The Moorschild

I've had the wonderful chance lately to pre-read a bunch of books recently given to my little guy as "hand me downs" and just this morning finished up a book called "The Moorschild", a fantasy story by Eloise McGraw.  At the end of the book, I was struck by the ease with which the humans in the story were so easily taken in and duped by the magic of the "Folk people" (fairy-like creatures). The physical senses of the humans were overwhelmed and overtaken by the sights, sounds, tastes, and intense pleasures of things made by magic trickery to be more than they really were.  As long as the Folk people were having their own fun, they didn't mind much that the lost humans were there partaking in the revelry of their Midsummers' Eve celebration.  In the book, the eyes of all of the babies of the Folk people were anointed at birth with a special oil that allowed them to see reality behind the veil of magic, and so the Folk people were never duped by the magic that encompassed their entire world.  Unfortunately, without the oil, the humans could not keep control of their senses long enough to see the reality of their situation, even when others were telling them it was not real...and so the humans happily became engulfed in a timeless oblivion of pure sensory ecstasy.  That is, until someone who cared about them was able to pull them out of their senselessness with the anointing oil, or, more likely, they were booted out of the Folk camp when they became useless--and a bother--to the Folk people.  And then, by the time they came "back out", so many years in the human world had passed, and everything and everyone they had known and loved had already passed on and was gone.

I guess it struck a strange reality cord in me for some reason...how similar the Folk people's trap is to those things that tempt and influence us in our own world.  How easily it is to be duped into thinking something is real when it is not...to be blinded by a mis-concept (about self or others), by a partial truth (about a person, or a situation, or a thing even), by a promise of something for nothing, by the temporizing thrill of instantaneous gratification.  How many situations of pain and hurt, lost time, lost relationships, wrong pathways, misunderstandings, bad choices could we have avoided if only we had that "anointing oil"!  Something that allows us to "see it for real" BEFORE we get duped.

And then...it hit me.  We DO have the "anointing oil" and we have Someone who cares about us enough to pull us out of our senselessness when we get lost anyway!

"Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God...You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the One who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world." (1John 4:1,4, NIV)

"But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; My peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." (John 14:26-27, NIV)

 When we see the world through the eyes of the Holy Spirit within us, He guides us with HIS knowledge, HIS wisdom and HIS understanding through any and all of the circumstances that the world can possibly throw at us.  Better yet, He gives us HIS strength, HIS faith, HIS heart and HIS love to use when we are overwhelmed, overtaken and afraid.  Lean not on your own understanding, He said, but trust in Me always and I will make your paths straight!

wow...better than the anointing oil, yes? 

selah!

mags