I’m currently in the little town of Coleraine, Ireland, in my 8th month of the World Race. This month is wonderful – we’re working with Causeway Coast Vineyard church, and we’ve already been incredibly blessed by the people here. I can’t wait to tell you more about it.
But that will come later. This time, I’d like to tell you some thoughts that struck me last month in Vietnam. C.S. Lewis just takes you places, doesn’t he…
I was sitting on the edge of a little boat, staring down into some of the clearest water I’ve ever seen. Our group used an off-day to indulge in something touristy: a boat tour, which took us around to little islands in the bay. We were just off the coast of Nha Trang, a Vietnamese beach town. (And a very popular spot for Russian tourists, as it turns out. Who knew.)
Let me pause here and tell you something that’s often on my mind.
In literature, it’s so satisfying to figure out the symbols and subtle hints. It’s an adventure to find the messages the author has embedded a few layers deep into the text.
And I’ve always wanted a perfect author – someone who created his world so intricately that whatever symbol I could possibly find, he had planted. And there’d always be more I’d never see, or only discover years later when I read the work again.
How quickly literature professors start to sound ridiculous, reaching for symbols that aren’t there… They find arbitrary things to read into, like the main character’s white shirt or the name of the street they were born on. What? They try too hard to create meaning out of nothing.
I want to know what the author meant, what symbols they wrote into their story.
My friend Katie thinks finding our own meaning is part of the beauty of literature: that the story is the author’s mind combined with the reader’s, and that it means something different to different people.
That is a nice idea but… I’d still rather know: what did the author intend for us to notice and think about?
—
Back to sitting in that little boat in Vietnam. In a precious quiet moment I turned to C.S. Lewis and read:
“It is not an accident that [people] should blend the ideas of God & Heaven & the blue sky. It is a fact, and not a fiction, that light and life-giving heat do come down from the sky to earth… and when God made space and worlds that move in space, and clothed our world with air, and gave us such eyes and such imaginations as those we have, He knew what the sky would mean to us. And since nothing in His work is accidental, if He knew, He intended. We cannot be certain that this was not indeed one of the chief purposes for which Nature was created…” (from Miracles.)
I was struck. The Perfect Author.
There is a perfect Author who put meaning into intricate details.
Which means if I stop and observe something in this world that teaches me about His truth, or even just makes me think of Him… He planned it. Every single time. That symbol I see is not my imagination. He knows my heart, He knows how my mind works, and He knows what will get my attention. And “if He knew, He intended.”
And there are things I’m walking past every day that if I actually paused to notice and consider, would teach me something. Hidden lessons and gifts are everywhere.
Seriously, the quote made life seem like one big choose-your-own-adventure book.
And if I stop and see something that speaks to me, a friend could be standing beside me, looking at the same thing… and it could speak something completely different to them. And both meanings are right. Both are what He intended – He wanted to give me one idea and them another.
And one last thing – something even better comes if we decide to share with each other what we see.
Maybe what my friend saw was meant for me all along, but He wanted me to hear it from them. I’m not self-sufficient. I can’t learn everything on my own.
And God has a tendency to make a million things flourish at once. If we talk together, what grows? Our minds and hearts. Humility. Friendship. Vulnerability. Trust.
He is so intricate.
—
So, right where you’re sitting, look up. Has he left a gift for you here?
