He was moved by the degradation of the birth of Christ in a stable with its filth and manure and saw it as a symbol of the real nature of holy things in a fallen world. He spoke of his special regard for the Book of Luke because that writer included so much about women. He believed that creativity itself is a gift of God. After years of teaching aesthetics, I cannot but conclude that the whole of that difficult subject is comprehended in a single line from Tolkien’s “On Fairy-stories”: “we make still