Robert Falconer: Chapters 26 - 33
This week’s reading shows how the various experiences of Robert’s life–both joyous and painful, all contribute to his spiritual becoming. After his emotions are exhilarated by his entering Mary St. John’s room and receiving her instructions on the piano, they are crushed by the horrifying discovery that his grannie had the passage to Mary’s room walled over, so that he no longer could access those blissful sessions. Both experiences contribute to his growth.
Robert decides to cast himself upon God in prayer–in his mind the God that his grannie serves.. But his agonizing seems in vain, and he says in his heart that he does not want God to love him if he does not love everybody. (This is lifted directly from MacDonald’s own experience, for he as a child had made the same declaration.) Despairing because God does not seem to him to be answering, he decides to visit Double Sandy.
He finds the shoemaker suffering from a stroke. Convinced he is dying, the shoemaker gives Robert his violin. Robert helps the shoemaker’s wife put him in bed, then determines to return periodically and play the fiddle for the shoemaker’s comfort. He then goes back to his home to find that Mr Innes, the schoolmaster visiting and urging that Mrs. Falconer send Robert to college. Exulted by the prospect, Robert gives himself to Latin studies.
The altruistic deed of Robert’s playing the violin for Double Sandy each evening greatly fosters his inner growth. After the shoemaker dies, Robert makes a great sacrifice by taking the violin bequeathed him and having it sold, so that he can give the money to the shoemaker’s wife, somewhat relieving her poverty. The act marks an important milestone in Robert’s own spiritual maturing.
Robert sets out for college at Aberdeen, using the Lammie’s farm as his base. One of the fascinating strengths of MacDonald’s writing is the manner in which he shows how a character’s perceptions of nature and reactions to it fortify his sense of the presence of God in all things. Chapter 30, entitled Aberdeen, is a good example of this. He remarks: “. . . become more pure in heart, and thou shalt see God, whose vision alone is life.” Such perceptions are reality for the truly dedicated Christian. A person should be open to seeing the presence of God in nature and in life.
A person wonders how much of Robert’s experiences reflect MacDonald’s own. When as a young man he left Huntly and, like Robert, entered a preparatory school in Aberdeen, with the intention of earning a bursary and entering college there. The biographies give accounts in some details very like Robert’s. But in Robert MacDonald is creating a model of how he conceives God works in people’s lives without their being particularly aware of it. He writes:
He seemed . . . quite unaware of anything worthy of his conduct. The good he did sprang from inward necessity, with just enough in it of the salt of choice to keep it from losing its savour, yet without any conscious exercise of religious motive. In another way, however, religion had everything to do with it. Robert had not yet found in God a reason for being true to his fellows. But if God was leading him to ble the man he became, how could any good results of this be anything other than God-inspired? All good is of God. . . . .
The passage continues to reveal so much of MacDonald’s thinking as he creates characters in his novels. The Spirit of God works in people’s lives quite without their being aware of it.
ANY THOUGHTS?
Comments
Something about Shargar's presence outside Robert's door during the bleak season captivates me. GMacD draws his appearance as if he were a candle, pale and waxy and thin but topped with a burning crown. I love it in part because it shows the importance of relationship and love, and how provision sometimes is unseen and yet still effectual, and how sometimes our loneliness has more to do with what we are willing to receive than what is available to us.
All things work together for good. . . and so even if Robert might have found comfort in the companionship of Shargar had he been willing to receive it, still the winter his soul went through brought round the spring. One place we see this is his jump in his ability to answer his Grannie's joyless theology. GMacD somehow conveys humor and respect in the exchange:
'Whaur hae ye been, Robert?' asked Mrs. Falconer.
'At Dooble Sanny's,' answered the boy.
'What hae ye been at there?'
'Helpin' him till 's bed.'
'What's come ower him?'
'A stroke.'
'That's what comes o' playin' the fiddle.'
'I never heard o' a stroke comin' frae a fiddle, grannie. It comes oot o' a clood whiles. Gin he had hauden till 's fiddle, he wad hae been playin' her the nicht, in place o' 's airm lyin' at 's side like a lang lingel (ligneul—shoemaker's thread).'
'Hm!' said his grandmother, concealing her indignation at this freedom of speech, 'ye dinna believe in God's judgments!'
'Nae upo' fiddles,' returned Robert.
Robert is gradually growing, his earnest sincerity and honesty providing fertile soil in which the Spirit of God enables truer perceptions to dawn upon him. He is gradually becoming aware of the misconceptions in his grandmother’s theology, yet he loves her, and his response here, humorous as it is, reveals much about both his character and his growth.