“Are you willing to be changed
completely, Much-Afraid, and to be made like the new name which you will
receive if you become a citizen in the Kingdom of Love?”
She nodded her head and then said
very earnestly, “Yes, I am.”
Again he smiled, but added gravely,
“There is still one thing more, the most important of all. No one is allowed to dwell in the Kingdom of
Love, unless they have the flower of Love already blooming in their hearts. Has Love been planted in your heart,
Much-Afraid?”
As the Shepherd said this he looked
at her very steadily and she realized that his eyes were searching into the
very depths of her heart and knew all that was there far better than she did
herself. She did not answer for a long
time, because she was not sure what to say, but she looked rather flinchingly
into the eyes which were gazing at her so penetratingly and became aware that
they had the power of reflecting what they looked upon.
She could thus really see her own
heart as he saw it, so after a long pause she answered, “I think that what is
growing there is a great longing to experience the joy of natural, human love
and to learn to love supremely one person who will love me in return. But perhaps that desire, natural and right as
it seems, is not the Love of which you are speaking?” She paused and then added honestly and almost tremblingly, “I see
the longing to be loved and admired growing in my heart, Shepherd, but I don’t
think I see the kind of Love that you are talking about, at least, nothing like
the love which I see in you.”
“Then will you let me plant the
seed of true Love there now?” asked the Shepherd “It will take you some time to develop hinds’ feet and to climb
to the High Places, and if I put the seed in your heart now it will be ready to
bloom by the time you get there.”
Much-Afraid shrank back. “I am afraid,” she said. “I have been told that if you really love
someone you give that loved one the power to hurt and pain you in a way nothing
else can.”
“That is true,” agreed the
Shepherd. “To love does mean to put
yourself into the power of the loved one and to become very vulnerable to pain,
and you are very Much-Afraid of pain, are you not?”
She nodded miserably and then said
shamefacedly, “Yes, very much afraid of it.”
“But it is so happy to love,” said
the Shepherd quietly. “It is happy to
love even if you are not loved in return.
There is pain too, certainly, but Love does not think that very
significant.”
Much-Afraid thought suddenly that
he had the most patient eyes she had ever seen.
At the same time there was
something in them that hurt her to the heart, though she could not have said
why, but she still shrank back in fear and said (bringing the words out very
quickly because somehow she was ashamed to say them), “I would never dare to
love unless I were sure of being loved in return. If I let you plant the seed of Love in my heart will you give me
the promise that I shall be loved in return?
I couldn’t bear it otherwise.”
The smile he turned on her then was
the gentlest and kindest she had ever seen, yet once again, and for the same
indefinable reason as before, it cut her to the quick “Yes,” he said, without hesitation, “I promise you, Much-Afraid,
that when the plant of Love is ready to bloom in your heart and when you are
ready to change your name, then you will be loved in return.”
A thrill of joy went through her
from head to foot. It seemed too
wonderful to be believed, but the Shepherd himself was making the promise, and
of one thing she was quite sure. He
could not lie. “Please plant Love in my
heart now,” she said faintly. Poor
little soul, she was still Much-Afraid even when promised the greatest thing in
the world.
The Shepherd put his hand in his
bosom, drew something forth, and laid it in the palm of his hand. Then he held his hand out toward
Much-Afraid. “Here is the seed of
Love,” he said.
She bent forward to look, then gave
a startled little cry and drew back.
There was indeed a seed lying in the palm of his hand, but it was shaped
exactly like a long, sharply-pointed thorn.
Much-Afraid had often noticed that the Shepherd’s hands were scarred and
wounded, but now she was that the scar in the palm of the hand held out to her
was the exact shape and size of the seed of Love lying beside it.
“The seed looks very sharp,” she said
shrinkingly. “Won’t it hurt if you put
it into my heart?”
He answered gently, “It is so sharp
that it slips in very quickly. But,
Much-Afraid, I have already warned you that Love and Pain go together, for a
time at least. If you would know Love,
you must know pain too.”
Much-Afraid looked at the thorn and
shrank from it. Then she looked at the
Shepherd’s face and repeated his words to herself. “When the seed of Love in your heart is ready to bloom, you will
be loved in return,” and a strange new courage entered into her. She suddenly stepped forward, bared her
heart, and said, “Please plant the seed here in my heart.”
His face lit up with a glad smile
and he said with a note of joy in his voice, “Now you will be able to go with
me to the High Places and be a citizen in the Kingdom of my Father.”
Then he pressed the thorn into her
heart. It was true, just as he had
said, it did cause a piercing pain, but it slipped in quickly and then,
suddenly, a sweetness she had never felt or imagined before tingled through
her. It was bittersweet, but the
sweetness was the stronger. She thought
of the Shepherd’s words, “It is so happy to love,” and her pale, sallow cheeks
suddenly glowed pink and her eyes shone.
For a moment Much-Afraid did not look afraid at all. The twisted mouth had relaxed into a happy
curve, and the shining eyes and pink cheeks made her almost beautiful.
“Thank you, thank you,” she cried,
and knelt at the Shepherd’s feet. “how
good you are. How patient you are. There is no one in the whole world as good
and kind as you. I will go with you to
the mountains. I will trust you to make
my feet like hinds’ feet, and to set me, even me, upon the High Places.”
“I am more glad even than you,”
said the Shepherd.
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