George MacDonald writes, in one of his short stories called The Castle, A Parable, some of the most profound words on freedom. He tells about a previously rebellious young boy whose new perspective on life has actually given him a new perspective in his previous love for astronomy and more importantly a new perspective on freedom:
“But now he was diligent from morning till night in the study of the laws of the truth that has to do with stars; and when the curtain of the sun-light was about to rise from before the heavenly worlds which it had hidden all day long, he might be seen preparing his instruments with that solemn countenance with which it becometh one to look into the mysterious harmonies of Nature. Now he learned what law and order and truth are, what consent and harmony mean; how the individual may find his own end in a higher end, where law and freedom mean the same thing, and the purest certainty exists without the slightest constraint. Thus he stood on the earth and looked to the heavens.”
His brothers and sisters, coming out of their collective rebellion, learned the same paradoxical freedom:
“By degrees, everything fell into the regularity of subordination. With the subordination came increase of freedom.”
Our culture does not even have a category for this type of amazing freedom. Isn't subordination supposed to be the opposite of freedom! Not for MacDonald. And not for the classic stream of thought prior to 18th century. And not for me.
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| George MacDonald |
His brothers and sisters, coming out of their collective rebellion, learned the same paradoxical freedom:
“By degrees, everything fell into the regularity of subordination. With the subordination came increase of freedom.”
Our culture does not even have a category for this type of amazing freedom. Isn't subordination supposed to be the opposite of freedom! Not for MacDonald. And not for the classic stream of thought prior to 18th century. And not for me.
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