LABELS

I still chuckle over certain scenes from the 1965 film, “The Sound of Music,” featuring an inexperienced but perceptive novice-turned nanny, “Maria,” played by Julie Andrews. She's come to the mansion of a widowed military captain and his seven children, who are are summoned (by military whistle) to line up like soldiers, by age, to meet her. 

One by one, they step forward to announce their name, plus the behavioral labels either their father or previous nanny had given them.(1) One of the boys says, I”m Friedrich and I'm impossible.” Another says, “I'm Kurt, I'm eleven and I'm incorrigible.” Then he asks the new nanny, “What does 'incorrigible' mean?” The new nanny replies that it's a term for “someone who wants to be treated as a boy.”

In viewing that movie clip recently (oh, the warm fuzzy memories of that film) I found myself remembering labels others gave me. Graduating high school in the top ten of my class, I glowed under the labels of “scholar” and “concert-mistress of the orchestra.” As the years progressed, with more education and jobs, I was encouraged and motivated by those who recognized my passions, hard work, and desire to work as a “team member” in the company or academic setting.

But God wasn't finished with me. He led me into other chapters of life around people who couldn't push past life's difficult places, and who unfairly blamed others for their failures and unhappiness. I wearied from dealing with their anger issues and blaming behaviors. These trials also pushed me closer to my Heavenly Father, Who knew my heart and also heard my continuing prayers for such people. His Spirit's role as “Comforter” became more real.

This topic has recently returned to my heart as I re-read a classic Christian “journey” book. Most people know about John Bunyan's allegory, “Pilgrim's Progress” (first published 1678) and its main character's refining trials on the journey to the “Celestial City” (Heaven). The book I read, Hinds' Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard (copyright 1955), is much like it. The main character named “Much Afraid” journeys through danger and hard terrain to the “High Place” that is an analogy for Heaven. “Much Afraid” doesn't travel alone, but with two companions named “Sorrow” and “Suffering.” After she reaches the summit, conquering her many fears, she returns to her valley of service, transformed by her trials and now given a new name by her loving Shepherd.

As you might guess, the Shepherd is symbolic of the Lord Jesus, and her journey up the mountain (to grow in faith through trials) is simply preparation to return to her valley in service to Him.

If you've never read these books, consider doing so. Allegories about the Christian walk are powerful teachers—and incentives for our own “pilgrim's progress” which may push us onward through the tedious spiritual journey of “this world” to the heaven-pointing “High Places” closer to God. It's what turns “incorrigible” into the “possible” of a mature relationship with God. To a someday celestial scene where we can step forward and say, “I'm (name), and I am beloved in His sight.”

Speaking of names, don't forget the golden clue Revelation 2:17 gives us about names in Heaven: “To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone with a new name written on it, which no one knows except the one who receives it.”

By the way, the main character of Hinds' Feet on High Places, at the end of the book is given a new name. No longer known as “Much Afraid,” she becomes “Grace and Glory.” How fitting, How beautiful.

(1) Enjoy this memorable “Sound of Music” movie scene again online: Bing Videos

The Transformation of "Much Afraid"

Hurnard's allegory frequently mentions falls, leading me to share this late 1980s

family photo showing falls at Rainy Lake in Washington's North Cascades.

My children  (pictured with their dad) are adults and parents of their own children.

How would you like to be named “Much-Afraid” and feel stuck in your negative life? So starts one of the lesser-known Christian allegories titled, Hinds’ Feet in High Places.  I recently re-read my copy of the 1955 work by Hannah Hurnard, who spent most of her life in missionary work in the Holy Land. Hinds' Feet is counter-cultural to a world that promotes the idea of “upward mobility" in social class, wealth and status. Instead, like another recently revived Christian novel (What Would Jesus Do?—remember WWJD?), it promotes “downward nobility,” moving “down” to the high example of Christ’s servanthood.

Hurnard’s book title comes from the concluding verses of the Old Testament “minor prophet” Habakkuk, who lived in perilous times as his nation fell apart:

The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer [hind].  He enables me to go on the heights. (3:19)

Like John Bunyan’s allegory “Pilgrim’s Progress,” Hinds’ Feet is a journey metaphor. The main character is an orphan from the “Family of Fearlings” named “Much Afraid,” who had crooked feet (probably “clubbed” in today’s terms) and a disfigured face with a “crooked mouth.” She was being raised by her aunt, “Mrs. Dismal Forebodings,” along with her two cousins, sisters “Gloomy” and “Spiteful” and their brother “Craven Fear,” a bully. But she yearns to be near the kind “Chief Shepherd” (Jesus) of the nearby mountain. When faced with an arranged marriage to “Craven Fear,” she flees the dark and gloomy hamlet of “Much-Trembling” in search of the Shepherd. During her long and treacherous climb to “spiritual high places,” constantly taunted by evil faces of her old life in the valley, she learns deepening trust in the Shepherd.  Finally, she is healed and her name changed to “Grace and Glory.”

The names given places and characters lend deep symbolism to this classic book. They also reflect Hurnard’s personal story. She once stammered and had many fears, and described her “old self” as “a miserable, morbid, self-centered person who never felt love for anyone, shut up to my own torment.” But Hurnard’s spiritual life was transformed after attending the evangelistic “Keswick convention” meetings of her times. She became a missionary and an author, leaving a legacy of hope and trust that rose above her old pain and fear.

Talk about coincidence: As I finished

writing this blog in April, I looked

at my desk-side calendar and realized

its photo was a breathtaking falls

Much of her inspiration for this allegory came from her trips to the mountains of Switzerland, where she especially reveled in the thundering, dizzying mountain waterfalls. Through such splendid scenes, she said, God taught her that “love’s eternal, ecstatic joy [comes in] ceaseless, blissful giving.” For her, these alpine falls symbolized how Christians share the ever-flowing love of God:

1. Humility: “The pouring of oneself down lower and lower in self-effacement and self-denial.”

2. Giving: “The poured out life gives life and power to others.  The more love gives, the more it fulfills itself,”

3. Service: The water plunging over falls eventually nourishes crops or is turned into electricity. Similarly, true Christian love is “utterly abandoned to the goal of giving oneself to others.” *

Or, as the apostle Peter said, quoting Proverbs 3:34: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (1 Peter 5:5).

Have any of you who visit this column read Hinds Feet on High Places? I’d love to hear from you in the comments section.

*Hannah Hurnard, Hinds’ Feet On High Places (Wheaton: Tyndale/Living Books, 1975), p.259.