Not From but Through

Ultimate joy comes not from a lover or a landscape or a home, but through them. . . . They point to what is 'higher up' and 'further back.' 

--Cornelius Plantinga, Engaging God's World: A Christian Vision of Faith, Learning, and Living (Eerdmans, 2002), 6, drawing on Lewis, Tolkien, Augustine, Calvin, and The Shawshank Redemption; emphasis original