The Seabed of Nature

He comes down from the heights of absolute being into time and space, down into humanity, into the womb; down to the very roots and seabed of the nature he has created.  But he goes down to come up again and bring the whole ruined world up with him.  One may think of a diver, first reducing himself to nakedness, then glancing in mid-air, then gone with a splash, vanished, rushing down through green and warm water into black and cold water, down through increasing pressure into the death-like region of ooze and slime and old decay; then up again, back to color and light, his lungs almost bursting, till suddenly he breaks the surface again, holding in his hand the dripping, precious thing he went down to recover.  He and it are both colored now that they have come up into the light: down below, where it lay colorless in the dark, he lost his color, too.

— from Miracles, C. S. Lewis (1898–1963)