George McDonald, pastor, poet, author

One of many Kauai favorites. I love photographing Laura while she explores ahead of me.

This summer I traveled around with a copy of George McDonald's Unspoken Sermons and used them as devotional reading. I am now reading a Biography of his life. Known to few today, his writing was a great influence on two of my spiritual mentors, C.S. Lewis and J.R.Tolkien. Walking through his life from the distance of 150 years allows you to see what influences surrounded him. It was Scottish Calvinism of John Knox heritage that, along with Victorian England had created a very legalistic and religiously narrow society and culture.

Seeing the way in which his mind and heart developed and allowed him to think independently of the majority report has been an encouragement to me, who, thank God, have always been a bit of a non conformist, if only in the smallest ways. Not for the sake of being different, I hope, but for the sake of the truth, which must be carried from one generation to another. Test all things, hold fast to that which is true.