A different world

Last month I read “The Gift” by Alison Croggon. It’s a young adult novel, but detailed and interesting enough for any age (and shelved in the adult section in our city libraries) – the author has created a whole history for the lands she sets her stories in, like The Lord of the Rings backstory, but not so excessively-detailed. Her books have lovely wordings and descriptions which create pictures through their little details, and when characters relate legends and stories, it feels like you’re one of the characters listening, getting caught up in the beauty and wonder of it. “The Gift” is about a girl rescued from slavery in a remote holding by a ‘Bard’ who teaches her and believes she’s the ‘Foretold’ – someone of great power who will defeat the dark force of evil in their world that’s rising again. I really enjoyed reading it, particularly the way it describes lost civilisations and present beauties, like the noble and generous society built by the Bards and regular people working together to help each other. That reminded me of descriptions of good societies in the Book of Mormon, the City of Zion, or the Millennium. It also made me think of how Heaven must have been, when we were there before, and how it will be again, when we return. I feel like there is so much glory and beauty – not just the overwhelming kind, but gentle and generous goodness – existing in those places; but this life feels so hard and covered in smog and dirt and ordinariness that you imagine it’s how things always are and will be. Except that it’s not, although it’s all we can see and all we can really understand. So we really need to believe God when He tells us that it’s not – that our mortal lives are a period of probation and discovery, and that it’s but for a small moment, when taken in the course of our whole existence. And we really do have to believe Him, because when you try to comprehend it, it’s too vast to fit in our brains and hearts as they are now; there’s a reason we see only this world and are consumed with its immediacy – we need to concentrate and get on with our working. But it’s good to know and remember what else there is, and to look forward to what will be, for us, and what already is but which we can’t perceive.