The World of George MacDonald, edited by Rolland Hein, introduced me long ago to the wisdom running throughout MacDonald's novels, before I had access to any of them. Eventually I found and read each one (huge thanks to the Gutenberg Project!). Each time I come across a passage I know well, I am glad and grateful.

So, in choosing a text to adapt into song, although the fairy tales and poems beckoned, I couldn't shake the memory of this passage which Dr. Hein titled, "What Makes A Home" (chapter VI, #23). It celebrates the care Margaret gives to the dying Lady Euphra in David Elginbrod (Book III, XXI). But it's a universally applicable idea, homely and profound: to serve one another as Christ came to serve us, within the intimate challenges of living together.

I chose a simple setting of voice and guitar (myself and husband Ben Jeffery) and made minimal changes to this text that has blessed and taught me for years. I hope it does you good, too.