Interpreting the Chronicles of Narnia
C.S. Lewis has been dead for as long as I have been alive; I am no spring chicken. I'm pushing fifty as this generational author has been removed from the earth even longer. His legacy, shadow, and impressions have remained. Generations have been exposed to his writings and influence, now deep enough into the 21st, the second millennium after the advent of Jesus of Nazareth. In Christian circles, he has a definitive place among certain scholars and believers and thinkers.
In the childhood realm of fiction and fantasy Lewis has left a powerful legacy as well. Most of us know the Chronicles of Narnia, a seven part children's tale of the travels and travails of select youth from England. We see and experience their worlds and feelings, inter-connected to animals that are metaphorical and real enough as figures in a reality that we try to understand here on earth, with the greater human family.
Whether he meant that he or his books were to be analyzed by his grandchildren or not, or perhaps millions of others who fell in love with the series thereafter, here I will make my attempt at that, many decades later. I also think that while a genius and a thinker gifted so much in the arts of thinking, writing, believing, there may have been some subconscious messages sent though the pages across time. With a little speculation and the power of decades of review, I wish to delve into the possibilities of the significance of these Chronicles.
Enjoy. Or not.
First of all, I realize that some publishers have re-arranged the order of the seven books by chronology, which changes the way that one can understand them, interpret them. I am going to review them in the order in which I grew to know them.
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
The Lion is Jesus; C.S. Lewis is certainly an ardent and devoted Christian. So many of his books explain and confirm these beliefs, which are non-fiction and in the vain of a faithful Christian apologist. This series is a gift to entertain his grandchildren, yes, but also it is meant to instruct them in a form of allegory and parable. The Gospel of Jesus is reflected in this formidable figure, a noble and loving Lion; it shows that the children and other beasts who either have always known him or grow to know him, but in the end it is Him. They (we) can choose to acknowledge Him and His majesty or not.
The Witch is a wicked adversary; Satan, an Evil One, the very selfish sin that would take the life of the Sinless One, would slay the Lamb of God and enslave all His creations. God's creations locked up and left for not.
Lewis may not have seen as deep into it as I am to suggest here, but the four children escape to the English countryside during the scariest of all times in human history: a tyrannical lunatic was dropping his lethal bombs across London and all Europe, taking over the continent and secretly putting millions to death in camps of brutality and heartlessness.
Lewis knew how World War II ended when he wrote this series, but the fact that Germany under Hitler had risen to such terrifying power and control certainly seemed as though a wicked figure could submit all humanity under such a spell as endless winter. Meanwhile, Stalin in the ghastly Soviet Union was doing his own horrific acts and systems of endless pain, and Franco of Spain rested upon the millions of bones that he had buried in the name of traditional good and the Republic.
The Witch thought that she had subdued Aslan and his goodness, that she had stopped His life and purpose by sacrificing him upon the stone slab of cruelty.
Yet, we know the Deeper Magic prevailed. At least those of us that believe it. Who witnessed it.
Winston Churchill and the Brits did face their crucible of martyrdom, too. They stood against the dark forces in the darkest hours, and they withstood the looming powers of destruction. Like Tolkien's characters of the world of Middle-Earth, the Hobbits and their allies were able to withstand the incredible force and overwhelming pull, yea, addiction of the drive to control for control's sake. The ring of control, a Satanic ploy from near the beginning of all creation; it had to be destroyed.
Aslan allowed evil to reign in its day, but the chaff was rooted out of the wheat, and the children, Sons and Daughters of Adam--Peter, Susan, Edmund, Lucy-- true nobles themselves, return to the innocence of an England once more saved from destruction and lost freedom.
Was all that a dream? Did we (they) make Him up from an overwrought wishful imagination? Was this God among us poor weaklings, mere traipsing mortals, truly among us? Did we see Him? Hear Him? Did He love us first, or was it all a kid's fable or myth?
Was God in some way or form preserving and saving us all along?
Was the wardrobe just a delusional fantasy escape, while our parents faced the bombs back in the city in a time when we thought perhaps all was lost? Did we dream up such fantasies as an explainable coping mechanism?
This mirrors the stories of Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David. Peter, John, and Paul. For modern day Christians like me, other examples of ancient books: Lehi, Nephi, Alma, Ammon, the next Nephi and Lehi, Mormon, and Moroni. They all eeked out their existence by sweat, toil, prayer, and obeisance. They did it for their people, the Chosen of God. It was never easy, but they wrote their histories as triumphant.
Would evil triumph? Would winter go on forever? Were we all doomed to die and never come back, be cosmically lost in the great empty and cold universe by death and hate?
Where was the Deeper Magic? Who was that old, kind uncle that we stayed with in the countryside while the fate of the world was being decided by thousands of troops mere miles across the English Channel, with the birds of death in the skies and tools of obliteration upon and below the very seas, reaching to France and the rest of occupied Europe, the modern Roman Empire which was now this awful Third Reich?
What could this old man in the British whiles know of any fantastic Lion that saved His people?
Prince Caspian
Time has passed in the once peaceful land of Narnia; the good kings and fair queens of yesteryear are mostly forgotten and considered myths and fables. The Telmarines occupy an overgrown and wasted Narnia. Intelligent speaking animals and other non-human characters do not exist to this young prince with his conniving uncle in power of the castle, the same uncle who will soon kill his own kin. Shakespeare's plots and designs are rife within this second book.
Peter and his siblings are summoned to return. There must needs be a restoration. Aslan awaits the children, who within their true selves are ageless sages and heroes of the past. They must become who they were in the past, they must recall who they really are. Sons and Daughters of Adam, with all the rights, privileges, and powers of nobility and keys to the Kingdom.
Prince Caspian learns of his own noble heritage; the battle for survival and is real. Family members cannot be trusted. Cain killed his brother Abel. The tribes of Israel fought amongst themselves. The Lamanites destroyed their cousins, the Jaredites ended their own civilization.
We see it in the 20th century: Turks in Armenia, Japanese in Korea, Chinese in Tibet, Israelis in Palestine, French in Algeria, Communists in Cambodia, Hutus in Rwanda, Taliban in Afghanistan, and on. Some would accuse the United States of unnecessary destructive interference as well.
Battles and wars define us; kingdoms die out and disappear. Peace is ever elusive.
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Peter has now graduated. Susan has lost her belief. (Ahh, Susan!) New heroes--true believers-- must come to the fore. Caspian is in charge of his fate, exploring the vast oceans and endless islands of the world of Narnia. Edmund, Lucy, and their ne'r-do-well cousin Eustace are summoned back once more. Why? Why are people summoned anywhere? Life is to be lived.
Eustace does not know of the magic that awaits. He must learn why life is not just what is... seen. He, like the voyager in all parts, will be transformed.
Like Paul of old, they voyage across the unknown islands discovering new peoples and witnessing new phenomena. Their faith is poked and prodded. Eustace matures and grows, gains depth and character. They go to new lands, connecting their links to times and peoples of the past.
Eustace has a particularly eventful experience with a dragon, which I never fully understood but I know it was significant in some ways...
Was it a transformation as to what Paul experienced in the New Testament?
Paul was an intrepid seafarer, facing the perils of the ocean and dangerous, mysterious isles.
Undersea threats like the sirens and sea monsters evoke the ancient stories of Ulysses or Odysseus; perhaps these dangers are as the modern day threats of U-boats and destroyers. The sea has always been massive and threatening.
By the end of the book the main characters, plus the stalwart zealot Reepicheep, come to the end of the world where all is tranquil, and the Lamb is the Lion. A view of eternity and peace.
Is this where it all leads?
Back to the "real world of England" all must go...
The original Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy perhaps hailed to the mythic King Arthur and His Knightly Court. Perhaps someone or something even more ancient.
Caspian and Eustace represent other bold souls that must reign in goodness, learning the ways of proper rule and benevolent justice.
Eustace must return and fulfill more prophecies and missions.
The Silver Chair
Eustace comes back with vigor; Jill is a new partner to enter into the worlds of good and evil.
Puddleglum becomes a dependable creature and a source of strength and wisdom. Does he represent a priest or a trusting partner?
Faith is necessary through determination and hope; Aslan is there to help conquer evil. Evil abounds, and the followers of good have to go through much travail to overcome it.
Every people and belief-system have tales of creation and origin stories.
The Bible has two: the universe and right after those celestial creations, Adam and Eve and their (our) posterity.
Mysteries always abound.
These two young ones become our first parents, somehow from the unassuming row houses of London before motor cars, transported across time and worlds unknown; they gradually lose their innocence and grow into who they are: the Co-parents of all. First Man and First Woman. Gods in their own right, under the supervision of the all Powerful and All Just Aslan, the Lion.
Were they the first ever? No, they are a continuation and legacy of an unending string of creations, in a cosmic balance of good and evil. Hindus and Buddhists would agree, as far as I know.
Going back in time, as the series order was introduced to me, and finding from where the magic threads began, is a beautiful and sublime process. The mysteries will be answered, with time and patience. And curiosity, as clearly Digory and Polly demonstrate.
The Last Battle
I mentioned that I waited decades to read the seventh book for the seventh time.
I don't know all the reasons about that. I do believe it says something about me. I am certainly grateful to live that long and have the privilege of experiencing that. It is symbolic of something, perhaps for me yet to know. I, like this forestalled reading, believe there are divine blessings, both for collective and individual audiences, like that. You are supposed to read this. You are supposed to know this. You are supposed to understand this. You are supposed to feel this. You must wait and see. "Come and see", the Master said. It is all about love.
Do you feel it?
Scriptures exist. They tell and foretell. Prophecies come true. God is in charge. He knows all and even feels all. We must visit and re-visit those narratives and messages. It never ends. It is in one eternal round, this life, despite the pains of hurt and death.
Life has sweet mysteries, of this I am convinced. God is good and I am blessed.
The Last Battle; an apocalyptic title for sure. Biblical images and impressions. Have you read it?
I read it for the seventh time, memorably, at the house of my father where I had lived for three combined years, but I did not grow up there in that house. I left for a foreign mission when I turned nineteen and I have never re-entered the actual home of my childhood. There is a longing for those years, those memories, those planks and carpets of my youth.
I re-read this seventh book for the seventh time, in the house of my father, then a grandfather, me being a father four or five times over. I wept. Tears of joy, appreciation, remembrance, feeling, loving. Tears of life. This was good.
It was sweet, it felt like it was meant to be, for me personally, if not all humanity. I believe I read it before I had left my family for overseas, before my mother was diagnosed with a terminal illness and before she uttered her last words and breath, before the warmth slowly left her old shell.
Was this the end of her? Was this the end of life? Was she jettisoned into nothingness?
No, no, gentle reader.
She lives.
As you breathe, as I breathe and think, as we all go about dancing on our respective corner of the planet, or stars, or what have you, there is no end to being.
My mother's chosen hymn for her funeral was If You Could Hie to Kolob, by William W. Phelps.
It follows as such:
1. If you could hie to Kolob In the twinkling of an eye,
And then continue onward With that same speed to fly,
Do you think that you could ever, Through all eternity,
Find out the generation Where Gods began to be?
2. Or see the grand beginning, Where space did not extend?
Or view the last creation, Where Gods and matter end?
Me thinks the Spirit whispers, “No man has found ‘pure space,’
Nor seen the outside curtains, Where nothing has a place.”
3. The works of God continue, And worlds and lives abound;
Improvement and progression Have one eternal round.
There is no end to matter; There is no end to space;
There is no end to spirit; There is no end to race.
4. There is no end to virtue; There is no end to might;
There is no end to wisdom; There is no end to light.
There is no end to union; There is no end to youth;
There is no end to priesthood; There is no end to truth.
5. There is no end to glory; There is no end to love;
There is no end to being; There is no death above.
There is no end to glory; There is no end to love;
There is no end to being; There is no death above.
I believe the great Aslan, i.e. Jesus of Nazareth, and all our parents, both heavenly and earthly, sing this great song with us when we find those moments of despair or ecstasy. In any and all extremes, and in the normal times, these beings are with us, notes taking, pending to lift us and comfort.
Was it real? Did I not feel the all-powerful grace of love and creation? Did I not witness grace sublime?
Were there liars and tyrants, those that sought to deceive and hurt out of greed and jealously and pure malicious intent? Yes, they were here and there with us.
Yet, there is something greater. There is a Deeper Wave than This, as Sting eloquently sings.
Listen to me, girl.
In the empire of the senses
You're the queen of all you survey
All the cities all the nations
Everything that falls your way
There is a deeper world than this
That you don't understand
There is a deeper world that this
Tugging at your hand
Every ripple on the ocean
Every leaf on every tree
Every sand dune in the desert
Every power we never see
There is a deeper wave than this
Swelling in the world
There is a deeper wave than this
Listen to me girl
Feel it rising in the cities
Feel it sweeping over land
Over borders, over frontiers
Nothing will its power withstand
There is no deeper wave than this
Rising in the world
There is no deeper wave than this
Listen to me girl
All the bloodshed all the anger
All the weapons all the greed
All the armies all the missiles
All the symbols of that fear
There is a deeper wave than this
Rising in the world
There is a deeper wave than this
Listen to me girl
At the still point of destruction
At the center of the fury
All the angels all the devils
All around us can't you see
There is a deeper wave than this
Rising in the land
There is a deeper wave than this
Nothing will withstand
I say love is the seventh wave
C.S. Lewis and those that published it, procured it for me and other lectors and audiences: I eternally thank you. The Chronicles of Narnia is part of a wave that flows over me, upon beaches and seas that I have not yet dreampt of.
Thanks for the continual waves of your love and understanding.
In the entertainment is the key to the universe: love.
Enjoy. Or not.
First of all, I realize that some publishers have re-arranged the order of the seven books by chronology, which changes the way that one can understand them, interpret them. I am going to review them in the order in which I grew to know them.
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
The Lion is Jesus; C.S. Lewis is certainly an ardent and devoted Christian. So many of his books explain and confirm these beliefs, which are non-fiction and in the vain of a faithful Christian apologist. This series is a gift to entertain his grandchildren, yes, but also it is meant to instruct them in a form of allegory and parable. The Gospel of Jesus is reflected in this formidable figure, a noble and loving Lion; it shows that the children and other beasts who either have always known him or grow to know him, but in the end it is Him. They (we) can choose to acknowledge Him and His majesty or not.
The Witch is a wicked adversary; Satan, an Evil One, the very selfish sin that would take the life of the Sinless One, would slay the Lamb of God and enslave all His creations. God's creations locked up and left for not.
Lewis may not have seen as deep into it as I am to suggest here, but the four children escape to the English countryside during the scariest of all times in human history: a tyrannical lunatic was dropping his lethal bombs across London and all Europe, taking over the continent and secretly putting millions to death in camps of brutality and heartlessness.
Lewis knew how World War II ended when he wrote this series, but the fact that Germany under Hitler had risen to such terrifying power and control certainly seemed as though a wicked figure could submit all humanity under such a spell as endless winter. Meanwhile, Stalin in the ghastly Soviet Union was doing his own horrific acts and systems of endless pain, and Franco of Spain rested upon the millions of bones that he had buried in the name of traditional good and the Republic.
The Witch thought that she had subdued Aslan and his goodness, that she had stopped His life and purpose by sacrificing him upon the stone slab of cruelty.
Yet, we know the Deeper Magic prevailed. At least those of us that believe it. Who witnessed it.
Winston Churchill and the Brits did face their crucible of martyrdom, too. They stood against the dark forces in the darkest hours, and they withstood the looming powers of destruction. Like Tolkien's characters of the world of Middle-Earth, the Hobbits and their allies were able to withstand the incredible force and overwhelming pull, yea, addiction of the drive to control for control's sake. The ring of control, a Satanic ploy from near the beginning of all creation; it had to be destroyed.
Aslan allowed evil to reign in its day, but the chaff was rooted out of the wheat, and the children, Sons and Daughters of Adam--Peter, Susan, Edmund, Lucy-- true nobles themselves, return to the innocence of an England once more saved from destruction and lost freedom.
Was all that a dream? Did we (they) make Him up from an overwrought wishful imagination? Was this God among us poor weaklings, mere traipsing mortals, truly among us? Did we see Him? Hear Him? Did He love us first, or was it all a kid's fable or myth?
Was God in some way or form preserving and saving us all along?
Was the wardrobe just a delusional fantasy escape, while our parents faced the bombs back in the city in a time when we thought perhaps all was lost? Did we dream up such fantasies as an explainable coping mechanism?
This mirrors the stories of Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David. Peter, John, and Paul. For modern day Christians like me, other examples of ancient books: Lehi, Nephi, Alma, Ammon, the next Nephi and Lehi, Mormon, and Moroni. They all eeked out their existence by sweat, toil, prayer, and obeisance. They did it for their people, the Chosen of God. It was never easy, but they wrote their histories as triumphant.
Would evil triumph? Would winter go on forever? Were we all doomed to die and never come back, be cosmically lost in the great empty and cold universe by death and hate?
Where was the Deeper Magic? Who was that old, kind uncle that we stayed with in the countryside while the fate of the world was being decided by thousands of troops mere miles across the English Channel, with the birds of death in the skies and tools of obliteration upon and below the very seas, reaching to France and the rest of occupied Europe, the modern Roman Empire which was now this awful Third Reich?
What could this old man in the British whiles know of any fantastic Lion that saved His people?
Prince Caspian
Time has passed in the once peaceful land of Narnia; the good kings and fair queens of yesteryear are mostly forgotten and considered myths and fables. The Telmarines occupy an overgrown and wasted Narnia. Intelligent speaking animals and other non-human characters do not exist to this young prince with his conniving uncle in power of the castle, the same uncle who will soon kill his own kin. Shakespeare's plots and designs are rife within this second book.
Peter and his siblings are summoned to return. There must needs be a restoration. Aslan awaits the children, who within their true selves are ageless sages and heroes of the past. They must become who they were in the past, they must recall who they really are. Sons and Daughters of Adam, with all the rights, privileges, and powers of nobility and keys to the Kingdom.
Prince Caspian learns of his own noble heritage; the battle for survival and is real. Family members cannot be trusted. Cain killed his brother Abel. The tribes of Israel fought amongst themselves. The Lamanites destroyed their cousins, the Jaredites ended their own civilization.
We see it in the 20th century: Turks in Armenia, Japanese in Korea, Chinese in Tibet, Israelis in Palestine, French in Algeria, Communists in Cambodia, Hutus in Rwanda, Taliban in Afghanistan, and on. Some would accuse the United States of unnecessary destructive interference as well.
Battles and wars define us; kingdoms die out and disappear. Peace is ever elusive.
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Peter has now graduated. Susan has lost her belief. (Ahh, Susan!) New heroes--true believers-- must come to the fore. Caspian is in charge of his fate, exploring the vast oceans and endless islands of the world of Narnia. Edmund, Lucy, and their ne'r-do-well cousin Eustace are summoned back once more. Why? Why are people summoned anywhere? Life is to be lived.
Eustace does not know of the magic that awaits. He must learn why life is not just what is... seen. He, like the voyager in all parts, will be transformed.
Like Paul of old, they voyage across the unknown islands discovering new peoples and witnessing new phenomena. Their faith is poked and prodded. Eustace matures and grows, gains depth and character. They go to new lands, connecting their links to times and peoples of the past.
Eustace has a particularly eventful experience with a dragon, which I never fully understood but I know it was significant in some ways...
Was it a transformation as to what Paul experienced in the New Testament?
Paul was an intrepid seafarer, facing the perils of the ocean and dangerous, mysterious isles.
Undersea threats like the sirens and sea monsters evoke the ancient stories of Ulysses or Odysseus; perhaps these dangers are as the modern day threats of U-boats and destroyers. The sea has always been massive and threatening.
By the end of the book the main characters, plus the stalwart zealot Reepicheep, come to the end of the world where all is tranquil, and the Lamb is the Lion. A view of eternity and peace.
Is this where it all leads?
Back to the "real world of England" all must go...
The original Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy perhaps hailed to the mythic King Arthur and His Knightly Court. Perhaps someone or something even more ancient.
Caspian and Eustace represent other bold souls that must reign in goodness, learning the ways of proper rule and benevolent justice.
Eustace must return and fulfill more prophecies and missions.
The Silver Chair
Eustace comes back with vigor; Jill is a new partner to enter into the worlds of good and evil.
Puddleglum becomes a dependable creature and a source of strength and wisdom. Does he represent a priest or a trusting partner?
Faith is necessary through determination and hope; Aslan is there to help conquer evil. Evil abounds, and the followers of good have to go through much travail to overcome it.
The Horse and His Boy
The world and peoples of the Calormen were eluded to earlier in the first books; the original Kings and Queens had been there. A mysterious slave boy being raised by an abusive father winds his way through luck and circumstance to find out where and who he is.
He will come to know his true, noble, nature.
As a small child reading this series, there were aspects of the land of the Calormenes that reminded me of the exotic Middle East or Northern Africa. Men of turbans, curved swords known as scimitars and other allusions to Middle-Eastern styles and culture. The nature of their "other" beliefs suggested the foreignness as well.
Shasta plays a part in finding out his true identity. Eustace, well, all the English visiting Narnians must do this. Life and discovery is a process of self-identification.
Aslan, mostly in the background, and wise stewards, in this case embodied as horses, help along the way.
And, as the allegory of life, the journey across plains, cities, deserts, and mountains somehow show us our life, our meaning, our place.
Good and evil are always present. Choices to make to lead to happy and/or sober endings. Cultures and beliefs vary; there is a central good and familiar truth to be recognized, found, and accepted.
Like the earlier possible comparisons to the dangers of the existence of Lewis' England during the devastation of the wars against Germany, there was also the bigger looming threat of the Soviet Union, a modern concept that loomed across the earth to the tune of nuclear destruction, which threatened a forever deadly winter hailing the end of the Second World War. Apart from the modern rivals of Germany and Russia, there were ancient to present day kingdoms and empires like Turkey, the Arab states, and Iran.
At this date (2019), the country of the Calormenes strikes me the most as Iran, or Persia. With a mix of the pagan and fantastic, for sure. Like the world of King Arthur only taken further away in terms of strange or dissimilar tastes and practices.
My personal interpretation of the world growing up in the 1970s and 1980s was influenced by these flavors and attitudes and themes of the Chronicles if Narnia.
I read and re-read this series. I read through it seven times. Probably between third and fifth grades, especially during the summers. Although, suggestively, I did not read the seventh book for the seventh time until I was in my forties...
I was reading these books as my understanding of the greater world increased, as well as my faith and beliefs. It was not lost on me that perhaps Eustace had parents that were ostensibly Mormons, or as we prefer to say in order to be proper and not detract from the sanctity and holiness of the Son of God and His name, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They did not smoke or drink, and they wore different under garments. This was certainly my parents.
Eustace was like me. But, I also identified with Peter, Edmund, Caspian, and Lucy. And Reepicheep, the gallant mouse. All the well meaning and good characters were for our perusing and adopting. Cherish the good and eschew the evil, that was the moral. This imperative meant survival, because there were evils that could destroy all of us, our freedoms and powers and hopes.
I am not sure if I began reading the series when I was in third grade, possibly fourth. By third grade I had acquired the definite pleasure and drive to read, to read complete books, but also to read everything. These were the years 1979 to 1982. I would read them in my bedroom in the early summer mornings after swim practice. I read them in our family's only trip to the Western United States, camping in majestic settings like the Black Hills and Badlands, Jackson Hole, Yellowstone, Glacier National Park, and Waterton on the Canadian side.
These stories and books, the missions and their heroes and villains transported me across the realms, and perhaps as an adopted grandchild of C.S. Lewis, luminary Christian apologist, I had been drawn into his world of good and evil, the Awesome one, Aslan, versus the numerous adversaries of God, represented in numerous fashions and faces.
Good prevailed, as in the ultimate victory and triumphs of Christ. Life was frought with danger and risk, but there was a deeper magic that ensured all peace and joy.
This was my fantasy and reality.
The Magician's Nephew
The Bible has two: the universe and right after those celestial creations, Adam and Eve and their (our) posterity.
Mysteries always abound.
These two young ones become our first parents, somehow from the unassuming row houses of London before motor cars, transported across time and worlds unknown; they gradually lose their innocence and grow into who they are: the Co-parents of all. First Man and First Woman. Gods in their own right, under the supervision of the all Powerful and All Just Aslan, the Lion.
Were they the first ever? No, they are a continuation and legacy of an unending string of creations, in a cosmic balance of good and evil. Hindus and Buddhists would agree, as far as I know.
Going back in time, as the series order was introduced to me, and finding from where the magic threads began, is a beautiful and sublime process. The mysteries will be answered, with time and patience. And curiosity, as clearly Digory and Polly demonstrate.
The Last Battle
I mentioned that I waited decades to read the seventh book for the seventh time.
I don't know all the reasons about that. I do believe it says something about me. I am certainly grateful to live that long and have the privilege of experiencing that. It is symbolic of something, perhaps for me yet to know. I, like this forestalled reading, believe there are divine blessings, both for collective and individual audiences, like that. You are supposed to read this. You are supposed to know this. You are supposed to understand this. You are supposed to feel this. You must wait and see. "Come and see", the Master said. It is all about love.
Do you feel it?
Scriptures exist. They tell and foretell. Prophecies come true. God is in charge. He knows all and even feels all. We must visit and re-visit those narratives and messages. It never ends. It is in one eternal round, this life, despite the pains of hurt and death.
Life has sweet mysteries, of this I am convinced. God is good and I am blessed.
The Last Battle; an apocalyptic title for sure. Biblical images and impressions. Have you read it?
I read it for the seventh time, memorably, at the house of my father where I had lived for three combined years, but I did not grow up there in that house. I left for a foreign mission when I turned nineteen and I have never re-entered the actual home of my childhood. There is a longing for those years, those memories, those planks and carpets of my youth.
I re-read this seventh book for the seventh time, in the house of my father, then a grandfather, me being a father four or five times over. I wept. Tears of joy, appreciation, remembrance, feeling, loving. Tears of life. This was good.
It was sweet, it felt like it was meant to be, for me personally, if not all humanity. I believe I read it before I had left my family for overseas, before my mother was diagnosed with a terminal illness and before she uttered her last words and breath, before the warmth slowly left her old shell.
Was this the end of her? Was this the end of life? Was she jettisoned into nothingness?
No, no, gentle reader.
She lives.
As you breathe, as I breathe and think, as we all go about dancing on our respective corner of the planet, or stars, or what have you, there is no end to being.
My mother's chosen hymn for her funeral was If You Could Hie to Kolob, by William W. Phelps.
It follows as such:
1. If you could hie to Kolob In the twinkling of an eye,
And then continue onward With that same speed to fly,
Do you think that you could ever, Through all eternity,
Find out the generation Where Gods began to be?
2. Or see the grand beginning, Where space did not extend?
Or view the last creation, Where Gods and matter end?
Me thinks the Spirit whispers, “No man has found ‘pure space,’
Nor seen the outside curtains, Where nothing has a place.”
3. The works of God continue, And worlds and lives abound;
Improvement and progression Have one eternal round.
There is no end to matter; There is no end to space;
There is no end to spirit; There is no end to race.
4. There is no end to virtue; There is no end to might;
There is no end to wisdom; There is no end to light.
There is no end to union; There is no end to youth;
There is no end to priesthood; There is no end to truth.
5. There is no end to glory; There is no end to love;
There is no end to being; There is no death above.
There is no end to glory; There is no end to love;
There is no end to being; There is no death above.
I believe the great Aslan, i.e. Jesus of Nazareth, and all our parents, both heavenly and earthly, sing this great song with us when we find those moments of despair or ecstasy. In any and all extremes, and in the normal times, these beings are with us, notes taking, pending to lift us and comfort.
Was it real? Did I not feel the all-powerful grace of love and creation? Did I not witness grace sublime?
Were there liars and tyrants, those that sought to deceive and hurt out of greed and jealously and pure malicious intent? Yes, they were here and there with us.
Yet, there is something greater. There is a Deeper Wave than This, as Sting eloquently sings.
Listen to me, girl.
In the empire of the senses
You're the queen of all you survey
All the cities all the nations
Everything that falls your way
There is a deeper world than this
That you don't understand
There is a deeper world that this
Tugging at your hand
Every ripple on the ocean
Every leaf on every tree
Every sand dune in the desert
Every power we never see
There is a deeper wave than this
Swelling in the world
There is a deeper wave than this
Listen to me girl
Feel it rising in the cities
Feel it sweeping over land
Over borders, over frontiers
Nothing will its power withstand
There is no deeper wave than this
Rising in the world
There is no deeper wave than this
Listen to me girl
All the bloodshed all the anger
All the weapons all the greed
All the armies all the missiles
All the symbols of that fear
There is a deeper wave than this
Rising in the world
There is a deeper wave than this
Listen to me girl
At the still point of destruction
At the center of the fury
All the angels all the devils
All around us can't you see
There is a deeper wave than this
Rising in the land
There is a deeper wave than this
Nothing will withstand
I say love is the seventh wave
C.S. Lewis and those that published it, procured it for me and other lectors and audiences: I eternally thank you. The Chronicles of Narnia is part of a wave that flows over me, upon beaches and seas that I have not yet dreampt of.
Thanks for the continual waves of your love and understanding.
In the entertainment is the key to the universe: love.
A few more edits... Later in the day...
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