The Nature of a Lady

Love really was like a bird. You didn’t know where it might settle, or where. You couldn’t tame it, couldn’t force it. Couldn’t often predict it. You could call and call for it and never would it flutter down. Then, at the most unexpected time, in the most unexpected place, it was there.

But how sins could be forgiven, how Jesus could have taken them upon himself with death and then come to life again, how they could somehow partake of a world beyond the physical one she so loved…those were the things that belonged to faith. Those were the things science couldn’t explain, and didn’t need to.

Because it's by naming a thing, knowing a thing, that you come to understand it. Only when you see its unique traits can you truly appreciate what it is, and what it isn't.

How lovely it must be to know your place in the world without ever having to think about it.

The islands know your names they know all of us who love them.

Everyone in the Scillies knew that when Oliver Tremayne took hold of your arm and looked deep into your eyes, he saw right down to your soul.

We see only in part. But there is more. More to this physical world that your magnifying lenses can show you. And more still beyond it that we need a spiritual lens to see.

It’s you that see people, Oliver. Sees them truly, sees them clearly. Sees them with purpose—and that purpose is to care.

He knows your name. Not Libby, not Elizabeth Sinclair. Your true name, the one at the heart of you that has never been spoken. He knows you, and He calls you by it. You, in all your uniqueness. You, in all that makes you different from others. You, in all that you have in common with them. He knows you, and He calls you by name. He knows how you fit into this world.

Isn’t it tiring, being such a blighter all the time?

He can whisper the future to His prophets. He can send and heal plagues. He can raise the dead.

When we stay, it’s because the islands know our names, and they whisper them to us on the wind.

That the lens of the spirit was to faith what her microscope was to the world-that was a thought that brought unspeakable peace to her mind. More, it was one that made her crave both lenses-the physical and the spiritual.

You're fretting, Ollie. What does the Good Book say about that? Somehow, it's always easier to quote those passages for another than live it for myself.

That’s my sister. Abbie, I mean. Not the pug.

My sweet Libby. You’re not alone. You’re never alone.

The seed may be the plant only in potential, but without it, there would be no plant at all.

Well, if you’re giving me a choice—I’ll take the flirting.

The morning air carried a chill in it that Libby hadn't anticipated, but one that made her smile even as she suppressed a shiver. Sunlight, soft as a kiss, shot the mist through with gold, encircling the island with a promise of another beautiful day.

Names...they matter to us. They shape our souls in ways I've never fully understood. But have you pondered the power of them?

I think....I could spend the rest of my life here and never miss the mainland for a moment." Only when [Libby] spoke the words did she realize how true they were. Perhaps it was a strange sentiment, given how much of the week had been spent indoors hiding from the rain. But every time she'd stepped outside, be it to the beach or into charming little Hugh Town, or onto the boat that had ferried them from St. Mary's to Tresco this morning, that same sense of contentment had overtaken her.

He knows your name...Your true name, the one at the heart of you that has never been spoken. He knows you, and He calls you by it. You, in all your uniqueness. You, in everything that differentiates you from others. You, in all you have in common with them. He knows you, and He alls you by name. He knows how you fit into this world.

He just wanted to get to know her better, from the inside out. He wanted the right to slide his fingers down her arm and weave them with hers. He wanted her here, at his side, indefinitely. Heaven help him. This was all Mamm-wynn's fault, putting ideas in his head.

Why was the miracle of Christ presented as something simple, something easy, something to be taken for granted and not even thought about overmuch, while so much attention was given to arguing about the things they could easily discover with a telescope or microscope? It seemed to her tat there were mysteries enough to contemplate about the divine nature of God and Christ to keep one busy for a lifetime - just as there were tings enough to learn about their world through observation, which didn't need to be debated so much as explored.

Oh! Yes. Precise nomenclature is how we can identify and separate one species from another. When something is given a unique name, it's... well, it's like a tip of the hat, in a way, isn't it? It's us acknowledging that it is unlike anything else previously named. It is something unique.

Perhaps she was only spending a summer here, but all the same she relished the idea that she could belong. By virtue of simply knowing and being known. Of loving it.

In her mind, God had always been distant, abstract. But now, here, with these people, she couldn’t help but think that He’d come near. Or that she had.

He had nothing to gain here but Libby herself. And everything—absolutely everything to lose.

Perhaps you weren’t perfectly adapted to the environs into which you were born, Libby. But that doesn’t mean He made a mistake in where He put you. It means only that He set you on a journey, like any other migratory creature who needs different settings for different seasons. He led you here.