The Gospel According to George MacDonald

George MacDonald was a 19th century pastor, writer, and a big influence on CS Lewis.  His spiritual essays are inspiring and deep, if a bit wordy (and that's the edited versions). But my most intense love goes to his book for children, "The Princess and the Goblins."

It's a fairy tale on the surface.  It was my favorite book as a child; it wasn't until well into adulthood that I became aware of the great spiritual truths expressed so beautifully in the story, which goes like this:

A young princess, Irene, must stay most of the time in the castle, because it is well known that the goblins who inhabit the nearby mountain wish to kidnap her and marry her to the Goblin Prince.  One day, terribly bored, she begins to explore the castle on her own, and finds, high up in a tiny attic room, a stately silver-haired woman who introduces herself as her great-grandmother.

This Grandmother is spinning something--a ball of delicate thread which she gives to Irene.  "If ever you are afraid" she says to her granddaughter "put this under your pillow and it will unwind.  Follow the thread--remember, follow the thread--and it will lead you back to me, and you will be safe."

Well, one night Irene does become frightened, and so she does as her grandmother has asked.  But the thread does not lead her to her Grandmother's attic room--not at all!!  It leads her up the mountain, right in the direction of the Goblin's Cave!  Yikes!  She of course turns back, as any sensible girl would, as any decent parent would advise.   But when she tries to go back, she finds that the thread disappears if she goes in that direction. Double yikes. 

She has no choice but to go forward.   There she discovers that the miner boy, Curdie, has been imprisoned by the gobllins, and she bravely rescues him.  Still following the thread, she makes it back, finally to her Grandmother's room, where she does indeed find herself safe.

There are so many things to love about this story.   The thin, fine thread, visible only in the light, like spiderweb, that must be felt rather than seen to be followed; the Grandmother, a potent and female metaphor for God, created well before women were even allowed to be pastors; the hero, not a prince, but a girl, a princess; the princess, not a child of beautiful dresses and a waspy waist, but a courageous rescuer of a young boy; Irene's very human resistance to following the thread into trouble and danger; the ending, where at last Irene is nurtured and healed.    As a metaphor for the spiritual journey, the inward pilgrimage, I think it is unsurpassed.  The thread must be felt.   Other people can't see it.   If you try to go back, it disappears.  If you go forward ,you encounter obstacles that threaten you, ugly goblins who want to marry you.  You are possibly led to someone who needs you.

But you find you really have no choice but to follow the thread.  Remember, follow the thread.