I enjoy reading, but I find when I am out of the habit it’s hard for me to get back into. I’ll read book after book after book, but if I take a break I won’t read again for weeks or months. What can I say, I’m an all-or-nothing kind of girl.
I read the Hobbit at the beginning of this year. And that was all, until a book was passed onto me from one of my squadmates last month. Well, to be accurate it was really seven books – The Chronicles of Narnia – perhaps you’ve heard of it.
Much of my childhood was spent reading, but for some reason I never got around to the Chronicles of Narnia. I did watch the 1980s made-for-tv BBC rendition of the books, don’t get me wrong.
So I started reading it for the first time last month, and after reading three of the books I put it down for a while. After one too many travel days of lugging the heavy volume around, however, I decided this month that I must finish it before the next travel day.
I began reading it again, and the more I read the more I began to fall in love with the characters, their crazy adventures, and most of all, Aslan.
C.S. Lewis wanted to make Jesus Christ more accessible to children, and he did so in the form of Aslan. Little did Lewis know that through Aslan he would also make Jesus Christ more accessible to me, someone who packed her childhood into a bunch of dusty boxes and left them in the basement years ago.
I love the way Aslan confronts characters when they screw up – he addresses their fears, or self-pity, or condescension toward others – all in an affectionate manner. I love the way his presence causes people to feel glad and tremble with fear simultaneously. I love the way he seems to remain hidden for a painful amount of time, but always reveals himself at the perfect moment. I love how he creates, how he doesn’t feel the need to defend himself, but most of all I love how he made me fall more in love with Jesus Christ.
C.S. Lewis once received a letter from a distraught young boy, who confessed to loving Aslan more than Jesus – the boy felt guilty because he knew he wasn’t supposed to love anything more than Jesus.
The representation of Christ in the Chronicles of Narnia is refreshing – it expands my mind beyond all the head knowledge I’ve learned from the Bible, the sermons I’ve heard at church, the faith-based books I’ve read and the conversations I’ve had trying to understand this God who came in the form of an infant 2000 years ago…
Shasta told how he had never known his real father or mother and had been brought up sternly by the fisherman. And then he told the story of his escape and how they were chased by lions and forced to swim for their lives; and of all their dangers in Tashbaan and about his night among the tombs and how the beasts howled at him out of the desert. And he told about the heat and thirst of their desert journey and how they were almost at their goal when another lion chased them and wounded Aravis. And also, how very long it was since he had had anything to eat.
“I do not call you unfortunate,” said the Large Voice.
“Don’t you think it was bad luck to meet so many lions?” said Shasta.
“There was only one lion,” said the Voice.
“What on earth do you mean? I’ve just told you there were at least two the first night, and –-“
“There was only one: but he was swift of foot.”
“How do you know?”
“I was the lion.” And as Shasta gaped with open mouth and said nothing, the Voice continued. “I was the lion who forced you to join with Aravis. I was the cat who comforted you among the houses of the dead. I was the lion who drove the jackals from you while you slept. I was the lion who gave the Horses new strength of fear for the last mile so that you should reach King Lune in time. And I was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at midnight, to receive you.”
“Then it was you who wounded Aravis?”
“It was I.”
“But what for?”
“Child,” said the Voice, “I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no one any story but his own.”
“Who are you?”
“Myself,” said the voice, very deep and low so that the earth shook: and again, “Myself,” loud and clear and gay: and then the third time “Myself,” whispered so softly you could hardly hear it, and yet it seemed to come from all round you as if the leaves rustled with it.
