This is a fairy story from Andrew Lang’s Violet Fairy Book. I read it with my daughter. It is about a young man who wanted to have his eyes opened so that he might see the things ‘that took place under the cover of night which mortal eyes never saw.’ He found a wizard who could open his eyes. The wizard warned against it. I’m not retelling the story, just giving the gist.
With open eyes he saw the wood-nymphs dancing in the forest. He was never the same. He longed to see them again, but never did. ‘He thought about them night and day, and ceased to care about anything else in the world, and was sick to the end of his life with longing for that beautiful vision. And that was the way he learned that the wizard had spoken truly when he said,”Blindness is man’s highest good.”‘
Quite a stirring thought. As a Christian I can’t help but thinking of the ‘Beatific Vision.’ My theology here is highly questionable, but it made me think: God said to Moses, ‘You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live’ (Ex. 33:20). Is it that a man who saw God’s face (his full-orbed glory) would literally die from the sheer awesomeness of the vision which no man is capable of handling – a spiritual heart-attack, if you will – or is it that he would no longer be capable of carrying on with life (as we know it) after having seen such glory? After all, Exodus 33:20 could quite literally be translated, ‘Man shall not see me and recover.’
And so, ‘We see in a mirror, dimly’ (1 Cor. 13:12). And sometimes it is overwhelming as it is:
God’s people do not always know the greatness of his love to them. Sometimes, however, it is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. Some of us know at times what it is to be almost too happy to live! The love of God has been so overpoweringly experienced by us on some occasions, that we have almost had to ask for a stay of the delight because we could not endure any more. If the glory had not been veiled a little, we should have died of excess of rapture, or happiness. Beloved, God has wondrous ways of opening his people’s hearts to the manifestation of his grace. He can pour in, not now and then a drop of his love, but great and mighty stream (C.H. Spurgeon, from his sermon, Prodigal Love for the Prodigal Son).
