The Beyond Trilogy: The Garden at the Edge of Beyond, Heaven & Beyond, and Hell & Beyond

By Michael Phillips

All three novels in the devotional author’s Christian fantasy saga inspired by the works of George MacDonald and C.S. Lewis.

The Garden at the Edge of Beyond

When a middle-aged man embarks on an enlightening and dreamlike theological journey, he awakens to a new reality—with a profound new outlook on life.

Heaven and Beyond

When a tragedy ends a man’s mortal life, his journey through eternity begins. Traveling across the realms of heaven and earth, his notions of each are turned upside down.

Hell and Beyond

A prominent atheist dies unexpectedly and goes to hell. Or so it appears . . . but nothing is what it seems in this engrossing allegorical novel about the afterlife.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jul 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9780795351464

Michael Phillips

Professor Mike Phillips has a BSc in Civil Engineering, an MSc in Environmental Management and a PhD in Coastal Processes and Geomorphology, which he has used in an interdisciplinary way to assess current challenges of living and working on the coast. He is Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research, Innovation, Enterprise and Commercialisation) at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David and also leads their Coastal and Marine Research Group. Professor Phillips' research expertise includes coastal processes, morphological change and adaptation to climate change and sea level rise, and this has informed his engagement in the policy arena. He has given many key note speeches, presented at many major international conferences and evaluated various international and national coastal research projects. Consultancy contracts include beach monitoring for the development of the Tidal Lagoon Swansea Bay, assessing beach processes and evolution at Fairbourne (one of the case studies in this book), beach replenishment issues, and techniques to monitor underwater sediment movement to inform beach management. Funded interdisciplinary research projects have included adaptation strategies in response to climate change and underwater sensor networks. He has published >100 academic articles and in 2010 organised a session on Coastal Tourism and Climate Change at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris in his role as a member of the Climate, Oceans and Security Working Group of the UNEP Global Forum on Oceans, Coasts, and Islands. He has successfully supervised many PhD students, and as well as research students in his own University, advises PhD students for overseas universities. These currently include the University of KwaZuluNatal, Durban, University of Technology, Mauritius and University of Aveiro, Portugal. Professor Phillips has been a Trustee/Director of the US Coastal Education and Research Foundation (CERF) since 2011 and he is on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Coastal Research. He is also an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Geography, University of Victoria, British Columbia and Visiting Professor at the University Centre of the Westfjords. He was an expert advisor for the Portuguese FCT Adaptaria (coastal adaptation to climate change) and Smartparks (planning marine conservation areas) projects and his contributions to coastal and ocean policies included: the Rio +20 World Summit, Global Forum on Oceans, Coasts and Islands; UNESCO; EU Maritime Spatial Planning; and Welsh Government Policy on Marine Aggregate Dredging. Past contributions to research agendas include the German Cluster of Excellence in Marine Environmental Sciences (MARUM) and the Portuguese Department of Science and Technology.

Book preview

Michael Phillips

The Beyond Trilogy

The Garden at the Edge of Beyond

Heaven and Beyond

Hell and Beyond

New York, 2018

Contents

The Garden at the Edge of Beyond

Heaven and Beyond

Hell and Beyond

The Garden at the Edge of Beyond

Michael Phillips

The Garden at the Edge of Beyond

Copyright © 1998

Michael Phillips

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

First edition 1998 by Bethany House Publishers

A division of Baker Publishing Group

Baker Publishing Group

6030 East Fulton Road

Ada, MI 49301

http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/bethanyhouse/

Electronic edition published 2015 by Bondfire Books LLC, Colorado.

Author is represented by Alive Literary Agency, 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920.

Cover jacket design by Bevan Binder

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Print ISBN: 9780764220425

E-book ISBN: 9781508082217

THE BEYOND TRILOGY

     by Michael Phillips

The Garden at the Edge of Beyond

Heaven and Beyond

Hell and Beyond

Praise for Hell and Beyond

"Michael Phillips skillfully immerses our imaginations in a detailed participation in what may be involved in ‘life after death.’ He neither defines nor explains. Instead, using fantasy as his genre, he takes us on an end run around the usual polarizing clichés regarding heaven and hell and enlists us in honest, prayerful biblical meditation. I highly recommend Hell and Beyond to anyone expecting to die, whether sooner or later."

—Eugene Peterson

Professor of Spiritual Theology

Regent College, Vancouver, B.C.

"Michael Phillips has done the impossible: written a thriller on hell. Hell and Beyond breathes the rarified air of George MacDonald’s Unspoken Sermons and Lilith, C. S. Lewis’ Till We Have Faces and The Great Divorce, and Paul Young’s The Shack and Cross Roads. If you are ready, this book can bring hope to places long buried in your tears. It is brilliant and scary, fantastic and unnerving, evangelistic and terrifying, every word drenched in undiluted love. You will find yourself longing to be healed to the roots of your soul by Jesus’ Father."

—C. Baxter Kruger, Ph.D.

Author of Across All Worlds and

The Shack Revisited

To

George MacDonald

and

C. S. Lewis,

who paved the way . . .

worthy mentors with broad shoulders.

Contents

1.      A Sleeping and a Waking

2.      A Meeting

3.      Unexpected Question

4.      The Garden Where Eyes Are Opened

5.      Many Circumstances, Same Opportunity

6.      Imagination Become Real

7.      The Bed of Tiny Moments

8.      The Blossom of Beginnings

9.      The Truth of a Thing

10.      More Surprises

11.      The Shrub of Ten, Four, and One

12.      The Universal Human Possession

13.      Blossoms Come to Life

14.      The Possible Command

15.      The Mystery of Free-Chosen Sonship

16.      The Perfect Act

17.      Blue Hedge of Relinquishment

18.      When Does Obedience Matter Most?

19.      The Highest Opportunity of Life

20.      Fragrance of Fire

21.      The Weightless Cloak

22.      Meadow of Childhood

23.      The Goal of Life

24.      The Hated Word

25.      The Spirit Not the Act

26.      An Unexpected Counselor

27.      The Odor of Cancer

28.      A New Fragrance

29.      Another Waking

30.      Looking Back . . . and Forward

Afterword

1

A Sleeping and a Waking       

The day had not been otherwise memorable, at least not as to indicate what sort of singular night would follow.

I was not a young man at the time, though certainly not so old as to consider death imminent—forty-eight to be precise. It was a good age from which to look back on one’s past with a certain maturity of years, with yet hope of many more to follow.

Thus I might have expressed the state of my existence had I given it consideration on the day in question—which I did not. I simply set head to pillow with the physical and mental satisfaction of putting another day behind and a vague awareness of the duties the morrow would press upon me. Consciousness gradually faded, as it had more than ten thousand times before. I had not the slightest doubt that an equally normal and expected waking would follow seven or eight hours hence.

I had of course from time to time reflected abstractly upon the notion of an existence on the other side of my earthly one. Never, however, had my contemplations been other than the shadowy and impersonal musings of a curious brain. Not in my most far-reaching imaginings did I suspect that on this particular night I myself would experience a taste of this life beyond my own.

Does ever a man or woman select a certain day as suitable to face the hereafter?

I certainly would not have chosen this one. I yet cherished many ambitions and goals for what I called my life. But the plans and schedules of eternity do not fall to man to determine.

When slumber overtook me, therefore, I slept as never before. When I woke, I found that all was utterly changed.

How much time (I employ the word in its former sense; in the place of my waking no such word existed, or could exist) had passed, I had not an idea. A few seconds, a few years . . . the matter was irrelevant. It was a place of neither past nor present.

Light bathed me from all sides. The wakefulness that had come to me was so intrinsically different, so thoroughly void of the haziest residue of sleep, I knew in an instant that my senses had been dramatically altered.

There was no bedroom, no house. I stood alone, as if a silent shower of brightness were tumbling over me and had awakened me of itself.

The notion of being in some eternal place did not strike me immediately. Never, in fact, had I felt so remarkably full of life. Neither did I wonder about my status or location—questions that must already occur to my reader.

I merely accepted the moment—full of light, full of health, full of wakeful energy. I can describe it in no other manner than to say I was . . . I existed . . . I felt only a profound and contented sense of be-ing.

Who was I? might be asked.

At the time I thought not to make such inquiry. I was . . . myself. For the moment, that was enough.

It would not be long before I would begin to discover how great was the metamorphosis that had been visited upon me. To call it less than a complete transformation would not convey the overwhelming realization that though I was still mindful of being me, much of what I had always considered my me-ness was suddenly gone. This had the necessary effect of raising what did remain of this me to new levels of clarity.

A caterpillar sheds its old skin that something greater than the outer garment, its true winged nature, might emerge. That mature form has all along been developing within, hidden from view. Now at once is it visible with brilliance and definition.

Such analogy did not immediately occur to me. Before long, however, it became clear that my conception of what it meant to be me was utterly distinct from that which I would have called my self-awareness upon entering my bedchamber the previous evening. I remained fully cognizant of my former self, and yet all was changed. The outer layer, that previous persona, had fallen away. Suddenly the light shone upon that which had been concealed even from my own view.

With the shedding of the old skin, I saw myself anew. Even as I say the words, I realize that this new me, like the butterfly, had been developing and growing all along, preparing and waiting for its day of awaking.

Who or what comprised the specific components of the being that now prepared to spread its wings—these questions would come soon enough, but did not raise themselves for consideration just yet.

I had heard otherworldly and out-of-body stories involving passageways of white where bright light shone in the distance. I perceived no such tunnel. What I did see—it remains vivid even now in my memory—I can scarcely formulate into the incomplete medium of words.

That there was light is certain, and, though I had no particular sensation of walking or other bodily function, I felt only an urging, a pulling, a compelling forward.

2

A Meeting       

Without emerging from this bath of luminescence, but rather as the light expanded my vision to behold more of my surroundings, I saw elements of familiarity spreading out around me. In the language of my former life, which it was now clear had been left behind, I found myself in the midst of a great meadow on the most lovely spring afternoon imaginable. These paltry expressions are grievously insufficient to convey the vibrant reality, but they will have to suffice.

It was warm and still. A thousand fragrances of blooming grasses, trees, and flowers mingled in the quiet peaceful atmosphere. Insects, birds, bees, and a variety of winged creatures flew pleasantly about, the smallest even without annoyance, contributing each in its own way to the pleasurableness of the setting. A moisture in the ground added a further sense of vitality to this place. The rich green turf—thick, springy, lush—underlay the most wonderful profusion of flowers—mostly species I had never seen, though I recognized roses of diverse colors, white and yellow daisies, giant purple irises, several shades of primrose, Freesias, and hyacinth, and glorious tulips of uncountable number—exploding out of the ground randomly and in all directions as far as the eye could see.

Such flowers they were!—larger and fuller than any on earth, as if they themselves were the reality and those I had formerly loved were but their shadows. Not petal nor leaf showed speck of brown or wilt. Every inch of every plant was radiantly alive, as if they would continue to grow larger and more abundant of life the more one drank in their beauty. Decay did not appear among the characteristics of this place.

This strange land possessed a vague familiarity, as of a homeland infinitely distant in forgotten childhood, now suddenly remembered as the place one was always meant to live.

With wondering eyes as I gazed about the seemingly infinite garden, I perceived I was not alone.

A man approached.

Instinctively I knew him. He was not dressed as any of the common images had represented him. What exactly made up his attire, I cannot remember. Dress, like time, seemed irrelevant.

I did not think to be afraid. A yet deeper contentment filled me as he approached. A smile was on his face. His arms were open to receive me in welcome. I fell into them, and he embraced me like an old friend.

I remained in his comforting arms for some time. When I finally stepped back, he reached forth his hand. His words were not what I expected to hear.

3

Unexpected Question       

Do you have something for me? came the question as I stood on the morning of my waking.

I now noticed that the hand of him who met me in the garden was extended in position of anticipation. His scarred palm was open, as if waiting for me to place something into it.

What could I possibly have? Whatever transition I had experienced since lying down in my bed the night before—wherever I was, whatever had happened—it was clear I had arrived in this place empty-handed.

I have nothing to give you, I heard my voice say.

There is one thing you have, he replied.

But I arrived here with nothing. Only myself.

"You speak truly. Your Self is indeed the thing that made the passage with you."

Is that what you want? I asked.

Of course. He nodded. It was my Father who gave it to you when he breathed life into you.

"My . . . Self?"

It was given you spotless, brimming with potential for development. I gave you opportunity to make of it something to fill him with pride and pleasure. I want to see what you have made of it, so that together we may take it to him.

"But I didn’t know I was making my Self into something that . . . you would want to see."

All things are given for that purpose. Why else would it have been given you except to be made something of? Everything returns to the Heart from which all comes. What else do you imagine your life was for?

I had no reply. I had considered my Self simply . . . who I was. The notion of my Self as a thing intrinsic to me, yet also given me to do something with, was overwhelming and new.

"I must look at it, he went on. A note of command now entered his voice. You must show me how you have shaped it, what you have filled it with. I must know what you have made it capable of."

I could only shake my head and repeat, "I . . . still didn’t realize I was making it into something."

"That was the only thing that mattered. In a million ways I told you every day to make your Self into something you could hand me on this day, humbly and without timidity. Now come, my young brother, what have you made of what you were given?"

The question was so huge in its implication that I stood as one mute. His words, though firmly insistent, were spoken in the timbre of infinite patience. Somehow I knew he did not expect an immediate reply. I instinctively realized, however, that my sojourn here would not begin in earnest until I had given satisfactory answer. To be made capable of an accurate answer, I now saw, was the first order of business in this place.

Your Self is my Father’s, he now continued. You were given it for a season. The time has now come when you must give it back—whatever its condition. The time has come for us to see what you made of that which my Father gave you.

4

The Garden Where Eyes Are Opened       

He turned and walked slowly across the expansive carpet of green. I followed at his side. We continued some distance in silence.

What is this place? I asked at length.

He took no offense at my question. Indeed, once the words were out of my mouth, it came to me that in some mysterious fashion he may himself have prompted them.

This is the Garden Where Eyes Are Opened, the Lord replied.

Am I in heaven? I said, a little timidly.

He smiled.

Perhaps, was all he gave for answer. After a brief pause, he added, It is always one of the first questions. But it cannot be answered until one’s eyes are opened.

We walked on.

But surely, this cannot be . . . hell? I said. It is too marvelous for that.

It seems beautiful, as indeed it is. But you are yet capable of beholding only the outer appearance of what you see. Much here is the fruit of your own honest-dreaming imagination. You may use other words to describe it once your eyes are opened to the truths the blossoms have to tell you.

Is this purgatory then? I asked, surprised at my own question. In my past life I had not believed in a third alternative between heaven and hell.

Varied are both the pathways and the destinations for those whom I meet in this garden, here at the edge of Beyond, he answered enigmatically. Much will be answered when your nostrils are attentive to the fragrances of the blooms. Then will your inner eyes apprehend the truths they represent.

Do both saints and sinners arrive here first, and then leave for heaven and hell later?

Everyone’s eyes must be opened, that they may see their Selves for what they are. His voice was gentle, his countenance like a mother’s caring for her child. "Thus only may they perceive what must be their final destination."

Where is mine? I asked.

When your eyes begin to open, he answered, you will know.

5

Many Circumstances, Same Opportunity       

After a minute or two, my Companion reached over and took my hand. He led me to a bush covered with large blossoms of blue, yellow, and violet, in graceful shapes and intricate shades I had never before seen. As I gazed, he bade me bend toward them.

My face drew near. The sweet, warm incense of several huge flowers gently drifted into my nostrils. Quickly it permeated my entire frame.

Now first did I perceive one of the strange wonders of this place. In my earlier existence, each of my five senses had operated according to its own unique nature. I now beheld that the new sensations with which I had been endowed functioned in complete unity and harmony, each representing the composite aspects of a single heightened intuition to which I find no other word to ascribe than knowing.

From the touch of his hand upon mine, stimulated by the scent that entered my breathing cavities, I felt the sudden rush of what I would call an inner current of light surging through my being. I cannot distinguish between the smell, the touch, the thought, the sight, even the taste of what entered and filled my senses. All became one. This light was at once fragrant, visual, sensual, intellectual. And the inner eyes of my understanding were opened to behold the truth of what the flowers were saying.

I became aware that by earthly reckonings I had come into the world of my former life with only one thing to call my own—my Self. It was not really mine, but it had been given me as a possession to use for a season.

This Self defined my potential and being, a character unformed. Upon it the events of life and my responses to them would, over the years, make a myriad of impressions. The result would give contour, shape, and distinctive individuality to a unique personhood that was mine to mold.

I saw that the infants of humanity are born into a multitude of circumstances over the globe, with different tones of skin, in varied surroundings and widely disparate conditions, in cities and villages, in countrysides and jungles. They are born rich and poor, tall and short, handsome and plain. They come to dwell in homes and slums, huts and mansions and lofty apartments. And each of these, like me, arrives upon the earth with but one possession, this gift of self, this potential personhood.

I breathed deeply of the blue and yellow and violet scent and found myself reflecting on my own particular circumstance—the family in which I had lived my early days. Seeing it now from a higher outlook, uncluttered by those factors about which I had previously fretted and complained. I found gratitude rising within me, yet also pangs that I had been unable to appreciate father, mother, and siblings in the fullness of the love with which the scentful light now filled me.

My gaze drifted to another of the blossoms. As its fragrance entered my awareness, I saw that the inhabitants of earth are given different intellectual capacity, that they grow to speak different languages and practice different religions and adopt widely distinctive beliefs.

Gratitude once more filled me that I had been counted among those privileged to learn and grow from books and teachers, authors and mentors, that I had learned to apply the powers of thought toward ends useful to humanity.

Again, as nostalgic scents on earth were capable of, the fragrance brought with it a throb of penitent realization. I saw what a gift of intelligence I had been given, yet how scantily had I turned it into the larger wisdom toward which it was intended to lead.

The stab deepened, turning into an intense longing for something now past, a desire that I had done more with what I then possessed. Much suddenly became clear, and the fragrance of that clarity stung deeply into my newly attuned senses.

I turned away, feeling a tear rise in one eye, but it was not yet time to move on. Again, therefore, I yielded to the balm of light. Compelled by the gentle prodding of the Presence at my side, I continued breathing in so that the light of knowing might expand further within me.

Already it was apparent to the new perceptions of my understanding that I had not made my Self what it might have been. I had not known it before . . . now, alas, how vivid it all became.

Who was I now? What had I become? Into what kind of self had I turned the once-virgin gift of personhood?

At last I apprehended why his approach had been with hand upturned in expectation.

Now were my eyes fully opened to the imperative relevance of his query.

6

Imagination Become Real       

We withdrew from the blossom-laden bush whose truths had been opened to me and moved farther into the Garden.

"But how have I made my Self into a different thing than it was when I was born?" I asked.

In a thousand ways, answered the Son. By every decision you made all your life.

Even the tiniest?

Especially the tiniest. They were most important of all. Every good impulse to which you yielded, every base or selfish one you resisted, every attitude you embraced or rejected, every word, every motive, every act—each registered its stamp upon your Self. All contributed to what you became.

"Do you mean I am to be held accountable for the thoughts and actions from every second of my life?"

I did not say such.

"I was always taught that you were effecting the change within me, that for me to try to change myself—"

"Ah, the irrational dread of what your theologians called works. Is that what you were about to say?"

I nodded.

A mostly groundless fear. An altogether misunderstood element of spirituality. However, this is not the time for such questions.—Come, there is someone I want you to meet. He shall explain it to you further.

I glanced up. A man walked toward us, dressed in a poorly fitting tweed suit. A bright smile overspread his round, ruddy-cheeked face. It is curious that I recall his clothes, and the fact that his hair was noticeably thin on top of his head, when the features of his countenance were as ageless as everything else about this place. I recognized the newcomer immediately, though I was but a youth when he had come here. I had never even heard of him then. I became familiar with his work only much later.

It is good to see you at last! he greeted me with a cheery voice, deep and resonant.

The baritone timbre and accent of his words could not have more melodically suited the Queen’s English. His friendly manner instantly put me at ease.

Before I realized it, we were strolling alone through the Garden, discussing a passage from a book he had written while on earth—one that had meant a great deal to me. Long before our conversation came to an end, I realized just how shallow had been my former grasp of its intended meaning.

He chuckled when I told him so. When I arrived, he said, I was as bewildered as you are now. My eyes had to be opened to a good bit. I had it all muddled up when I was down there.

He gestured off vaguely with his arm. But before I could distinguish exactly where he was pointing, he lowered his hand and continued.

"In any event, as hazily as I admit I now saw the thing, there were elements of truth in my conception—a few petals of the flower were showing, if not the entire blossom. That is why he often asks me to talk it over with new arrivals like yourself.—But, hullo, here it comes again! . . . I say, watch yourself!"

Suddenly I found my feet knocked out from under me by what felt like an enormous earthquake. Sprawling flat on the grass, I glanced up at my companion. He stood on both feet, perfectly balanced, eyes aglow and reveling in whatever it was that had just set the ground to trembling. I tried to regain my footing, but the grass underneath us had changed. It was even softer than before, wavy and uneven.

I’m sorry, he said, though no remorse registered in his tone, only delight. I’m afraid that was partially my fault. Many of the imaginary things on earth—or Perelandra,¹ for that matter!— he added, chuckling, are the reality up here.—But watch out! Here comes another.

I followed his gaze and beheld coming toward us a rolling undulation of the grassy terrain. The whole expanse, which I had assumed to be solid, appeared as a thin grassy carpet spread over a great sea, whose surface had suddenly been troubled into an ongoing sequence of surging waves.

A little frightened, I admit, I watched a grassy swell rapidly approach. Again I was thrown from my feet and dashed to the ground. Far from feeling the slightest pain, however, I found the fall so pleasurable it made me giggle like a child.

My face found itself buried in grass. I lay breathing in a curiously delightful smell, then slowly rolled over onto my back to gaze up at the blue roof of sky. The next wave came as I lay, lifting me onto its crest, then sent me rolling down the newly created valley of the other side. Now indeed did I laugh. Nothing had delighted me more as a child than to tumble out of control down a lush green hillside in spring.

The grass-waves came rapidly now and in earnest, one after the other. I groped to my feet and managed a few steps with the steadying hand of my companion. Walking a short distance seemed to take hours, with what must have been hundreds of pleasant falls between. How long this rising and sinking, walking and falling, went on I cannot say. By and by, the height and frequency of the waves began to subside.

What do you mean when you say this is your fault? I asked at length. I’m afraid I don’t understand you.

I once imagined a place, he explained, where the land floated on a great celestial sea. Here, my imaginings turned out more real than I knew, although I am reasonably certain the waves come only when I am called upon to help someone through a portion of these proemial regions. He is like that, you know.

Like what?

"Eager to give pleasure whenever possible. He knows the waves give me pleasure, so often they come when I am here."

Is there no other reason for them?

"There are always multiple purposes. Everything with him has many levels of usefulness toward the opening of eyes."

What can the waves mean?

"I do not yet know all. But of one thing the waves make me certain—that he gave us imagination—before, you know, in our former lives back there—to point us toward realities we would eventually discover here. It is true with him and his Father—our Father, too, of course—most of all. As a close friend of ours says, we shall not be capable of imagining him more wonderful than he is."

Is that true?

Of course! Imagination points to reality. God gave us our imaginations as well as our wills for his glory. But true reality is by definition far greater than imagined reality. So if we have been able to imagine him good, think how good he truly must be—with greater goodness than we can imagine!

Does everyone who comes here learn about imagination from the waves?

"A waving, watery ground came from my imagination. Thus, he has used it to show me truth—and you as well, because your imagination was stimulated by mine. Each must apprehend the Father’s goodness by experiencing the reality of his or her own highest imaginings. Your highest imaginings had to do with growing things, and so you have found here that the scents of the garden are teaching you truth. For each, the introduction to Life on this side of the door is different. I daresay you will have some thrills of your own equal to what I felt the first time I felt the ground swell and begin to rise and fall under my own feet!"

But you say the waves do not always come when you are here?

He shook his head.

He is still Master of the place, my English companion replied. What suits his purposes with every new arrival is unique. Whatever will contribute to deeper and further vision, that he does.

---

¹The reference is to C. S. Lewis’s Perelandra (New York: Macmillan, 1944), in which the planet Venus is fictionally depicted (chap. 3) with islands of land floating on a wavy sea.

7

The Bed of Tiny Moments       

A few more undulations passed under our feet.

As they receded and the grassy expanse returned to its former solidity, I must admit to a slight disappointment. The attempt to keep upright, arms outstretched, knees bent in readiness for the next wave, had been exhilarating. It had required a whole new method of movement. As I reflected upon the experience, I saw the truth to which it pointed—that in this place one must learn to walk as well as to see anew.

The ground settled itself again, and we continued casually down a pathway between giant irises whose graceful blossoms were the size of cabbages.

—Ah, here we are, at one of my favorite spots! exclaimed my English guide after another moment or two.

He left the path and led me across the luxuriant turf into an expansive profusion of the tiniest flowers imaginable. At first I hardly noticed them spreading out underfoot. In fact, we had walked some distance into the middle of the bed before I beheld the tiny things—resembling little lawn violets and violas, buttercups and forget-me-nots—spreading out from us in every direction for what seemed at least two hundred feet. Every color of the rainbow was represented. There were, it appeared, millions of individual flowers, each beautiful in its own way. All together, they carpeted the meadow with a continuous sea of subtle color.

My companion threw himself to his knees in obvious pleasure, appearing surprisingly agile for one with such a bulky frame. The childlike joy that shone on his face was equal to that caused by the swelling ripples.

Take a whiff of this! he exclaimed, then bent down and buried his face in the mixture of grass and color.

Following his example, I knelt down. But if these millions of tiny wonders possessed an aroma, it was clearly not as strong as the one I had smelt before. As yet I detected nothing.

He glanced at me, wondering at my timidity.

You must get closer, he said. You cannot smell them from way up there. Each possesses a subtlety of fragrance all its own.

I bent low to the ground. A sweet smell, indescribable and tangy, greeted me. Before I could thoroughly enjoy it, however, another stung my nostrils, this one bitter and putrid.

Ugh! I exclaimed, jerking my head up in alarm. Has this ground just been fertilized! What was that stench?

My companion turned in mild surprise.

My apologies, he said. In my enthusiasm I forgot to warn you. One’s initial visit here is not so pleasant as those which follow.

Don’t you smell it? I asked, wrinkling my nose.

I love the Bed of Tiny Moments more and more each time I come, he replied.

Does one get used to the ill-smelling ones? I asked. Which color are they, by the way? I’ll try to avoid them?

"Ha, ha! sounded a great roar of laughter. Avoid them? he exclaimed. However could you right the foul smells by doing that?"

Right them?

Of course. All must be made right, whole, pure.

Even a smell like that?

Certainly. I have not merely learned to endure the smell, I have turned my sour and acrid ones into fragrant perfumes. They could not now be more pleasant to my senses. Didn’t he explain that?

I don’t know. I don’t think so.

"This is the most personal flower bed in all your garden. I am smelling and gazing upon my tiny moments; you have senses only to perceive your own. So it is with all the flowers in the Garden. Each detects what he or she is meant to smell. The aromas given are for the opening of that person’s eyes, no one else’s. Not every truth is for everyone to know at the same moment."

Truth . . . what truth?

"The fragrances are the truths. Surely you have grasped that."

Yes . . . I see, I replied softly, though I but faintly understood. As we knelt in the midst of what he had called the Bed of Tiny Moments, a sense of introspection came over me from the multitude of fragrances, both sweet and sour, that wafted upward.

Again they caused an inner light to invade me. As we talked, my English friend helped me to understand what the multitude of flowers was saying.

Your inner essence, that thing you call your Self, is constantly being changed, he said. "So it is for all men and women. Most unthinkingly form patterns of thought and behavior, attitude and motive, that inflict untold damage on their inner characters. When they arrive here, they are shocked when suddenly the Self they fashioned becomes vivid to their newly opened eyes."

Are you speaking of personality? I asked.

Not exactly, he replied. Though, of course, the two are related.

Soul?

He shook his head.

That is a more spiritual matter, he said. Those blossoms, I should think, won’t be given you to smell for some time. All these elements of personhood are related, but the lesson of the Bed of Tiny Moments is not primarily a spiritual one.

What is the Self then?

"I used to call it every man’s and woman’s central thing.² The most intrinsic part of their being, the part of them distinct from all others that made choices and formed attitudes—that central being with which each of us formed the character that defined the individual we called I. It was that central Self we were given at birth to make something of."

"And how did we make of it whatever it became?"

"By the millions of tiny moments, the ones whose realities are filling you now. Some are pleasant, others bitter. What you smell here is the composite aroma of your character, your Self."

But how? I asked again.

"Every time you made a choice, however small, you turned the central, innermost part of you into something slightly different than it was before—either more in love with itself or more committed to the service of others, more desirous of gratifying its own hungers or more eager to lay them aside, more intent to feed its independence or looking instead for opportunities to yield that independence to him who made you, more satisfied to put itself first or ever in search for ways to subserve itself to others."

Every tiny choice surely can’t have such major consequences.

"Oh, can’t they! Add up a million such choices and look at the progress in one direction or another. Each choice or attitude made an invisible mark on the central you that made it easier and more likely for you to respond in a similar way the next time. Every choice you made planted one of these little flowers. Haven’t you realized yet? These millions of blossoms are your choices. Their smell is a reflection of your motive and attitude when you made them. Look at the whole carpet spread out before you, he added. All taken together, it is a vision of who you are."

I sat gazing at the bed around me, hardly able to comprehend that it represented the character I had shaped within me. I had planted all these blossoms myself! It was my own personal Bed of Tiny Moments!

It is not the bigness or smallness of the thought or action that matters, he went on, but rather the little mark it makes upon the tiny central Self.

I pondered his words as the subtle fragrances of the tiny blooms spoke to my understanding. The Englishman sat silent also, allowing the words and the aromas to accomplish their work.

I saw that outer events had not significantly changed my Self. Neither had my intelligence, nor my worldly success, nor the material things I had accumulated, nor the good I may have flattered myself I had done. Possession, influence, vocation, fame—none of these things affected the Self. The poor, the rich, the intelligent, the slow, the powerful, the insignificant—all possess like opportunity to use their moments to turn the central thing of character into a bed of radiant beauty and heavenly fragrance or to squander these same moments with self-gratifying choices that cast off a stench rather than a perfume.

And now the revelation came that neither does religion nor belief nor creed necessarily dictate the aroma of one’s Bed of Tiny Moments. My companion sensed my thought and spoke.

You and I made changes to our Selves, he said, as you have realized, independent of religious creed. You shall be led to the flowers of that part of the Garden in due time. But the changes we made to the Self were at a deeper level, undergirding belief, not necessarily emerging out of it—at the level of choice and motive.

I nodded. At last I was ready to allow the expansive flower bed to deepen its revelation.

My escort sensed that the need for his services had passed. He slowly rose and walked away. No more words were spoken. Words seemed less necessary here, where knowing came intuitively. I did not grieve to see him go. I knew I would see him again.

After some time I rose and began to amble aimlessly through the flower bed, breathing deeply of its many-scented perfumes. Now that I understood its secrets, the smells were not difficult to detect. No longer did I have to bend low to the ground.

Nor did I disdain the unpleasant odors that came my way, intermingled with the sweet, I was eager for them to accomplish their work in me. Now that I understood, I wanted them all, though the fragrances in some parts of the bed drew tears from my eyes.

It was a solitary afternoon—though to say the word implies a sequence of time unpresent throughout the experience. It felt like a solitary afternoon, though without the anticipation of an approach of evening. Thus when I found myself drawing near the far edge of the Bed of Tiny Moments, where thinned the profusion of blooms at my feet, it was no later in the day than when I began.

I looked up and saw another striding toward me over a rise. Him too I recognized instantly. I could not prevent myself from breaking into a hurried gait to meet him.

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²For this reference and others throughout this chapter, see Lewis’s Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1943), book 3, chap. 4.

8

The Blossom of Beginnings       

I did not require the Scottish accent, softened with English and continental influences, nor the beard—black now rather than the white with which I was accustomed to visualizing the revered face—to identify the man approaching. I would have known him anywhere. He was the writer whose thoughts and words had inspired and guided my own literary endeavors.

Ho, young man! he called, then greeting me by name while some distance yet lay between us. Would you care to accompany a fellow pilgrim to see what we might discover together?

With pleasure! I rejoined, hardly realizing until the words were out of my mouth that the reply was one I had learned from him.

We met, clasped hands, and the gaze he sent into my eyes signified unspoken worlds that all was well, and would be well. I knew in that instant that we had been friends, as I had felt we were, for many years.

But how strange for him to call me young man! Though by earthly reckonings he was more than a hundred years my elder, he appeared fit and trim and vigorous—surely not a day over forty—while I was, or had been on the previous day, forty-eight.

Everything, it seemed, was topsy-turvy