Hinds’ Feet on High Places

“Most earnestly she longed to be completely delivered from these shortcomings and to be made beautiful, gracious, and strong as were so many of the Shepherd’s other workers, and above all to be made like the Chief Shepherd himself.”

Much-Afraid not only is naturally fearful but is also troubled by her physical disabilities, which make it difficult to walk, let alone to run or jump or climb. Additionally, she seems incapable of smiling due to the shape of her mouth, and so in her attraction to the Shepherd, she naturally desires to be made strong like the rest of his servants and, ultimately, like the Shepherd himself. The drive to be made in the likeness is a driving force in the narrative, and one that ultimately is satisfied by the gift of Grace and Glory’s new name and new physical likeness.

“Much-Afraid, I have already warned you that Love and Pain go together, for a time at least. If you would know Love, you must know pain too.”

Drawn to love and repulsed by fear, all human beings naturally are attracted to what is good and lovely, as they are naturally repulsed by what is painful and sorrowful. The Shepherd wants to make sure that Much-Afraid understands what she is getting into. In the beginning, as she is being purged of all her impurities, the love that the Shepherd gives and the love that Much-Afraid feels will be painful, as she is transformed from one thing to another.

“I must tell you a great truth, Much-Afraid, which only the few understand. All the fairest beauties in the human soul, its greatest victories, and its most splendid achievements are always those which no one else knows anything about, or can only dimly guess at. Every inner response of the human heart to Love and every conquest over self-love is a new flower on the tree of Love.”

The Shepherd wants Much-Afraid to be disabused of the notion that great love requires great acts, especially acts that are publicly known. Often the greatest acts of love are those that are small, hidden, and known only to the few, or even to none. Each response to love, just like each unseen wildflower, is of great dignity and worth.

“[I]t is only up on the High Places of Love that anyone can receive the power to pour themselves down in an utter abandonment of self-giving.”

As Saint Augustine once said, love is like gravity: It pours our more swiftly and with more force if it originates from a great height. The water flows from its place in the High Places and always flows down and towards the lowest places, where it is most desired and most needed. The human soul needs to ascend into the heights to truly offer love to those who are most in need of love. One cannot give what one does not have, and love can only be found on high.

“‘Others have gone this way before me,’ she thought, ‘and they could even sing about it afterwards. Will he who is so strong and gentle be less faithful and gracious to me, weak and cowardly though I am, when it is so obvious that the thing he delights in most of all is to deliver his followers from all their fears and to take them to the High Places?’”

Much-Afraid here reassures herself that she will not be abandoned or put to shame. Putting her trust in the Shepherd, she is convinced that his strength and gentleness will prove to be her salvation and her comfort. Most importantly, she knows that she will be delivered from what most affects her (fear) and will be taken into the High Places as she was promised from the very beginning.

“She learned in this way the first important lesson on her journey upward, that if one stops to parley with Pride and listens to his poisonous suggestions and, above all, if he is allowed to lay his grasp upon any part of one, Sorrow becomes unspeakably more unbearable afterwards and anguish of heart has bitterness added to it.”

In one of the most poignant lessons offered by the allegorical personification of the passions, Pride is rejected wholeheartedly. It is not just that Pride needs to be overcome in the end, but that it is a thing that must be cut off at the root and rejected immediately. When Pride is allowed to fester or hover, it can be overwhelming, and the sorrow and bitterness that follow in its wake make it more unbearable than it otherwise would have been.

“‘No,’ said the Shepherd, ‘it is not contradiction, only postponement for the best to become possible.’”

The journey that Much-Afraid takes is not accomplished in a day; it takes a very, very long time. In light of this fact, she has to learn that her gratification is going to take time and patience; there are many times, as the Shepherd reminds her, that it will seem as though she is not making any progress or even heading in the wrong direction. Ultimately this is not the case, and any obstacle or detour along the way is directed solely to the best possible outcome.

“‘Fear not, Much-Afraid, to go down into Egypt; for I will there make of thee a great nation; I will go down with thee into Egypt; and I will also surely bring thee up again’ (Gen. 46.3).”

Much-Afraid is sent into the desert, into Egypt, as a purgation. The Shepherd assures her with the same words spoken to Jacob in the Book of Genesis, when God sent his family to Egypt to wait for the appointed time when they would again be brought out into the promised land. Much-Afraid is asked to experience the same, a time of waiting, dryness, and suffering, as a means to an end in which she is taken to the land she was promised.

“I was that woman, but am not that woman now.”

On the shores of the Sea of Loneliness, Much-Afraid looks back to where she came from in the Valley of Humiliation. Though she realizes that she still has very far to go, she also realizes that she has already been transformed to some degree, enough not to recognize herself in the person she used to be. The experience in the desert changed her, and she was not truly open and ready for a new experience or for a new thing to occur.

“She had the feeling that somehow, in the very far-off places, perhaps even in far-off ages, there would be a meaning found to all sorrow and an answer too fair and wonderful to be as yet understood.”

Having come from the desert, Much-Afraid has begun to see things in a new light. She is no longer fearful to the same extent and no longer trapped in the myopic smallness of the Valley and her former circumstances. She begins to suspect that even pain and suffering have, in the end, some part to play in the great drama of life, and she is hopeful that she will find an answer to that problem one day.

“As you have noticed, altars are built of whatever materials lie close at hand at the time.”

The altars that Much-Afraid has to build throughout the narrative appear in instances when she is thankful for something, or when she has to give something up. Much like the altars she builds, sacrifices are made in the flow of everyday life, and one can offer only what one has. The altars are evidence of the providence that Much-Afraid experiences, where she is asked to build altars (or chooses to build them herself) in particular moments, and those particular moments are providentially guided in such a way that each altar and each offering is precisely what it was meant to be.

“‘If I call him,’ shuddered Much-Afraid through chattering teeth, ‘he will tell me to build an altar, and I can’t. This time I can’t.’”

While Much-Afraid builds altars all along her journey (in imitation of Abraham, who built altars on various stops of his journey to the promised land in the Book of Genesis), there are times where she fears making an offering of herself. Each altar requires a sacrifice, and in this moment she does not want to give something up; she does not want to experience any pain. Here, Suffering pricks Much-Afraid with a knife to finally goad her into calling out for help, proving that the altar should have been built anyway, since she couldn’t avoid pain no matter what she chose.

“‘Oh, yes you do,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I know you better than you know yourself, Much-Afraid. You want it very much indeed, and I promise you these hinds’ feet.’”

The Shepherd shows just how much he knows Much-Afraid. He knows her so intimately that she knows what she wants even when she forgets or is blinded to her heart in difficult times. The Shepherd remains faithful to his promise and her original request even in moments when Much-Afraid might hesitate out of fear or doubt.

“Much-Afraid began to feel a sensation which was completely new to her, a thrill of excitement and, incredible as it seemed, of almost pleasurable adventure. Here she was, lame Much-Afraid, actually walking through the Forest of Danger and not really minding.”

Much-Afraid notices another new trait developed since she left the Village of Much Trembling: She now has an appetite for adventure. In the former times, she never would have felt such a thing, but now the adventure excites her. In the company of Sorrow and Suffering, and holding fast to the promise of the Shepherd, she can enjoy the thrill of the journey even in the midst of danger.

“During those quiet days in the midst of the raging tempest Much-Afraid came to know her two companions in a new way and also to understand more of the mountain dialect which they spoke. In some strange way she began to feel that they were becoming real friends […].”

When she first met Sorrow and Suffering, Much-Afraid was terrified of being in their company. She practically turned back from the journey before it even began due to their presence. Now, however, after many trials and much time spent together in silence and mutual support, she has come to enjoy their company and call them friends.

“‘Much-Afraid,’ said he very gently in answer to that look, ‘don’t you know by now that I never think of you as you are now but as you will be when I have brought you to the Kingdom of Love and washed you from all the stains and defilements of the journey?’”

This is one of the most profound revelations of the Shepherd in his conversations with Much-Afraid. Far from seeing her as a fearful and pathetic charity case, the Shepherd tells Much-Afraid that he sees her as she will one day be, as he will make her in the High Places. The Shepherd views her from the perspective of eternity, not from a perspective within history that sees her as she is in any one temporal moment.

“All the time it is suffering to love and sorrow to love, but it is lovely to love him in spite of this, and if I should cease to do so, I should cease to exist.”

The primacy of love is learned here, and Much-Afraid realizes that love is of infinite worth even in the midst of pain. Sorrow and suffering are inevitable, and yet they do not negate the goodness of love. The very act of loving is “lovely,” and she can just as easily stop loving as she can cease to exist.

“Love is beautiful, but it is also terrible—terrible in its determination to allow nothing blemished or unworthy to remain in the beloved.”

Love takes the beloved in the moment, as they are, because they are the beloved and are loved for their very own sake. Love does not, however, rejoice or stay complacent in the presence of that which is unworthy of the lover or the beloved. Far from accepting without judgment, love makes a judgment when something must change, and it is not content until that which is not good has been driven away for the good of the one who is loved.

“Self-giving is its life. It has only one desire, to go down and down and give itself with no reserve or holding back of any kind.”

The attainment of the High Places is not merely an end in itself for the sake of the individual alone. The gift of the High Places is also for the sake of the common good, for the sake of those upon whom the one who is loved can pour out their love on others. The flowing waters of the river of life vivify all who enter there (as Much-Afraid will find out) and demonstrate that life is meant for the sake of the gift of self.

“It is finished.”

The last words uttered by Much-Afraid are the same words uttered by Christ on the cross. Both circumstances are of sacrifice offered in love, and they are the summation of everything that Much-Afraid had to offer in her ascent into the High Places. The final act of the girl known as Much-Afraid, they are words of resignation and yet also words of trust, knowing that she accomplished all that the Shepherd asked.

“She did not think about the future at all. It was enough to be there in that quiet canyon, hidden away high up in the mountains with the river of life flowing beside her, and to rest and recover herself after the long journey.”

For the very first time in the narrative, Much-Afraid is not concerned with what lies ahead. All her previous struggles, all her striving, all her hopes and fears were always with an eye to the future, with what might be rather than with what is. Now, having bathed in the river of life, she is restored to a state intended by nature and gifted by the work of the Shepherd; here she is finally able to experience true rest for the first time.

“‘This is the time when you are to receive the fulfillment of the promises. Never am I to call you Much-Afraid again.’ At that he laughed again and said, ‘I will write upon her a new name, the name of her God. The Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly’ (Ps. 84:11). ‘This is your new name,’ he declared. ‘From henceforth you are Grace and Glory.’”

With the gift of the new name, the promise of the Shepherd is complete. Wholly transfigured, the girl will never again be Much-Afraid and will be filled with the grace and glory offered to her in the Kingdom of Love. Every good thing is now at her fingertips, and her presence in the High Places is possible because of this transformation, a reality that is both a cause and a consequence of her new condition.

“Don’t you know that everything that comes to the High Places is transformed? Since you brought us here with you, we are turned into Joy and Peace.”

Much-Afraid’s willingness to embrace Sorrow and Suffering is the means by which she is able to summit the mountains and gain entrance into the High Places, and yet it is not she alone who benefits. Her companions have been transformed as well, turning from Sorrow and Suffering into Joy and Peace. Allegorically, it is the willingness to embrace the suffering that comes with life’s trials that changes sorrow into joy and brings peace out of tribulation and strife.