Our Bull’s-Eye

“An image suggesting this kind of private relationship with the Lord is described in a story by Robert Louis Stevenson. Stevenson tells of his boyhood, growing  up in a part of England where darkness came early in the evening. He and his friends imitated British policemen by carrying small, tin “bull’s-eye” lanterns on their belts. Just for the fun of it, Stevenson and his friends made a game out of hiding the glowing lantern inside their buttoned overcoats and then making their way along the dark paths as if they had no light with them. In Stevenson’s words:

When two of these [lads] met, there would be an anxious, “have you got your lantern?” and a gratified “Yes!” That was the shibboleth, and very needful, too; for, as it was the rule to keep our glory contained, none could recognize a lantern-bearer unless (like the polecat) by the smell….The essence of this bliss was to walk by yourself in the black night, the slide shut, the top-coat buttoned, not a ray escaping, whether to conduct your footsteps or to make your glory public,—a mere pillar of darkness in the dark; and all the while, deep down in the privacy of your foo’s heart, to know you had a bull’s-eye at your belt, and to exult and sing over the knowledge….

[One’s] life from without may seem but a rude mound of mud: [but] there will be some golden chamber at the heart of it, in which he dwells delighted; and for as dark as his pathway seems to the observer, he will have some kind of bull’s-eye at his belt.

Stevenson then describes the ultimate subjectivity of true joy, noting that other people simply cannot fully appreciate the innermost delights and sorrows of our lives. He suggests that if we could only experience forms of joy quickly perceived and acknowledged by others, that kind of joy would fall far short of the high forms of happiness and insight of which the human soul is capable…

To feel this assurance is to sense the reward of peace in this world and the promise of eternal life in the world to come. This is a more excellent way.”

-The Broken Heart: Applying the Atonement to Life’s Experiences (Expanded Edition) by Bruce C. Hafen