 Howard Pyle, Title Page for "The Wonder Clock" “We need not be at the pains to discriminate, in teaching children Bible narratives, between essential and accidental truth––the truth which interprets our own lives, and that which concerns only the time, place, and circumstances proper to the narrative. The children themselves will discern and keep fast hold of the essential, while the merely accidental slips from their memory as from ours.” * “What shall we say of fable, poetry, romance, the whole realm of fiction? There are two sorts of Truth. What we may call accidental Truth; that is, that such and such a thing came to pass in a certain place at a certain hour on a certain day; and this is the sort of Truth we have to observe in our general talk. The other, the Truth of Art, is what we may call essential Truth; that for example, given such and such a character, he must needs have thought and acted in such and such a way, with such and such consequences; given, a certain aspect of nature, and the poet will receive from it such and such ideas; or, certain things of common life, as a dog with a bone, for example, will presents themselves to the thinker as fables, illustrating some of the happenings of life. This sort of fiction is of enormous value to us, whether we find it in poetry or romance (i.e.novels); it teaches us morals and manners; what to do in given circumstances; what will happen if we behave in a certain way. It shows how, what seems a little venial fault is often followed by dreadful consequences, and our eyes are opened to see that it not little or venial but is a deep-seated fault of character; some selfishness, shallowness, or deceitfulness upon which a man or woman makes shipwreck. We cannot learn these things except through what is called fiction, or from the bitter experience of life, from the penalties of our writers of fiction do their best to spare us.” * “Nothing was more remote from my thought at this period ( i.e. his childhood) than theological speculation—except for Greene’s (Graham), these books were all childhood or early boyhood reading—but certain patterns were set, certain rooms were made ready, so that when, years later, I came upon Saint Paul for the first time and heard him say, “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are,” I had the feeling that I knew something of what he was talking about. Something of the divine comedy that we are all of us involved in. Something of grace.” ~ Frederick Buechner Examen: What am I doing about my need for literature? Where have I been aware recently of truth that "interprets my life?" Am I hung up on accidental truth anywhere? ~~~~~~~ We need not: Charlotte M. Mason, Home Education, 1:251. What shall we: Charlotte M. Mason, Ourselves, 4:160 Bk.I. Nothing was more: Frederick Buechner, Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations with Frederick Buechner, First Edition (HarperOne, 1992), 192. Day 77 Essential Truths meditation/100 days copyright Laurie Bestvater 2025
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