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In all our valleys the light is the same. And it's the light that matters
So I have a theological question.
I am re-reading Elizabeth Goudge's The Valley of Song (1951) for the nth time. It's one of the books where I notice different things with each reading; that's part of the reason it's her best book, although others include the beauty of the writing and the numinous generally busting out all over. This time, a line in the scene in which the protagonist is waiting outside the door to the Valley of Song (only children may enter this country which is called by mortals "Fairyland, or the Garden of Eden, or Arcadia, or the Earthly Paradise, or the Elysian Fields, or some such ridiculous name. We just call it the Workshop," so in order to let someone else go in, Tabitha has taken on some of their years as her own and is now too old herself to be allowed inside) sprang out at me:
Andrew turned to Tabitha, his face radiant. "I may go in!" he said, and he gripped her hand. "Come on, Tabitha."
Tabitha pulled her hand away and leaned against the wall, hiding her face, and the same misery that had overwhelmed her when Julie went in without her came over her again. This dreadful shut-out and cast-away feeling! She had never felt so wretched. She had not known one could feel so miserable. Her voice came to Andrew from behind her hands, muffled and forlorn. "I can't go in with you. I'm too old."
"Too old? You can't be!" said Andrew, and he pulled her hands away from her face.
"Five years too old!" sobbed Tabitha. "I'm fifteen. I can't go in."
There was a long and anguished silence, while Andrew struggled to make up his mind about something, then he took a deep breath. "Then I'm not going in either," he said. "If you're shut out, I'll be shut out too."
Tabitha liked to hear him say that. It was almost worth being shut out to hear him say that. The door swung wide and a great breath of life-giving air blew through it.
"Come in, both of you," said the splendid voice, and there was almost a note of celestial impatience in its splendour. "Little girl, you carried that burden well, but long enough for a child. Come in and be with him. He'll need firm handling. Boy, you were ready to be exiled with her, and the readiness is all. Am I to be until the Last Trump holding this door open?"
Those of you who have read Mary Renault may be nodding already, because this is a concept I learned first from The King Must Die (1958):
"Horses go blindly to the sacrifice, but the gods give knowledge to men. When the King was dedicated, he knew his moira. In three years, or seven, or nine, or whenever the custom was, his term would end and the god would call him. And he went consenting, or else he was no king, and power would not fall on him to lead the people. When they came to choose among the Royal Kin, this was his sign: that he chose short life with glory, and to walk with the god, rather than live long, unknown like the stall-fed ox. And the custom changes, Theseus, but this token never. Remember, even if you do not understand . . . It is not the sacrifice, whether it comes in youth or age, or the god remits it; it is not the bloodletting that calls down power. It is the consenting, Theseus. The readiness is all."
Where does this idea originate? Is it as simple as going back to the Binding of Isaac: that it was enough for Abraham to be willing to sacrifice his son? Is there a more complicated aetiology I don't know about, or a particularly Christian significance that would have been important to Goudge? I happen to believe it, just as I believe that an unconsenting sacrifice has no power (see Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn (1968): "Real magic can never be made by offering someone up else's liver. You must tear out your own, and not expect to get it back. The true witches know that"), and I think it is not an uncommon belief. But I don't know where it comes from, if it doesn't come from the story I thought of first, and I'm curious.
I am re-reading Elizabeth Goudge's The Valley of Song (1951) for the nth time. It's one of the books where I notice different things with each reading; that's part of the reason it's her best book, although others include the beauty of the writing and the numinous generally busting out all over. This time, a line in the scene in which the protagonist is waiting outside the door to the Valley of Song (only children may enter this country which is called by mortals "Fairyland, or the Garden of Eden, or Arcadia, or the Earthly Paradise, or the Elysian Fields, or some such ridiculous name. We just call it the Workshop," so in order to let someone else go in, Tabitha has taken on some of their years as her own and is now too old herself to be allowed inside) sprang out at me:
Andrew turned to Tabitha, his face radiant. "I may go in!" he said, and he gripped her hand. "Come on, Tabitha."
Tabitha pulled her hand away and leaned against the wall, hiding her face, and the same misery that had overwhelmed her when Julie went in without her came over her again. This dreadful shut-out and cast-away feeling! She had never felt so wretched. She had not known one could feel so miserable. Her voice came to Andrew from behind her hands, muffled and forlorn. "I can't go in with you. I'm too old."
"Too old? You can't be!" said Andrew, and he pulled her hands away from her face.
"Five years too old!" sobbed Tabitha. "I'm fifteen. I can't go in."
There was a long and anguished silence, while Andrew struggled to make up his mind about something, then he took a deep breath. "Then I'm not going in either," he said. "If you're shut out, I'll be shut out too."
Tabitha liked to hear him say that. It was almost worth being shut out to hear him say that. The door swung wide and a great breath of life-giving air blew through it.
"Come in, both of you," said the splendid voice, and there was almost a note of celestial impatience in its splendour. "Little girl, you carried that burden well, but long enough for a child. Come in and be with him. He'll need firm handling. Boy, you were ready to be exiled with her, and the readiness is all. Am I to be until the Last Trump holding this door open?"
Those of you who have read Mary Renault may be nodding already, because this is a concept I learned first from The King Must Die (1958):
"Horses go blindly to the sacrifice, but the gods give knowledge to men. When the King was dedicated, he knew his moira. In three years, or seven, or nine, or whenever the custom was, his term would end and the god would call him. And he went consenting, or else he was no king, and power would not fall on him to lead the people. When they came to choose among the Royal Kin, this was his sign: that he chose short life with glory, and to walk with the god, rather than live long, unknown like the stall-fed ox. And the custom changes, Theseus, but this token never. Remember, even if you do not understand . . . It is not the sacrifice, whether it comes in youth or age, or the god remits it; it is not the bloodletting that calls down power. It is the consenting, Theseus. The readiness is all."
Where does this idea originate? Is it as simple as going back to the Binding of Isaac: that it was enough for Abraham to be willing to sacrifice his son? Is there a more complicated aetiology I don't know about, or a particularly Christian significance that would have been important to Goudge? I happen to believe it, just as I believe that an unconsenting sacrifice has no power (see Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn (1968): "Real magic can never be made by offering someone up else's liver. You must tear out your own, and not expect to get it back. The true witches know that"), and I think it is not an uncommon belief. But I don't know where it comes from, if it doesn't come from the story I thought of first, and I'm curious.
no subject
. . . I learned a version of this story from the original cast album of a musical that belonged to the LDS family who lived next door when I was growing up. Saancrifice being at the core of it makes a great deal of sense. Thank you.
I'm almost entirely positive the story's not Biblical.
If nothing else, I don't know any other traditions in which Christ and Lucifer are seen as brothers. It's not Jewish, obviously, it's not Islamic (Iblis falls for his refusal to prostrate himself before Adam, whom he considers his inferior, being made of clay where Iblis was made of pure fire), and I haven't seen it in other forms of Christianity that I can recall, although I won't swear it's not in some of the heresies: it has the right resonance of myth, to the point where it made its way, completely unexamined, into the only Christmas poem I have ever written, without my thinking much about the origins.
I'd actually suspect Paradise Lost or The Divine Comedy, which theoretically have no impact on LDS cosmology, but that's utter nonsense.
Say more?
no subject
Yeah, I think I recall it being part of the backstory in, umm, Starchild. It's the sequel to the LDS musical, Saturday's Warrior, but I only saw it the once, and wasn't exposed to the soundtrack like I was for SW.
Of course, in the LDS belief system, we're all the children of God the father, so naturally Lucifer and Jesus are brothers. However, I want to say that the non-LDS people I encountered who shared the belief that Lucifer and Jesus were brothers did not extend that to everyone. I'm trying to think of which denominations they were, but all I can think is that I believe they were also American-based, I think Charismatic, and I think they too sprang up in the nineteenth-century in that area of upstate New York where the LDS church had its beginnings (an area referred to as the Burned Over District because of the sheer number of Christian religious revivals and new religious movements that sprang up during that time period). Doing a little Googling, I find contradictory information on whether or not Jehovah's Witnesses share the belief. Doing a little more Googling, there are several sites that assert the idea of Jesus and Lucifer being brothers as a Gnostic belief. So that may be the origin.
I'd actually suspect Paradise Lost or The Divine Comedy, which theoretically have no impact on LDS cosmology, but that's utter nonsense.
Say more?
Actually, what I should have said is that the cosmology remains unchanged, but the cultural conceptions of the spirit world and unconscious attitudes regarding what happened in the Garden of Eden are influenced by both of those works, despite the fact that they contradict LDS doctrine.