Hinds’ Feet on High Places

After her encounter with Pride, Much-Afraid finds herself willing to accept help from Sorrow and Suffering more readily. It is not long before the topography around them begins to change. After turning a corner on the path they have been walking for some time, “there seemed to be nothing but desert, and endless expanse of sand dunes […] The only objects breaking the monotony of the desert were strange, towering pyramids” (43). Confused, Much-Afraid balks at the idea of going down into the desert as it seems so very contrary to her original calling into the High Places in the mountains. Calling on the Shepherd, who appears quickly, she questions him about this strange development. He responds that all is going according to plan and that “it is not contradiction, only postponement for the best to become possible” (44). Startled, Much-Afraid sinks to her knees as the Shepherd asks if her love is strong enough to accept the postponement of her heart’s desire to “go down there with [him] into the desert” (44).

Much-Afraid responds sorrowfully that for love of him she is willing, and for the first time she begins to build an altar (the first of many to come), and “with the Shepherd standing close beside her, she laid down on the alter her trembling, rebelling will” as a burnt offering (45). The only thing that remains after her sacrifice is a small, dark pebble, which she proceeds to pick up and place in a small purse that the Shepherd gives her to carry. After this incident, her fears and sorrows are momentarily assuaged as she finds that the Shepherd means to accompany her on her descent into the desert. As they go along, the Shepherd explains part of the reason that they are making this detour: “‘Much-Afraid,’ he said, ‘all of my servants on their way to the High Places have had to make this detour through the desert. It is called ‘The furnace of Egypt, and an horror of great darkness’” (46).

Walking along, Much-Afraid sees visions of many of the Shepherd’s servants of times long past: Abraham, Joseph, Sarah, and great crowds of others whom the Shepherd once led there. The next morning the Shepherd leads her into one of the pyramids, where she encounters people performing different activities on different levels of the pyramid. On one level men and women thresh grain and grind wheat into flour. On another level she encounters a potter who goes about his work, and on the final level she sees a furnace refining precious gold and jewels. The Shepherd points out: “My rarest and choicest jewels and my finest gold are those who have been refined in the furnace of Egypt” (48). At the end of her stay in the desert, after encountering no other vegetation, Much-Afraid discovers a small golden flower shooting up from a pipe of an old water tank. The little flower declares that its name is “Acceptance-with-Joy” (49), and Much-Afraid gathers a stone from the place where the flower grows and slips it into her bag with the other stone from the altar.

Leaving the desert, the companions find themselves “on the shore of a great sea” (50), the Sea of Loneliness, and the Shepherd leaves Much-Afraid with her two companions, Sorrow and Suffering. Feeling lonelier than she ever has been, Much-Afraid finds in the coming days that her companions are swift and capable helpers and that at times she is even walking without her limp. Reflecting on the events of her recent past, she is scarcely able to recognize the woman she used to be, and she even finds herself convinced that “there would be a meaning found to all sorrow and an answer too fair and wonderful to be as yet understood” (52).

Encountering a small cove, she observes it slowly being filled up with the waters of the sea, and marveling at the transformation that the water makes in the cove, she rejoices at the change, then kneels down at the edge of the cliff to build another altar. Again picking up a stone—this time “a little piece of quartz and crystal” (52-53)—she places this, too, in her small bag of mementos. Almost immediately, however, she is confronted by reinforcements sent along by her old enemies: Resentment, Bitterness, and Self-Pity, who proceed to mock and harass her for trusting in the Shepherd—“Sooner or later, he’ll put you on a cross of some sort and abandon you to it” (54), shouts Bitterness—and making this long journey with no hope of succeeding. Eventually catching Much-Afraid on her own, her four adversaries (Pride, Resentment, Bitterness, and Self-Pity) corner her and are only narrowly defeated once the Shepherd responds to Much-Afraid’s cries for help. The Shepherd casts Pride over the cliff into the waters, but Pride survives, leaving Much-Afraid to watch him slink away from above beside the Shepherd, who picks up another stone from their lookout and hands it to Much-Afraid.

Days pass, and the path eventually turns back towards the mountains. Much-Afraid runs ahead ecstatically only to encounter Bitterness once again. At once a storm appears, and the Shepherd speaks out of the storm: “Build me another altar and lay down your whole will as a burnt offering” (59). Much-Afraid obeys and sacrifices her will upon the altar, yet again finding nothing left but a small rough stone, which she collects. Continuing on the journey, she approaches the sea, which has made its way inland into the desert itself, and a large stone causeway that leads out across the water and towards a “a different kind of country altogether, a well-wooded land of hills and valleys” (60).

Singing to herself, she picks up yet another stone and crosses the stone overpass with her two faithful companions. At the same time, she finally notices that the seed of love that has been planted in her heart has begun to grow and take root, and that a replica of the golden flower she found in the desert is also growing there. Reminded of the flower’s name, Acceptance-with-Joy, she builds another altar. This time, she lays her whole heart upon it, finding one more stone to collect. Moving on and coming to the edge of the wood, she encounters the Shepherd, who gives her a message she has been longing to hear: “You are to be ready, Much-Afraid, for something new. This is the message, ‘Now shalt thou see what I will do’” (61). Much-Afraid is now ready to be taken to the High Places.