Hinds’ Feet on High Places

The allegory of Much-Afraid’s journey to the High Places is most clear when viewed through the lens of the soul’s self-mastery of fear, doubt, and disordered passions. At the start of the narrative, Much-Afraid is completely powerless, a victim of her circumstances and a slave to the fears that dominate her life. An orphan, she has no immediate family to call her own or to protect and care for her, meaning in a certain sense she is completely alone in the world. However, she finds it necessary to live in the home of her aunt, Mrs. Dismal Forebodings, in the company of her horrid cousins Craven Fear, Gloomy, and Spiteful; surrounded by fear, spite, and related emotions, she searches for an escape and finds it in the Shepherd and the refuge of the trysting place where they meet.

On her journey Much-Afraid is forced, often against her will, to encounter the attacks of her relatives, who struggle to divert her from the path the Shepherd set her on, hurling insults at her and trying to convince her of the error of her ways. Fear, Pride, Bitterness, Self-Pity, and Resentment all make their appearance, and all in turn are rebuffed by Much-Afraid with the help of her companions, Sorrow and Suffering. As the story is an allegory, the implications are clear and present: The characters are personifications of real passions and fears that must be rejected or mastered to make progress in the spiritual life and come to a place of rest and peace. Happiness is only found once the disordered passions that assault Much-Afraid are properly ordered and brought under control.

At the end of her journey, the transformed Grace and Glory realizes that the fears that once assaulted her can be transformed themselves just as she herself was. If she need no longer be Much-Afraid, then the Fearings can themselves be assuaged and comforted with the help of the Shepherd and his servants, who come down from the High Places to pour themselves out in the gift of self. Once she fully submits her will and her natural love to the Shepherd upon the altar in the mountains and is healed by the river of life, Grace and Glory is perfectly free, and the power of the family of Fearings is undone.