The Last Battle

The Last Battle is one of my favourites of the Chronicles of Narnia... even though they're all pretty much my favourite books ever... I just really really love this one :)

Evil takes one true line about Aslan's character - "not a tame lion" - and twists it so as to give the completely wrong idea.

Tirian slaying the Calormen who were driving the Talking Horse reminds me of Moses killing the Egyptian in the book of Exodus.

The one dwarf who returns reminds me of the one leper who returns to give thanks to Christ.

"By mixing a little truth with it they had made their lie far stronger." Satan does this all the time.

"Tirian and his friends could only see the back of Rishda Tarkaan, so they never knew what his face looked like as he shrugged his shoulders and said, "Bear witness all that I am guiltless of this young fool's blood."" Just like Pilate.

Some of the animals join the Narnian side, and some the Calormenes, but most just slip away and don't choose either side. I wonder if this is how it will be for people at the last day.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader {II}

"And she never could remember; and ever since that day what Lucy means by a good story is a story which reminds her of the forgotten story in the Magician's Book."

This reminds me of what Lewis said in The Weight of Glory:
"The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing... For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited."

When Lucy saw Aslan,

"Her face lit up till, for a moment (but of course she didn't know it), she looked almost as beautiful as that other Lucy in the picture." 

I love how Lucy is most beautiful when she sees Aslan {Christ}

Aslan has to keep his own rules.

I wondered at the meaning of the Dufflepods. I think this line about them, spoken by the Magician, gives some insight:

"Sometimes, perhaps, I am a little impatient, waiting for the day when they can be governed by wisdom instead of this rough magic."

Aslan cannot show himself to them because it would frighten them. They are not yet ready for him.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

I think that reading the Chronicles of Narnia gives me the same feeling that northern mythology gave Lewis - sweet, painful joy.  I remember crying when I was little because it wasn't real and I couldn't go there. Just something about it always gets me and I feel that pang of remembering something that I've never experienced yet... "an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction." I think because I am religious and have a relationship with God that it's not more desirable than any other satisfaction... but I do love the pang of reading Narnia. It reminds me of something, like news from a country I have never yet visited. :)

The Turkish Delight - "Anyone who had once tasted it would want more and more of it, and would even, if they were allowed, go on eating till they killed themselves."

"Edmund was already feeling uncomfortable from having eaten too many sweets, and when he heard that the Lady he had made friends with was a dangerous witch he felt even more uncomfortable. But he still wanted to taste that Turkish Delight again more than he wanted anything else."

Surprised by Joy {II}

"This was a religion that cost nothing. We could talk religiously about the Absolute: but there was no danger of Its doing anything about us. It was "there"; safely and immovable "there." It would never come "here," never (to be blunt) make a nuisance of Itself. This quasi-religion was all a one-way street; all eros (as Dr. Nygren would say) steaming up, but no agape darting down. There was nothing to fear; better still, nothing to obey."

I like how Lewis describes God as "hunting," or actively pursuing him. I definitely agree that God's love is powerful and active, and that He does pursue us. His love is relentless.

"Total surrender, the absolute leap in the dark, were demanded. The reality with which no treaty can be made was upon me. The demand was not even "All or nothing." I think that stage had been passed, on the bus top when I unbuckled my armour and the snowman started to melt. Now, the demand was simply "All.""

Surprised by Joy {I}

"An unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction." This is what Lewis calls "Joy." Like Happiness or Pleasure, anyone who has experienced it will want it again. Considered only in its quality, it might almost equally well be called a particular kind of unhappiness or grief. But then it is a kind we cant. Joy is never in our power and pleasure often is. "Joy is distinct not only from pleasure in general but even from aesthetic pleasure. It must have the stab, the pang, the inconsolable longing."

Lewis says in his childhood, as he prayed for his mother to live, he approached God , or his idea of God, "without love, without awe, even without fear. He was, in my mental picture of this miracle, to appear neither Savior nor Judge, but merely as magician, "and when He had done what was required of Him I supposed He would simply - well, go away." I think this is the attitude Howard W. Hunter was talking about when he said,

"If prayer is only a spasmodic cry at the time of crisis, then it is utterly selfish, and we come to think of God as a repairman or a service agency to help us only in our emergencies." 

Of his father - "It is strange that having known me all my life he should have known me so little."

On prayer - "My nightly task was to produce by sheer will power a phenomenon which will power could never produce, which was so ill-defined that I could never say with absolute confidence whether it had occurred, and which, even when it did occur, was of very mediocre spiritual value." I'm pretty sure I've prayed like this before; trying to use all my imagination to conjure a picture of God to pray to.

The Weight of Glory

"If you asked twenty good men to-day what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point." / Interesting!

"If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak... We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea." [emphasis added]  / Also interesting :)

"Poetry replaces grammar, gospel replaces law, longing transforms obedience, as gradually as the tide lifts a grounded ship." 

I think this is such a masterful simile, because not only does it accomplish the purpose of showing what it is like, it also gives us the imagery of being lifted, and gently compares us to a grounded ship that must be lifted if it is to go anywhere.

Mere Christianity [book III, ch. 8 - book IV, ch. 7]

Main points: Lewis discusses pride, charity, hope as desire for a better country, faith as holding on despite changing moods, and faith as it works with good acts to bring about salvation once we have accepted that we can do nothing. He discusses the nature of God, and how His aim is to make us into new creatures. 

The Great Sin

The seminal work in LDS culture on the topic of pride is Ezra Taft Benson's talk, Beware of Pride. I went through this talk and looked for similarities to my favourite quotes by Lewis on the same subject. 


Lewis: "Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind."
Benson: "Our will in competition to God’s will allows desires, appetites, and passions to go unbridled... Our enmity toward God takes on many labels, such as rebellion, hard-heartedness, stiff-neckedness, unrepentant, puffed up, easily offended, and sign seekers."


Lewis: "Pride is competitive by its very nature: that is why it goes on and on."
Benson: "Pride is essentially competitive in nature. We pit our will against God’s. When we direct our pride toward God, it is in the spirit of “my will and not thine be done.”"


Lewis: "Pride always means enmity—it is enmity. And not only enmity between man and man, but enmity to God."
Benson: "The central feature of pride is enmity—enmity toward God and enmity toward our fellowmen. Enmity means “hatred toward, hostility to, or a state of opposition.” It is the power by which Satan wishes to reign over us."

Love Wins // The Great Divorce

It occurred to me yesterday to compare Lewis' beliefs espoused in The Great Divorce to the more recent work by Rob Bell - Love Wins. Unfortunately I've never read Love Wins, and though I would very much like to I don't foresee myself having the time {or money...} anytime soon. Still, I've heard quite a bit about it and read various articles online and I think the comparison still holds.


According to a USA Today article, Bell makes the following claims: 

• Heaven and hell are choices we make and live with right now. "God gives us what we want," including the freedom to live apart from God (hell) or turn God's way (heaven).
• Death doesn't cut off the ability to repent. In his Bible, Bell sees no "infinite, eternal torment for things (people) did in their few finite years of life."
• Jesus makes salvation possible even for people who never know his name. "We have to allow for mystery," for people who "drink from the rock" of faith "without knowing who or what it was.

One of my favourite parts of The Last Battle is when Aslan says, 

"Therefore, if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him…Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.” 

I think this goes along with what Bell says - that Jesus makes salvation possible even for people who never know his name. "We have to allow for mystery," for people who "drink from the rock" of faith "without knowing who or what it was."