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 Magician's Nephew

I think many people can get caught up in the attitude of Uncle Andrew...

But of course you must understand that rules of that sort, however excellent they may be for little boys - and servants - and women - and even people in general, can't possibly be expected to apply to profound students and great thinkers and sages. No, Digory. Men like me, who possess hidden wisdom, are freed from common rules just as we are cut off from common pleasures. Ours, my boy, is a high and lonely destiny."
As he said this he sighed and looked so grave and noble and mysterious that for a second Digory really thought he was saying something rather fine. But then he remembered the ugly look he had seen on his Uncle's face the moment before Polly had vanished: and all at once he saw through Uncle Andrew's grand words. "All it means," he said to himself, "Is that he thinks he can do anything he likes to get anything he wants."

Once again the idea of joy and beauty being like a memory...

The horse seemed to like it too; he gave the sort of whinney a horse would give if, after years of being a cab-horse, it found itself back in the old field where it had played as a foal, and saw someone whom it remembered and loved coming across the field to bring it a lump of sugar... The Cabby and the two children had open mouths and shining eyes; they were drinking in the sound, and they looked as if it reminded them of something.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader {I}

I love Reepicheep! And his feelings towards the East remind me of how Lewis felt about the North.

Eustace sees a storm while everyone else sees "as fair weather as a man could ask for."

"And what is this governor, this Gumpas, like? Does he still acknowledge the King of Narnia for his lord?"
"In words, yes. All is done in the King's name. But he would not be best pleased to find a real, live King of Narnia coming in upon him."

I see Governor Gumpas as a bishop or other leader of a Christian congregation who still does things in the name of Christ but has drifted very far away and doesn't want anything actually convicting taught. He would not be pleased to find the real, live Jesus Christ coming in to his congregation. The governor is also caught up in paperwork and agenda and so does not recognize the real King of Narnia when he is right in front of his face. This reminds me of the Pharisees of Jerusalem, who are so caught up in the Law and keeping the minutest details that when the Son of God - who gave them the Law - is right in front of their faces, they do not recognize Him.

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 IV ch 8-11]

Main points: Christ will make us perfect... whether we like it or not. We must become New Men through Him.

Is Christianity Hard or Easy?

"The Christian way is different: harder, and easier. Christ says "Give me All. I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don't want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don't want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked—the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours."

This reminds me of a story told in General Conference last April: 

Hugh B. Brown told of purchasing a rundown farm in Canada many years ago. As he went about cleaning up and repairing his property, he came across a currant bush that had grown over six feet (1.8 m) high and was yielding no berries, so he pruned it back drastically, leaving only small stumps. Then he saw a drop like a tear on the top of each of these little stumps, as if the currant bush were crying, and thought he heard it say: “How could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. … And now you have cut me down. Every plant in the garden will look down on me. … How could you do this to me? I thought you were the gardener here.” President Brown replied, “Look, little currant bush, I am the gardener here, and I know what I want you to be. I didn’t intend you to be a fruit tree or a shade tree. I want you to be a currant bush, and someday, little currant bush, when you are laden with fruit, you are going to say, ‘Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for loving me enough to cut me down.’”

I think this is the message that Lewis is sharing with us - that God knows us better, and has bigger plans for us, and that it is going to hurt as he turns us into greater things than we ever could have imagined becoming. Of course, this process isn't easy.

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."

Mere Christianity [book III, ch1-7]

Main points: Lewis discusses morality and how it is the condition of the inward man that matters most. Among other virtues, he touches on marriage and Christ-like forgiveness. 

Lewis starts his next section talking about morality and virtuous living. In the first chapter, he establishes the long-term importance of morality:

Christianity asserts that every individual human being is going to live for ever... Now there are a good many things which would not be worth bothering about if I were going to live only seventy years, but which I had better bother about very seriously if I am going to live for ever. Perhaps my bad temper or my jealousy are gradually getting worse —so gradually that the increase in seventy years will not be very noticeable. But it might be absolute hell in a million years: in fact, if Christianity is true, Hell is the precisely correct technical term for what it would be. 

Living with an Eternal Perspective means that the little things I do... that might not be so good... that I think don't matter so much..... actually matter a lot. 

Lewis then moves into a discussion of virtues - but more important than the specific actions are what they make of us. He writes, 

"There is a difference between doing some particular just or temperate action and being a just or temperate man... A man who perseveres in doing just actions gets in the end a certain quality of character. Now it is that quality rather than the particular actions which we mean when we talk of "virtue."" 

This reminded me of Elder Lynn G. Robbin's talk, What Manner of Men and Women Ought Ye to Be? 

Speaking of perseverance, Lewis also writes, "You will notice, of course, that you cannot practise any of the other virtures very long without bringing [fortitude] into play." In The Screwtape Letters, Lewis expressed the same idea when he wrote, "Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means, at the point of highest reality. A chastity or honesty or mercy which yields to danger will be chaste or honest or merciful only on conditions."