DIFFERENT GOOD - THE ART
​In his novel Perelandra, C.S. Lewis tells the story of a man named Ransom who travels to a distant planet and meets an alien creature named Tinidril. What makes Tinidril so bewildering to him is not her emerald-green skin, but the way her soul is infused with peace as she lives in complete trust of her Maker.
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Ransom struggles to understand her carefree way of life- the way she accepts even unwelcome circumstances with open arms. He presses her with questions:
"But in our world not all events are pleasing or welcome. There may be such a thing that you would cut off both your arms and your legs to prevent it happening--and yet it happens with us…
When you first saw me, I know now you were expecting and hoping that I was the King. When you found I was not, your face changed. Was that event not unwelcome? Did you not wish it to be otherwise?"
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Tinidril’s response only bewilders him further:​​​​​​
"What you have made me see," answered the Lady, "is as plain as the sky, but I never saw it before. Yet it has happened every day.
"One goes into the forest to pick food and already the thought of one fruit rather than another has grown up in one's mind. Then, it may be, one finds a different fruit and not the fruit one thought of. One joy was expected and another is given.
"It is I, I myself, who turn from the good expected to the given good. Out of my own heart I do it. One can conceive a heart which did not: which clung to the good it had first thought of and turned the good which was given it into no good."
"And have you no fear," said Ransom, "that it will ever be hard to turn your heart from the thing you wanted to the thing the Maker sends?"​​​​​​​​
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​"I see," said the Lady presently. "The wave you plunge into may be very swift and great. You may need all your force to swim into it.
You mean, He might send me a good like that?"
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"Yes -- or like a wave so swift and great that all your force was too little."
"It often happens that way in swimming," said the Lady. "Is not that part of the delight?"
​The cover art for Different Good as created by the brilliant illustrator Joe Hox. It depicts Tinidril and her husband standing hand in hand, contemplating the destructive tidal wave rolling towards them. And yet they are at peace, ready to accept even this frightening calamity as a “Different Good” sent by their Maker.