A Terrible Good

‘Tis a dark and definitively stormy night, and I find myself rereading Charles Williams’ Descent into Hell while thunder rumbles with a stirring splendour, rattling the windows and shaking the walls of the house.  Fitting, it seems.  It’s the sort of night where you might almost expect, reaching out a hand to the empty air, to encounter another being—a doppelgänger, perhaps—or something else dead but not departed.

A rather morbid dread, in retrospect, on the day in which we celebrate the empty tomb.

I wonder if those who were present at the resurrection trembled at a similar clap of thunder before the tomb opened—and how violently the earth must have shaken—and how it must have been to suddenly see multitudes of undead walking about.

The gospel writers say these things happened.  I wonder whether it was all as terrifying as it sounds.  I rather think it must have been.

“If things are terrifying,” I can almost hear Pauline Anstruther asking, “can they be good?”  I echo with Peter Stanhope: “Yes, surely.” 

Yet on a night such as this, it doesn’t seem enough to simply cast my vote in favor of the resurrection.  Yes, I believe in the resurrection.  No, I don’t fully grasp what it means, but I do think it’s more than the terms we like to throw around to define it: “substitution,” “propitiation,” “reconciliation,” “ransom.”  Not that these terms aren’t true—not that they don’t help us try to make sense of it—but we spoil the power of the moment (I think) when we limit it to purely philosophical claims.

I hope in the resurrection, but there are aspects of it that do still terrify me—and I hope they always shall.  Lightning flashes before my eyes, and I feel the thunder.  The very ground beneath me shakes—because God is near.

He is risen.  A terrible good.

The Book I Didn't Want to Read

People often act surprised when I tell them I’ve never read Mere Christianity.  Maybe it’s because these days I pose as a seminary person—and all seminary people worth their salt should have read it, right?  Quite frankly, it was one of those books I always told people I’d “add to my list” (you know what that means) and then secretly hoped nobody would ask about again.

I mean, really.  The minute you start talking about the fundamentals of the Christian faith, you’re going to find disagreement, and if there’s one thing I cannot stand, it’s theological bickering.  Tell your angels to go dance on the head of someone else’s pin—because I don’t want to hear about it.

Yes, I’m in the seminary.  God help me.  (Sigh.  He does.)

So, I started reading Mere Christianity over the weekend.  It’s actually pretty good so far.  Really, Jack could just talk all day, and I could listen, and even if I didn’t agree with him, it would still be well worth the intellectual journey. 

But even more than that, I feel as though I am surrounded by this ever-deepening sense that I am meant to be reading this particular book in this particular moment.  Is that weird?  Oh, I certainly think so.  Yet it feels…true…which is still…weird.

I don’t know.  Does anyone else out there ever wonder if maybe we’re meant to read certain books at certain times, as if to read them earlier or later would be fine but somehow not the impetus to arrive at a moment of destiny in which several internal roads are colliding into one overarching idea brought to a head by that particular book or writer?  Am I the only person who thinks about things like this?

As I finish my last real (non-thesis) class for my M.A., I find that I’m actually starting to care about New Testament theology.  I still think its Jewish roots are important—nay, essential—but after years of wandering in the wilderness called “I Just Don’t Know Anymore,” pieces of the faith (the “mere” components, as some would venture to call them) are finally beginning to make sense in the greater context.  I’m starting to see this crazy beast called “Christianity” a bit more objectively.  Historically.  Theologically.  Experientially, yes.  Myth included.  “Myth made fact,” some might say.  :)

And maybe that means it’s time.  Time for Mere Christianity.  Time to really start considering some of the things I never wanted to argue about before.

Time at least to find the “wings to fly,” rather than just “merely vans to beat the air.”

Naked in Narnia

This will be, no doubt, a fairly obvious observation to serious C. S. Lewis scholars, but last night I stumbled upon an idea while reading the Eros chapter of The Four Loves and thought I’d try put that thought together for you, my few but faithful readers.

And who knows?  Maybe the search engines will catch this as well, because today, I’m talking about getting naked.  Oh, yes.

But not the way you think.

We begin with Lewis’ discussion of eros in The Four Loves.  Eros, for those not well versed in the Greek loves, is romantic love.  Surprisingly to me, Lewis treats the subject as something neither sappy nor salacious.  And as he proceeds to ponder the nature of the sexual act (which he refers to as “Venus”), he delves into a discussion of nakedness that I think will prove useful in a moment.

He writes:

Some will think it strange I should find an element of ritual or masquerade in that action which is often regarded as the most real, the most unmasked and sheerly genuine, we ever do.  Are we not our true selves when naked?  In a sense, no.  The word naked was originally a past participle; the naked man was the man who had undergone a process of naking, that is, of stripping or peeling (you use the verb of nuts and fruit).  Time out of mind the naked man has seemed to our ancestors not the natural but the abnormal man; not the man who has abstained from dressing but the man who has been for some reason undressed.  And it is a simple fact—anyone can observe it at a men’s bathing place—that nudity emphasizes common humanity and soft-pedals what is individual.  In that way we are “more ourselves” when clothed.  (TFL 104)

Interesting, right?  But not perspective-altering—until I started thinking about this prosaic passage in light of the scene from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in which Aslan transforms Eustace from a dragon into a boy.  Oh, yes.

[And, by the way, if you’ve not yet read Voyage of the Dawn Treader, please consider this my obligatory spoiler alert.  Run—don’t walk—to your nearest bookstore or library and let yourself feast upon the countless delights of Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia.  Now, back to our story. . . .]

So, as we recall, Eustace Clarence Scrubb is a bit of a whiny brat who stumbles upon Narnia against his will, makes his shipmates largely miserable, and through his greed, ends up being transformed into a dragon on the isle where Lord Octesian died.  As those who are familiar with the story will note, he goes about as a dragon for quite some time while the rest of the voyagers try to figure out what to do. 

And then it happens.  One night, he sees a huge lion coming toward him, and the lion beckons him to follow until they get to a garden with a bubbling well that almost seems like a Roman bath.  You know what’s coming, right?

There is a lot that can be said (and, no doubt, has been said) about the imagery in this scene, how it evokes ideas of salvation and redemption and baptism.  (And, oh, does anyone else feel that the recent film utterly ruined this scene?)  Yes, I see those things, too, but now something different has caught my eye, and it has much to do with the concept of nakedness that we just saw in The Four Loves.

Eustace, as a dragon, is naked—and profoundly aware of it, I think.  We see this in the narrator’s description, that he hated his dragon-like form, that he “was almost afraid to be alone with himself and yet he was ashamed to be with the others” (VDT 84). 

When I read this, I immediately think of Genesis 3:10, where Adam and Eve hide from God, and when God asks why they are hiding, Adam replies, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself” (NASB). 

When Aslan finds Eustace, he bids that he undress.  Eustace wisely observes, “I couldn’t undress because I hadn’t any clothes on” (VDT 89). 

He realizes, however, that “dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast their skins.  Oh, of course . . . that’s what the lion means” (VDT 89).  So Eustace begins to tear at his dragon skin until an entire layer has been peeled off.  How very satisfying that must feel—to be free from his dragon scales—until he finds himself about to stick an all-too-dragony foot into the water.  He tries again, and then, a third time.  Still, though each time he sheds another layer of skin, he is unable to free himself from the scales that enshroud him.

You know the rest.  Aslan says that he must undress Eustace, and Eustace agrees.  The lion’s claws tear deep into the dragon, “so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart,” Eustace tells Edmund afterwards (VDT 90).  And so Aslan “peeled the beastly stuff right off” (VDT 90).

It is only as Eustace experiences relief in the water that he realizes he has been turned back into a boy.

I would like to suggest that in this scene, Lewis is lending story to an idea that he will later flesh out (no pun intended) in The Four Loves.  Remember, we are not our true selves when we are naked.  Neither is Eustace his true self when he is a dragon.  He is made “naked” through his greed, transformed into an abnormal state of being.  Yet Aslan comes to him and, by removing his dragon-like exterior, changes him so that he may once more have his natural, boyish form. 

But even that is not the end of this story:

“After a bit,” Eustace tells Edmund, “ the lion took me out and dressed me—“ 

“Dressed you.  With his paws?”

“Well, I don’t exactly remember that bit.  But he did somehow or other: in new clothes—the same I’ve got on now, as a matter of fact.  And then suddenly I was back here” (VDT 91).

Aslan transforms Eustace back into his natural form and gives him clothes once more—indicating, I think, that not only has Eustace been redeemed, but he is now more himself than he ever was before.

He is no longer naked.  He has been made whole.

The Yoke of the Kingdom

Shema Yisrael, Adonai eloheinu, Adonai echad. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

So begins the Shema, the prayer that devout Jews pray each morning and each evening, day after day, world without end.

I’m not Jewish. I suppose, in a sense, this prayer should have no great meaning in my spiritual life, but on certain occasions and in particular seasons, it doggedly hounds my steps—and today is one of those days.

There are three parts, but it’s the first (Deut. 6:4-9) that sticks with me. To paraphrase:

Hear this (and make it real in your life). The Lord is one. Sovereign. Just as He is one, love Him with all your heart—soul—might—everything. Imprint these words on the deepest part of your being—make them the truest part of your existence. Teach them, and speak of them, and think of them in all that you do. Don’t give future generations the opportunity to forget. And let these words be so much a part of your world that they show up even in the external elements of your life (your home, your clothing, etc.).

(Admittedly, a loose translation for the sake of emphasis. You get the point.)

The rabbis call this first part of the Shema the taking on of the yoke of the malchut shamayim, the kingdom of heaven. It is not something that is lightly done. Some find it necessary to close their eyes as they pray this part of the prayer. Most, if not all, advocate cultivating of a certain state of the heart and mind that is focused fully toward God before uttering the words. Why? Because it’s that important. It’s the daily choice: You are my God, and I will be counted among Your people.

As I said before, I’m not Jewish. But something about this seems so right. So natural. There are moments when this prayer feels closer than anything else my lips might knowingly wish to whisper.

Shema Yisrael….

Yet what does it mean to take on the yoke of the kingdom? I’ve seldom found much identification with the yoke image, truth be told. It appears in my mind’s eye as a blistering summer day, a man dripping with sweat, and two dirty, brown oxen, shouldering the burden of a plough as it rips through dry and cracking earth. Not particularly enticing.

And the kingdom? Is it as heavy as the plough, dragging through the untamed ground? And where is it? Here? Somewhere else? Not to mention the exhausting debate in theological circles between the “already” and the “not yet.”

Sifre Deuteronomy tells us, “Receive upon yourselves the kingdom of heaven and reconcile yourselves one with the other in the fear of heaven and conduct yourselves toward one another in loving kindness” (323). I like this because it makes the kingdom seem like a practical thing—something I can be part of.

God’s people, doing God’s will in the earth. Helping. Loving. This is the work of the kingdom.

To take up this yoke is to choose each day whom you will serve. In a sense, I almost don’t think it matters whether you’re Jewish or Catholic or Protestant—the act is the same.

One God. One kingdom. The submission of your life to the work of God in the earth (as it is in heaven).

Shema Yisrael, Adonai eloheinu, Adonai echad. V’ahavta eit Adonai elohecha b'chawl l'vav'cha, u'vchawl nafsh'cha, uv'chawl m'odecha.

With all that I am, let it be.

On Rediscovering Purpose

C. S. Lewis and his friends have captured me once again. And, oh, how I have missed them.

This weekend, I had the privilege of participating in the 14th annual C. S. Lewis and the Inklings Society conference. I almost wasn't going to, you know. I fought it--hard--really, I did. Although I'd considered the possibility of attending the conference as soon as I heard that it would be held in Tulsa, I was fairly positive that there was no possible way that I could write and present a paper myself. Jumping back into grad school this semester after nearly 2 years off has been enough of a battle--there was nothing more that I could give, I was convinced.

Or perhaps nothing more that I wasn't afraid to give.

Of course, my former boss and coordinator of the conference saw things a bit differently. Time after time, he would ask me if I was presenting a paper. I'd decline, and he'd ask again. Pushing, always pushing. But he's allowed to do that. One of the few.

So, of course, I finally caved. "All right," I said. "You win. I'll present something." Knowing that I'd done some previous research on the Arthurian imagery in That Hideous Strength, I submitted a title and hoped for the best.

And, friends, it was meant to be. After six years of wondering, Oh, God, WHY seminary? and Why do I bother with anything academic in a society where getting a job in the Humanities is hardly a "good return on investment"?, I may finally have reached a place where everything makes sense again.

I found myself among friends, fellow scholars and lovers of literature who adored the same books I adored, and what's more, had things to say about these books and writers that I had never even considered. Every presentation, even the mediocre ones, nudged me in the direction of Purpose (yes, capital P).

This is it, I kept thinking. This is where my heart lies. These are the people I want in my world; this is the study I am meant to do. Even if it's not full-time. Even if my contributions are miniscule in light of the greater corpus. This is where I am meant to be.

I find myself particularly thankful for one of our keynote speakers, Andrew Lazo, whose brilliant talks on Till We Have Faces reminded me not only of all the things I have loved and missed about literature (and the Inklings in particular), but also that there really are other people out there who understand.

I feel a bit like Moses, after having come down from the mountaintop. My face is radiant--I'm certain of it--and after so very long, I carry words.

Tomorrow will be tomorrow, creeping in its petty pace towards who-knows-what. I know that. I'm ok with that. Today, I possess the grace to believe that all this sound and fury really does signify something. And, for today, it's enough.

The January Experiment

I didn't intend to set myself up as a sort of human lab rat, but in retrospect, I suppose that's what happened. When I left for my Christmas vacation, I had come off a couple months of intense stress that, quite frankly, I hadn't managed all that well. I had one goal (other than seeing my family): I was going to rest and de-stress and become human again.

What I didn't count on was my body turning against me.

Although I did get plenty of rest, started exercising again, and ate fairly well (considering), my digestive system decided that it was going to react unkindly to virtually everything that I ate or drank over a number of days.

I suppose I should be thankful for this, since it proved to be the impetus for making a lot of healthy life changes that likely wouldn't have stuck, otherwise.

In the wake of barely eating on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, it became clear that whatever I was eating/drinking was completely wrong. It was time to start from scratch. Thus began the January Experiment.

The Experiment included the following official goals: to abstain completely from coffee, pop, and fast food; to watch my caloric intake; and to implement a workout program.

I am pleased to report that not only did I succeed in all of these for the month of January, but I now feel better than I have in a long time. Truth be told, I'm not sure I want to switch back from anything that I started in the January Experiment.

I didn't want to post anything on Facebook or tell very many people about the Experiment because I didn't want it to be just another resolution. To me, there is a distinct difference between an experiment and a resolution: an experiment has a clearly defined time frame, whereas a resolution is by nature meant to be infinite.

But I'm pleased and proud at having succeeded for a month on the January Experiment. And I'm thrilled at the money I've saved (which is now being applied to extra payments toward my car).

I think we often tell ourselves that we can't live a certain way because it's too hard. It's too hard to give up fast food and actually eat at home. It's too hard to work out when you're tired after a long day. It's too hard to overcome a caffeine addiction.

But you know what? Tonight, on the news, in the wake of a blizzard, I saw several individuals interviewed who had braved the near-impassible roads for the sake of obtaining a caffeine fix from a local gas station. And I realized: there, but for the January Experiment, go I.

Those Pesky Stalker Credit Card Companies

I don't know what it is these days, but credit card companies are really starting to annoy me. The problem? They're needy--nay, desperate--like that guy you can never get rid of because he can't take no for an answer.

First, it was Chase. Freedom. Blueprint. I forget what else. Junk mail every single day, promising something, showcasing another. A few advertisements now and then, I could understand, but we've reached the point of mailbox saturation.

More recently, it's one of my own credit card companies. They keep promising that if I'll sign up for certain things, they'll pay me a certain higher cash-back bonus than they typically do. And they keep trying to entice me to use their card more often because I might win a million dollars in a drawing.

Ok, I get the angle. If they can get their customers motivated to use their card more, a couple things happen that benefit them. First, they earn a chunk of change from each business where the card is run. Second, they bet on my paying them interest, or worse, a late fee (two bets which, thankfully, with me, they will lose!).

But what particularly irks me is that they showcase their marketing in a way that actually catches me for a moment and makes me think I want them. Who doesn't want a better chance to win a million dollars? Who doesn't want a higher cash-back reward? Who doesn't want a plan that helps them automatically save when they spend? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

How very easy it is to whip out the plastic time and again, all for the sake of earning more free money.

Well, I'm tired of hearing about it--I'm tired of my card company--and most of all, I'm tired of Chase and its aggressive marketing. Buzz off, credit cards! It's not you; it's me.