I
happen to believe in giants, dragons, and unicorns, not because I was born with
eyes open to wonder; but because wonder was there clearly to be seen. The true
child within, always wiser that the disenchanted adult who has trouble focusing
both eyes on the nose before his face, knows the truly real and is not fooled
by the dullness of surface appearances.
How
really dull, dull, dull, and uninteresting is the demythologized world of our
materialists; even the ones that write strange stuff like science fiction. I remember some time ago reading Isaac
Asimov’s Foundation Series. The first two or three stories were interesting,
but in reading them a curious phenomenon began to occur. The time-line was
extended out beyond the foreseeable future, but it was two dimensional, flat,
with no wonder above and no terror below. Reading it I began to be increasingly
claustrophobic. Eventually I stopped
reading.
This
middle earth of ours needs a heaven and hell, a God and a devil, to make sense
of human experience. Both heaven and
hell extend infinitely in opposite directions although one is eternal and the
other perhaps temporal. At the extremes this realm of middle earth is peopled
with angels and demons. One of our
bishops observed, “Sometimes experience irresistibly suggests to us the presence
of unseen bad companions who can make vivid suggestions to our minds.” The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews
warns, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have
entertained angels unawares” (Hebrews 13:2)
There
is a crux where heaven and hell meet.
That crux is the Incarnation of God.
The
turning circle of the years had spun
Through
the world’s winters in the way men count,
Two
hundred and three times, and then
Still
thirty more, since Almighty God,
The
King of Glory, had been born on this middle-
Earth
of ours, light for the faithful
In
human form.[i]
If
at the extremes this realm of middle earth is peopled with angels and demons
what about the middle realm of middle earth?
There are more wights than we with human sight can ken. I hear a loud
protest rising. If we can’t see them
they don’t exist!
There
are a lot of things that I have never seen that still exist. I have never been to the shop of William
Moffat, Victualler in Beer Cart Lane in Canterbury, and just because the shop
doesn’t exist today doesn’t mean that it never did. After all I’m told there is a street in
Canterbury called Beer Cart Lane and that the old Roman road ran down part of
its length.
Of
the ruin of ancient Edom we are told, “Thorns shall grow over its strongholds,
nettles and thistles in its fortresses.
It shall be the habitation of dragons, and a court of owls. And yelpers
shall meet with howlers, the satyr shall cry to his fellows, indeed, there
Lilith settles and finds for herself a resting place” (Isaiah 34: 13-14).[ii]
Demythologized
modern translations miss not only the charm of this older version, but also its
reality. If I had not rode a horse into
the strong city of Edom, I could doubt that Edom and it’s strong city existed.
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