Wind seems to be the theme of the day! The kids and I have been reading At the Back of the North Wind by George MacDonald at bedtime and tonight we came across such a wonderful part. If you have followed my blog for a little while, you most likely have been urged from time to time, by me, to read the story of June’s birth (which can be found under the ‘birth stories’ category to the right). Let’s assume you’ve read it. George MacDonald wrote of a wind, much like my own wind that revived me with it’s cool kiss during June’s birth. I will just go ahead and copy here what is in this most wondrous (Ha! I initially accidentally typed “windrous” there!) part of At the Back of the North Wind by my absolute favorite fiction author ever (and whom I dream of meeting in heaven, along with Gerald May, my favorite non-fiction author).
I should preface this excerpt by letting you know that this story is about a boy named Diamond who is invited out from time to time, during the night, by North Wind, who is the North Wind and a woman. She changes form frequently, and how her hair behaves expresses the characteristics of the way she is blowing, sometimes violently, sometimes softly, often somewhere in between. This night she has brought Diamond out and they are in a cathedral where she will leave him for just a bit so as to spare him from witnessing her perform her duty of sinking a ship.
“But move he dared not. In a moment more he would from very terror have fallen into the church, but suddenly there came a gentle breath of cool wind upon his face, and it kept blowing upon him in little puffs, and at every puff Diamond felt his faintness going away, and his fear with it. Courage was reviving his little heart, and still the cool wafts of the soft wind breathed upon him, and the soft wind was so mighty and strong within its gentleness, that in a minute more Diamond was marching along the narrow ledge as fearless for the time as North Wind herself.”
When they’ve met up again they have this conversation . . .
“. . . ‘But I wasn’t brave myself,’ said Diamond, whom my older readers will have already discovered to be a true child in this, that he was given to metaphysics. ‘It was the wind that blew in my face that made me brave. Wasn’t it now, North Wind?’
‘Yes: I know that. You had to be taught what courage was. And you couldn’t know what it was without feeling it; therefore it was given you. But don’t you feel as if you would try to be brave yourself next time?’
‘Yes, I do. But trying is not much.’
‘Yes, it is – a very great deal, for it is a beginning. And a beginning is the greatest thing of all. To try to be brave is to be brave. The coward who tries to be brave is before the man who is brave because he is made so, and never had to try.’
I appreciate that last part, too, because I have experienced significant anxiety from time to time in my life and at times I have felt so cowardly because of it. But if I believe North Wind, then I actually have behaved very bravely many times!
Anyway, that wind that revived Diamond does remind me so much of my wind, during Junie’s birth and I just wanted to share that here.
