Phantastes, Part I

I had the joy of reading Phantastes by George MacDonald a couple of months ago. I marked several places in the book that stuck out to me as noteworthy. This is the first -- the person reporting is talking about being in a library, and reading different books:

"If, for instance, it was a book of metaphysics I opened, I had scarcely read two pages before I seemed to myself to be pondering over discovered truth, and constructing the intellectual machine whereby to communicate the discovery to my fellowmen... Or if the book was one of travels, I found myself the traveler. New lands, fresh experiences, novel customs, rose around me. I walked, I discovered, I fought, I suffered, I rejoiced in my success. Was it a history? I was the chief actor therein. I suffered my own blame; I was glad in my own praise. With a fiction it was the same. Mine was the whole story. For I took the place of the character who was the most like myself, and his story was mine; until, grown weary with the life of years condensed in an hour, or arrived at my deathbed, or the end of the volume, I would awake, with a sudden bewilderment, to the consciousness of my present life, recognizing the walls and roof around me, and finding I joyed or sorrowed only in a book." (p. 75)

Isn’t that the truth about a great story told? That it transports you to another world, that for a moment, or hour, you are one with the character in the story? Time slows to a crawl (or in my case, flies by) in the midst of a novel that grips you and won’t let you go. This is the joy that stories such as Narnia hold for me – those in my childhood were moments of sheer joy and yet such longing that there are hardly words to describe them. As an adult, I recognize those longings for what they are: in part, for heaven. It is the desire for something, Someone, not of this world. A place, a Person, a God... the God.

How frequently I find myself searching for happiness in other places instead of turning to the only place it can be found. The American culture is very much like this with the abundance of advertising everywhere you look. I think that deep within us, there is the pursuit of something we aren't quite sure of. Even in the viewing of sports (not exactly my cup of tea), I wonder if one reason it is enjoyed so much is because of the victory we wish we could have. We long to be victorious.. and were made to have victory, but lost that in our fall. There are many other reasons for an enjoyment of such things, but I think underlying all of it is the desire which points to Him.

One day I will write my thoughts on design and desires and how they reveal God. Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! (1 Cor 15:57)