Excuse me. I'm at the Back of the North Wind right now.

I am reading At the Back of the North Wind by George MacDonald. And although I have a sorry little feeling at the bottom of my heart that the little boy is going to die in the end, I like the book. I can't describe the story to you; I daresay you would call my description silly. In fact, if you are not the Right Sort of Person, I daresay you would find the story itself silly. But it isn't silly unless you make it so.

And no, I can't explain that either.

I suppose it's a sort of fairy tale, but then, it's more about fairy tales within the reality of daily life, and about how we view dreams and thoughts... whether we take them at face value, or ignore them, (a very unwise thing to do, in my opinion,) or mine them for useful gems. And whether they are the best sort of gems - helpful gems - depends on the dream, or the thought, and that depends on the kind of person you are. I think, too it's about what we can learn from things that God sends us, whether stories, dreams, conversations, people, or incidents. We can use them, as the little boy did, to do better work, to love better, and to think better, or we can brush them off and go about our business, little knowing we're missing out on what could have been. And I don't necessarily mean dreams like the kind we dream at night and remember in the morning as mumbo-jumbo. I think the dreams of the little boy are supposed to stand for something bigger in our lives, something that can't be defined except as "a dream." I'm just not wise enough to put my finger on what. Or perhaps George MacDonald never meant for us to be able to put our finger on it.

Oh, just go read the book. I'm making a mess, and trying to do what I said I wouldn't. Now you understand why.


Anyway, here's a quote which I like a very great deal:

"His head was full of the dream he had dreamed; but it did not make him neglect his work, for his work was not to dig stars but to drive old Diamond and pick up fares in the cab. There are not many people who can think about beautiful things and do common work at the same time. But then there are not many people who have been to the back of the north wind."