A Leaf

 A couple of weeks ago, I read “The Leaf by Niggle” aloud to five-year old Felicity. Since I was teaching on the story a few days later, I counted my inspiration to read-aloud as a double win towards homeschooling and teaching prep. Didn’t know that my five-year-old, would once again teach me. 

 

Tolkien’s short story follows the life of a Niggle, a painter, who envisions a glorious tree, but only manages to paint leaves, a paltry homage to his vision. About half-way through the story Niggle is sent on a journey, presumably death. After some time in a dismal hospital and workhouse, a train takes him to a familiar green space. As he wanders, wonderingly, he discovers it. The tree. His tree.

 

Felicity turned to me as I read and she said with the joy of discovery in her voice, 

 

“Mommy! Did God make his tree real?”

 

“Yes, Felicity. Yes, that is it. That is exactly it.” 

 

Tolkien and Lewis both thought that fairy-tales and myths, those bearers of reality, could be understood by children—it was strange to experience their philosophy while sitting next to my daughter. But I shouldn’t have been surprised. They, as men of faith, approached their theory of story via the biblical admonition of Christ, “Let the little children come to me for such is the kingdom of heaven.”  

 

Which brings to mind another author, Dostoevsky. My first acquaintanceship with Dostoevsky happened junior year of college when I was required to read Anna Karenina and Brother’s Karamazov back to back. If you are unfamiliar with these books, they are long! Hundreds and hundreds of pages long. 

 

While my comprehension of both books left something to be desired, the imagine of Alyosha, the main character of The Brother’s Karamozov, playing with children stayed with me—along with the conviction that Alyosha represents something unique in literature. Well, unique until this past week when I finished The Idiot, another novel by Dostoevsky. 

 

Somehow Dostoevsky wrote two characters, possessing the ability to “love their neighbor” combined with the innocence and candor of children. You know the candor that lacks a filter. Like how as I sit her typing this essay, Felicity informs me that the deer ate Oma’s flowers. “Silly deer,” was her judgment. Now she rests quietly again in her bed and I think again about these two characters who possessed childlike candor, and more strikingly, the ability to actually love. Much is said about love nowadays, and in contemporary discourse “to love” is to be accepting of almost all behavior. The greatest virtue is to love and the greatest vice is to judge. To be judgmental is to be the opposite of loving. But what Dostoevsky managed to do was bring to life two characters who both possessed the singular ability to enable acquaintances, relations, and friends to simultaneously feel wholly accepted and wholly judged. Let me explain, because in these two men a seemingly impossible balance is struck between love and judgment. The Idiot knows that his friend wants to kill him, and that the friend will even attempt murder. The friend knows that The Idiot knows this fact, and yet the friend cannot resist the fact that The Idiot hopes the friend will choose better. All of this happens without any direct conversation. 

 

 Oh, to be such that one’s love for others points to what’s real without needing to use words. 

 

I think again of sitting next to my daughter as I read—I didn’t know to what extent she listened, because she wiggled, and leaned against me, and moved her fingers across the couch. But she also had moments when she sat still. “Mommy, did God make the tree real?” Niggle could only make one leaf from his glorious vision. 

 

I’m a Christian and as a such I am given a mandate to love my neighbor. I’m given a vision of love. Perhaps someday my paltry attempts to love will also be made real. Maybe someday my leaves will also be made a tree. 

 

For now, I attend to the chatter of my littlest daughter, Emmaline— “mamamama.” She knows when she lifts her little arms towards me, that I will lift her up.