who has ever lived in the world. We have been told (and hopefully experienced firsthand) that there is a God who loves us and blesses us. We are also aware that there are things that happen (to us, to our friends, to our family members, to complete strangers) which cannot be described as blessings. And, as Christians, we are vaguely aware of a promised end to all this evil, but we want to know what God means when he tells us that there will be a new heaven and a new earth (cf. Revelation 21).

And, just like the king, we are told to not be afraid. We are told that the thing that is predicted will come. And we are told that when it comes, we will understand.

This is, in a nutshell, what we mean when we speak of faith.