Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, "I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life." (John 8:12)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning:
Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush aflame with God.
But only he who sees takes off his shoes.
The rest sit 'round and pluck blackberries.
Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush aflame with God.
But only he who sees takes off his shoes.
The rest sit 'round and pluck blackberries.
Trapped beneath the surface of Narnia, the children of C.S. Lewis's The Silver Chair engage in a most frustrating conversation with the witch, the queen of what is called Underland. The children try desperately to describe to the queen the scenes and certainties of Narnia; they speak of the sun and the moon, of the stars--and of Aslan. The witch responds with the cunning deconstructionism of a postmodern wordsmith.
"What is this sun that you all speak of?" she asks. "Do you mean anything by the word? And Aslan, what a pretty name! What does it mean?" Struggling with the weight of what feels like (and is) an enchanted fog over their minds, the children try their best to explain. "The sun is like a lamp, only far greater and brighter..." And of Aslan: "He is a lion--the great Lion...a little bit like a huge cat, with a mane." To this the witch counters with the sweetest of laughs, "You see? You have seen lamps, and so you imagined a bigger and better lamp and called it the sun. You've seen cats, and now you want a bigger and better cat, and it's to be called a lion... Look how you can put nothing into your make-believe without copying it from the real world... Put away these childish tricks... There is no Narnia, no sky, no sun, no Aslan."(1)
I don't believe it is too bold to say (and neither did Lewis) that life as a Christian sometimes feels something quite like this. Amidst the fog of a world that sees moral confusion and bewilderment and recognizes it as freedom, it can become quite exhausting to find the right words to explain that which we know to be true, only to be told that our words have no meaning. “Hope,” "truth," "depravity," and "God" are matters of utmost consequence all too often condensed into word games. It has never been more difficult, nor more important, to be able to defend your faith.
But perhaps the Christian life is like this Narnian scene in another way. The less the children struggled to hold on to the reality of Narnia and memories of Aslan's goodness, the more reasonable the queen's explanations seemed to become: "Well, 'tis a pretty make-believe, but to say truth, it would suit you all better if you were younger."
As people living within a world that bombards us with reasons not to believe, with reasons to accept half-truths as truth and sin as mere psychosis, it is an active task to remain thinking, to keep our hearts and minds continually renewed by truth, beauty, hope, and love as it comes from God's Word. It is necessary to recall the faithfulness of God in our lives, to hold before us the promises Christ has made, to daily keep our eyes sensitive to his presence. For God has called us to worship in spirit and in truth.
Comments:
May we continually encourage each other to dig in. Find a place to be alone with God. He is calling me there. Will you go too?
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