Lessons from the TARDIS

Warning: Potential spoilers for all of Doctor Who post 2005 (especially 1.13 The Parting of Ways, 6.4 The Doctor's Wife and 7.13 The Name of the Doctor). This is written with the assumption that you are familiar with the stories.

I'm always a little hesitant to make spiritual applications to secular things. But here I am doing it again :-p And I suppose that it is something Jesus himself did in parables (taking the secular and using it to explain sacred lessons). Various people have pointed out the God-like characteristics of the Time Lord known as the Doctor in the popular British TV series Doctor Who. I did it myself some time ago in my post The Doctor and Jesus. It tends to make me feel a little uncomfortable, although I have seen it done well and sensitively. I have no problem, for example, pointing out character traits of the Doctor that can demonstrate Christ-like behaviour (as one might do with biblical characters such as Noah and Joseph and David). It's when people start seeing him as a replacement for God or an incarnation of Jesus (problematic for various reasons, not the least of which are his many faults), that I feel they have gone too far. I suppose that it is the Doctor's super-human abilities (which enable him to save planets and races and overcome death), that lend to his being compared to God and/or Christ. But it recently occurred to me that there is another character in Doctor Who which can provide for us lessons or illustrations about God and his character and how he interacts with mankind. The Doctor's sentient space ship, the T.A.R.D.I.S, bears a number of similarities to the Christian concept of God. And so I present to you five "Lessons from the TARDIS".

1. "I always took you where you needed to go"

The TARDIS is notorious for messing up the Doctor's instructions and taking taking him and his companions everywhere but where they want to go. The Doctor plans to take Amy and Rory to sunny Rio, but they end up in a cold rural Welsh village, just in time to rescue the earth from an invasion of Homo Reptilia. He tries to take Rose to a concert in Sheffield in 1979 but they end up in Victorian Scotland a hundred years earlier (and help to save Queen Victoria's life – and the world). He promises to take Donna to Ancient Rome, but but they arrive in Pompeii just in time for Mt Vesuvius to erupt. Even in the Classic era, he seldom ends up where he planned to take his companions – regularly getting either the place or year (or both) wrong.

It is never entirely clear whether it's the Doctor's lack of flying skill or the TARDIS' unreliability that is at fault; perhaps it is a combination of both. We know the Doctor didn't care much for following the TARDIS instruction manual, and that River, who was taught by the TARDIS herself was much better at flying than he was. But at the same time, the splinter-version of Clara that visits the First Doctor, telling him which TARDIS he should steal, mentions that her navigation system is “knackered”.

In the last episode of Series I, The Parting of Ways, it seems that there is even more going on than the Doctor's flying skills or the TARDIS' navigation system being unreliable. In this episode, we discover that the various occurrences of the words "Bad Wolf" throughout the series were not coincidental, but part of a greater plan which the TARDIS had some sort of control over.

In the episode from Series VI called The Doctor's Wife, the episode in which we learn the most about the TARDIS (because it is the one time she is given a voice), the Doctor openly questions her unreliability. Her response is profound.

I just want to say, you know, you have never been very reliable. 

And you have? 
You didn't always take me where I wanted to go.

No, but I always took you where you needed to go.

The Doctor is stumped. He can't argue back because he knows she is telling the truth. Every time he ended up somewhere other than where he intended to go, it was for a good reason. Usually she brings him to a place at a point in history just in time to save the world (or universe) from a terrible fate/destruction. Sometimes, it is for his own good or character-building or that of his companion(s). Though he has many narrow calls and sometimes he regrets (at least in part) the outcome, I don't think he could ever say to the TARDIS, looking back, “Why did you take me there?” There was always a reason for her taking him off course and it was always for the good of him, his companions and the universe as a whole.

It is in this respect, that the TARDIS reminds us of the Lord. We often find ourselves in places where we can't understand what is going on and why the Lord has let us end up in that place. But without fail, whenever we look back, we can always see how that was exactly where we needed to be at that point in time. Whether for our own good, or for the good of others, all the things in our lives that might look like accidents, really aren't. He always takes us where we need to go.

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. (Rom 8:28)

From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. (Acts 17:26)

2. Outside of Time

A second characteristic of the TARDIS that reminds us of the nature of God, is the manner in which she exists outside of time. I've never fully understood the mechanics of TARDIS time travel (I don't think it's ever fully explained), but we know she enters this tunnel that exists outside of time and space (the time vortex) and from there she can take the doctor to any point in the universe and in history. We see this in The Doctor's Wife when Idris gets confused about tenses and the past and present and starts talking about things that haven't happened yet.

The Doctor: Why am I a thief? What have I stolen?
Idris: Me. Are you going to steal me? You have stolen me. You are stealing me. Oh! Tenses are difficult, aren't they?

We get an even more powerful idea of this in The Parting of Ways. Rose, having absorbed the soul of the TARDIS makes the following famous speech:

I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself. I take the words...I scatter them, in time and space. A message, to lead myself here. You are tiny. I can see the whole of time and space, every single atom of your existence, and I divide them. Everything must come to dust. All things, everything dies. The time war ends. How can I let go of this? I bring life. The sun and the moon, the day and night. I can see everything... all that is... all that was... all that ever could be.

The TARDIS herself can't usually create life, but in this particular situation (I'm never quite sure how much is TARDIS and how much is time vortex and what the actual difference is), we get the idea of how transcendent the TARDIS is with respect to our little closed sphere of time and space. Even the Doctor, who can travel in time, needs to physically travel backwards and forwards to experience different occurrences. The TARDIS on the other hand seems to exist outside of time and knows all things that have happened and will happen simultaneously. That, in fact, is how she was able to always take the Doctor where he needed to go.

And so with God. He created time and exists outside of it. To him tenses are meaningless (except in his understanding of how they apply to us). He knows the beginning from the end and has seen all the days of our lives before any has come to be.

From everlasting to everlasting you are God.

A thousand years in your sight
are like a day that has just gone by,
or like a watch in the night. (Psalm 90:2b, 4)

For thus says the High and Lofty One
Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy... (Isaiah 57:15a)

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast. (Psalm 139:7-10)

3. "This was when we talked"

One peculiar characteristic of the TARDIS is that although she is sentient and intelligent, she is not usually able to communicate with the Doctor. There is no direct interface between them and though the Doctor can speak to her (and it seems she hears him), she does not speak back.

Except once. In The Doctor's Wife, the soul of the TARDIS was removed from the machine and poured into the body of a human woman, Idris. Suddenly she was given a voice, and she could tell the Doctor things directly. They could discuss past events (their running away together), their present struggles, and even some hints about the future were given (“the only water in the forest is the river”).

While the circumstances are vastly different, God too does not normally speak to us directly. His communication with us, for the most part, is through what we can see in the world he has created, from his revealed word (the bible), from the events that happen in our lives, and sometimes through the mouths of others speaking on his behalf. In Old Testament times, he revealed his Law to the patriarchs and Moses and the prophets and for a long time that was all people had to go on as direct communication from God. I suppose the Law might be compared to the TARDIS instruction manual. Men in general had (and still have) the same attitude to God's Law as the Doctor did to the manual: “I threw it into a supernova, because I disagreed with it.”

But once, just once, for a short period, God, like the TARDIS, did communicate with us directly. This was when he came to earth in the form of a human, Jesus Christ. As Idris contained the soul of the TARDIS, so Jesus was the essence of God poured into the body of a human. During this time, he explained in person who God was, what he had done in the past and what would happen in the future. Of course, Jesus did a lot more than this. In the case of Idris, her “incarnation” was accidental (the work of a hostile enemy), whereas Jesus' incarnation was intentional and planned from before the beginning of time as the means by which God would save humans from their sinful and doomed nature.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1: 1; 14). 

God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. (Heb 1:1-3)

While the plan was different, and Jesus' death was far more important to all people, there is one similarity in their deaths. When Jesus was crucified, his enemies thought they had won. They assumed that he was defeated once and for all, but they were wrong. Jesus, because of his holiness and lack of sin, could not remain dead, but was raised again to life triumphant. So Idris, when House thought he had destroyed her, found that the last laugh was not his. He made the mistake of trying to kill her in her own TARDIS shell. He had placed her in a body that would not long survive being inhabited by a TARDIS soul, but as the body decayed, her soul was set free and able to return to it's true house.

One of the last things Idris says to the Doctor, before the soul of the TARDIS left her, was “I'll always be here, but this is when we talked”. The TARDIS is still with the Doctor, but they have reverted to the old manner of living. There is no more direct communication, but they still live and travel together. She is always with him and there for him, making sure he ends up exactly where he needs to be.

Are you there? Can you hear me? Oh, I'm a silly old... Okay. The Eye of Orion, or wherever we need to go.

So, when Jesus returned to heaven, the time during which God lived on earth and communicated directly with mankind was at an end. But we have the record of what he said and did while he was here to encourage us and help us to understand better what it is God wants from us as we live.

4. "I stole you"

This has the potential for entering muddy waters, but I don't think it needs to. Bear with me as I try to make the point I have in mind. One of the most poignant (though also humorous) moments in The Doctor's Wife is the following conversation:

Idris: Do you ever wonder why I chose you all those years ago?
The Doctor: I chose you. You were unlocked.

Idris: Of course I was. I wanted to see the Universe so I stole a Time Lord and I ran away. And you were the only one mad enough.

This is a funny moment, but interesting too. Which version of the story is true? Despite what she says, the TARDIS does not hesitate to refer to the Doctor as “my thief”, implying that she does not take full responsibility for their running away together. I think the answer is that both versions are true. The TARDIS almost admits as much earlier on in the episode (when we still aren't entirely sure who she is): "Then you stole me. And I stole you." The Doctor wanted to run away, so he stole a TARDIS. The TARDIS wanted to see the universe, so she left her doors open for him to find her. The TARDIS provided the means of escape, but there was also a desire on the part of the Doctor to make use of those open doors and use the TARDIS as his means of escape.

This is a terribly inadequate description of what happens at salvation and I honestly don't want to take it any further, but I like the idea of it as a springboard for understanding the problem. I don't think we'll ever find the answer to the question of how we come to salvation (of our own free will or by God's sovereign will) by asking which of the two options are the right one. Like the question of whether the Doctor stole the TARDIS or the TARDIS stole the Doctor, the answer isn't either/or. Both are simultaneously true.

If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. (Rom 10:9)

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. (Eph 2:8-9)

Also, this is probably taking things too far, but since I'm already here, one more point. The story of the Doctor's original departure from Gallifrey is a little bit more complex since The Name of the Doctor aired. No longer is it simply a question of the Doctor or the TARDIS choosing each other. When I first watched the scene where Clara confronts the First Doctor, telling him to steal a different TARDIS to the one he was actually planning to take, I really liked the idea. But then I realised that it contradicted the TARDIS' version of the story from The Doctor's Wife where it is implied that he stole that particular TARDIS because she was the one with unlocked doors. We don't know anything about the other TARDIS the Doctor was planning to steal before Clara intervened (whether or not her – or his; do we have male TARDISes?) doors were unlocked, or whether the Doctor was planning to break in somehow. Whatever the story was, could I make a half-hearted suggestion that Clara's role in this story was like that of an evangelist (by which I mean any Christian sharing the Gospel with another person) who pointed the Doctor to the right TARDIS?

I'm gong to leave this issue here. (*hides from barrage of responses*)

5. The Doctor's Wife (an unusual marriage)

Finally, I always found the title of the episode The Doctor's Wife slightly confusing. I get the point about the Doctor and the TARDIS being like an old married couple – always together, often arguing, but sharing a deep respect, care and love for each other. Amy put it best when she said “Look at you pair. It's always you and her isn't it? Long after the rest of us have gone”.

But at the same time, I found this rather incongruous in the light of the Doctor's relationships with his companions. If the Doctor was really, in some sense “married” to the TARDIS, how dare he go about falling in love with Rose Tyler, flirting with countless other women, and in the very same series in which The Doctor's Wife takes place – marrying River Song?

I should probably put some context to my complaint. I read a review of The Doctor's Wife before ever seeing an episode of Doctor Who. As a result, I went into the first episode (and those subequent) with the idea that the Doctor was in reality (secretly?) married to the TARDIS. Remember, I had very little idea when I read the review of who the Doctor was, what he was like and how his relationship with the TARDIS and his companions worked. As I watched more and more programmes, I realised where and how I had been mistaken in understanding the Doctor's relationship with the TARDIS. But I still felt slightly annoyed by the title The Doctor's Wife, if for no other reason than that it had mislead and confused me.

I get it now, of course. The relationship with the Doctor and the TARDIS, while bearing some resemblance to a marriage in its consistency, duration and their care for each other is not in any sense a conventional marriage. As discussed above, they can't even have direct conversations with each other. It's a kind of transcendent marriage – they are soul-mates; but in a very different way to how the Doctor and River could be called soul-mates.

In fact, largely based on the characteristics discussed in the previous points, the relationship between the Doctor and the TARDIS is in some ways similar to that of a Christian and Christ. We talk about “giving our lives” to him, and much of the vocabulary of love and marriage can apply to a Christian's relationship with Jesus. This does not mean that Christians should all forego earthly relationships with other humans, that we should dedicate our lives to him and never love or marry a human being. On the contrary, he wants us to have relationships with other people as representative of the kind of relationship he has with us.

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Saviour of the body.... Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. (Eph 5: 22-27)

The relationships between the Doctor and his companions belong on a completely different plane to his relationship with the TARDIS. They are not mutually exclusive because they are not the same kind of thing. Just as we have a love-relationship with Christ that does not contradict our relationships with people. Of course, we need to be in relationships with people who will respect and understand our relationship with Christ, in the same way the Doctor needs companions who respect the TARDIS and whom the TARDIS respects in return. The Church is described at various points in the New Testament as being the Bride of Christ. We can understand a little better how this works when we understand the role of the Doctor as the husband of the TARDIS.

I hope by this post to have been able to share my thoughts on how we might be encouraged by characteristics of the TARDIS in understanding our relationship with God. You're welcome to disagree with any of my analogies because I'm sure they have problems.

Post House Party: On the Mountain Top and in the Low Country

Earlier this week, we had the annual OICCU (Oxford Inter-Colligiate Christian Union) retreat or "House Party". We had an awesome time spent in worship and prayer and hearing from God's word as we prepared for the term ahead and sought his will for how we should be serving him in Oxford as we planned for the mission week that will be held later this term. The post below is an edited version of something I wrote a few months ago on a passage from one of The Chronicles of Narnia. I hope it will be an encouragement to my brothers and sisters who were on House Party. The message and challenge is for me as much as anyone else.

“Remember, remember, remember the signs. Say them to yourself when you wake in the morning and when you lie down at night, and when you wake in the middle of the night … Here on the mountain I have spoken to you clearly: I will not often do so down in Narnia. Here on the mountain, the air is clear and your mind is clear; as you drop down into Narnia, the air will thicken. Take care it does not confuse your mind. And the signs which you have learned here will not look at all as you expect them to look when you meet them there. That is why it is important to know them by heart and pay no attention to appearances. Remember the signs and believe the signs. Nothing else matters.”  - Aslan in The Silver Chair by CS Lewis

The passage above comes from the beginning of the The Silver Chair. Jill Pole has followed her classmate Eustace Scrubb into Narnia. Eustace had been there before and after telling her about it the two hoped to get back into the magical world and thus escape from school bullies. Their "wish" is granted, though they later learn that it was not their desire to come so much as Aslan's need of them which brought them to Narnia. Instead of arriving in Narnia proper, they actually find themselves on a high mountain top which turns out to be part of Aslan's country (a place symbolic of heaven though with a more real physical presence in that world than heaven has in ours). Jill (partly though accident and partly through her own fault) finds herself alone in Aslan's country and has to face Aslan, the ruler and Christ-figure of Narnia on her own. He gives her instructions for a mission by which she and Eustace must search for and rescue Narnia's lost prince and heir. He tells her four signs which she must memorise that will guide them to the prince. After making her repeat them till she knows them off-by-heart, he gives her the warning above.

The most obvious "lesson" in this passage is that we should constantly immerse ourself in God's word and commands (pointing also to the importance of memorising scripture by heart), lest we forget what we know and believe about life and faith. But I think there is a secondary important point that Lewis teaches us here. Many of you will be familiar with the metaphor of “a mountain-top experience.” This refers to a point in time where everything is going well and we feel like we are “on top of the world.” In the Christian life, we use the phrase to describe times when we feel as though God has spoken to us clearly (not necessarily audibly, but in a manner which is unmistakeable). This very often happens on Christian camps or retreats, or in our case, House Parties. The sense of purpose, God’s purpose in our lives, is strong, and we feel like we could never doubt. We recommit our whole lives to God and vow to live wholly for him from now on.

But House Party is over, and as we find ourselves thrust back into the reality that is Oxford life, the "spiritual high" is likely to fade and all our convictions and resolutions with it. I’ve experienced it enough times to know this is inevitable. Someone wise once pointed out to me that this is both normal and healthy. We would not be able to function in everyday life if we were continually on a spiritual high. It would drain us and be unhelpful to both us and our service for God.

When I read the passage above a few months ago, where Aslan speaks to Jill on the high mountains of his own country, I couldn't help but see it as symbolic of the kind of mountain-top experiences we have from time to time, especially on occasions like House Party. I don't know if Lewis intended that metaphor but I do believe he was trying to impart an important lesson - especially when we read Aslan's warning to Jill:

"Here on the mountain I have spoken to you clearly: I will not often do so down in Narnia."

Isn't that true of the spiritual life? When we find ourselves in "the mountain tops" we hear God speaking to us clearly - but that is unusual and for most of life it is in more subtle ways that God communicates with and guides us. I think this is probably both part of his method of dealing with us, and because we let the business of life, like the "thickness of the air", confuse our minds.

Aslan’s warning to Jill was prophetic. Though he gave her every warning he could, when she got to Narnia she did allow the thick air to confuse her mind. The message and warnings of Aslan were not clear any more, and she allowed the cares of the road and their travel to distract her from “the only thing that mattered”.

By the time Jill and her companions (with whom she is tasked with sharing Aslan's message) find themselves at their first destination in the North, they have all but forgotten the signs that Aslan had given Jill for their mission. She had given up repeating them and they find themselves walking through the very place they are searching for completely unaware that they have found it. They are so taken up by rumours of a warm place to spend the night and hot baths and food that they not only miss the sign, but walk into what is almost a death trap. They had allowed their physical desires to interfere with remembering why they were there.

I think we are all aware of the danger as we get wrapped up in the stress of Oxford to forget the mission we felt God giving to us at House Party. But we are not without hope. As the antidote for Jill and her friends forgetting their mission was to repeat the signs daily, so we can remind ourselves of what God has called us to do by daily spending time in his word and prayer. I think another mistake that Jill and her friends made was that she tried to remember the signs on her own. While it is true that she had a better chance of remembering them well, as Aslan spent a good deal of time making her recite them over and over, had she only gotten her companions to join her in reciting daily, they might have stood a much better chance of remembering the signs together. And that is why Christian community is a good way of reminding ourselves of God's call on our lives. As we meet in college CUs and prayer meetings and take part in church activities, we are able to encourage one another and less likely to forget the clear calling we felt before.

This is also the reason we we need mountain top experiences (times when God speaks clearly to us) every now and again. But he does not do so all the time. The rest of the time it is our responsibility to make habits of spending time in God’s word, talking and praying to him, and reminding ourselves of his promises and commands. Or else the thickness of the air in the “low country” will confuse our minds and we will forget.

Thank God that in his grace, even when we are forgetful, he is still faithful and will nudge us back in the right direction. Aslan says to Jill, “Here on the mountain I have spoken to you clearly: I will not often do so down in Narnia,” and he keeps his word. Just when all hope is lost and the children have completely “muffed” the signs, Aslan appears to Jill in a dream to nudge her back in the right direction. In the same way, God does not always speak to us clearly as he does in “mountain top experiences”, but he will still speak to us in subtler ways, reminding us of what we have forgotten.

And so the lesson we can learn is this: God gives us moments of clarity when he speaks to us in an unmistakeable way. But for most of life, we live by faith and it is, in part, our responsibility to remember what he revealed on those mountain-tops by reminding ourselves daily. At the same time, God, in his grace, also speaks to us subtly. As a gentle father, he gives us hints to put us back on track when we have strayed. As you begin the term ahead with the memories of House Party still there but fading, do not despair. The emotional clarity might fade, but we have much opportunity to remind ourselves and be reminded by God and others of the mission he has given us.

The Doctor and Jesus

To many of my friends this will probably seem like a pretty crazy piece. It is pretty absurd, but it combines the two stories that I've been immersed in this week - Doctor Who, and The Life of Jesus as told in the Gospel of Mark. They don't really go together. I don't pretend they do. But having both in my head at the same time meant I couldn't help but make comparisons. Don't worry, I'm not going to say The Doctor is God incarnate or a type of Christ or anything like that. That would just be silly. And probably blasphemous. So...well you can read it if you feel so inclined and see what you think. 

On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” Mark 2:17

It's Doctor Who season. I had never seen an episode of Doctor Who before December last year, but I had a bunch of friends on TLC who used to talk about it all the time. So when I moved to the UK, it was inevitable that I'd get to watching it. Through the course of last year, I managed to watch many of the reruns of the new series on BBC and had seen up to the third episode of the Sixth Series when I went back home. Since the Seventh Series is now showing, I decided on returning to the UK to buy Series Six so I could watch the rest of it. I spent Monday and Tuesday catching up and was then left with a bit of that empty feeling you have when you've finished a good book or movie or TV series and there's no more. In the case of Doctor Who there is more - the currently airing Seventh Series but that means waiting a week for each episode. Which is fine - but it did mean I had a few days to stew over some of the mind-boggling events of the Sixth Series. And it was pretty mind-boggling.

Those who are fans will understand this. Those who haven't watched it or haven't been gripped by it won't. But there's something appealing and endearing about the Doctor and his adventures. Some of them - many of them - are seriously creepy, but his character and the friendships and the relationships he builds and the way he deals with impossible dangers, makes the story rise beyond the creepiness and get into your heart.

I don't know exactly what it is. Maybe it's his love for humanity, loyalty for his companions and the incredible way in which he continually saves the world/universe/individuals whom he cares about. Then there's stuff like his awesome wacky character, his sometimes flippant attitude in the most dangerous situations. Those who are fans, and have been for a long time, can probably express it better than me.

I guess in sum, the Doctor is just a really cool and likeable character and his adventures take you momentarily out of troubles of this world. I'm sure there are many who wish he was really real and envy those who travel with him wishing they too could have such adventures.

Unfortunately he isn't. And neither are his adventures. But there is some pretty awesome stuff going on in the real world that we should not let things like Doctor Who take our eyes off of.

A couple days after finishing Series Six, with all these things still in my head, I found myself trying to break free of the fantasy world and back to the reality that is analysing Greek texts for my thesis. Struggling to get back into the Greek, I had a sudden inspiration to read some of the New Testament (i.e. texts I know really well) in Greek. I have an interlinear Greek Bible (which means it has English translations of words under the Greek words. I know it seems like cheating, but for the sake of easing myself in, I felt it would be more beneficial than sitting doing nothing or struggling so much looking every word up that I gave up after a couple pages). I was going to go through Acts, but had a sudden inclination to tackle a Gospel instead. I picked Mark (it's the shortest). I've read Mark many times - studied it three times in about three years at Church/Youth. So I know it pretty well. My intention in reading this was for the sake of the Greek - not to get anything significant out of it. But sometimes God has other plans.

I have the distinct disadvantage of having been brought up on the Bible from a very young age. There are massive advantages in this too - and I am eternally grateful to my parents for this. But the disadvantage is that the accounts in the Bible are so familiar to me, it's difficult not to take them for granted. The amazing aspects of Jesus' life, the miracles he performed, the message he preached, the way he was treated by his enemies and responded to them, his death and resurrection, are all so well known in my head they often cease to amaze. I believe them to be true (a decision I made) and the truth does not change. But their impact is not usually very great.

One way I've found that helps me overcome my familiarity with the Bible is reading it in different translations. We are lucky in the English speaking world that we have so many different translations and "versions". And while the fundamental message does not change, reading it in different wording often brings to light things you may have ceased to notice in a more familiar version. The Amplified Bible, I think, is particularly good at this (not that it's my favourite translation - I don't even own a copy of it - but from hearing it quoted I think it would be good for this despite it's other faults).

You can probably guess where this is going. Reading Mark in Greek was reading it in a new version for me and, as a result, had the unanticipated effect of bringing the story to life in a new way. I know some people think the New Testament in Greek, since it is the original, must be the purist/most accurate form and are perhaps thinking that it was the fact it was Greek that it brought new meaning. I don't think that's true. Greek is not a super holy language and though there may be aspects of its vocabulary and grammar that bring a clarity of meaning which it is hard to convey in translation, it's by no means a perfect language and suffers from ambiguity as much as the next language. Maybe if my Greek was better it would be different, but the clarity and understanding you get from the Greek bible is only as good as your Greek allows it to be. Anyway, as I was partially relying on the English translated words in the interlinear form, some of the effect was completely lost.

But what did happen is that I read the text more slowly than usual - sometimes having to reread over parts. And I was reading it in unfamiliar terms. And these two things together contributed to the what happened while I was reading.

I wasn't far into the text (Mark makes the story move very quickly) before I was hit with a revelation I know to be true, but needed to be reminded of. With Doctor Who still in my mind, as I read about the amazing authority and power Jesus had in words and actions, and the way people were completely astounded by what he did, I was reminded just what an amazing person Jesus was. I say "was", though he still is amazing, because I'm referring to his human life on Earth. If I thought the Doctor was cool, well Jesus was off the charts.

The Doctor looks human, and often acts human, though he isn't really. He can do things that the humans he interacts with can't and that's one of the things that makes him special. As is his love for humans and our world. Jesus was human. Completely. But he is more than human and comes from beyond and before our world. Although much of his Godly power was veiled while he was on earth, little bits of it seeped through. As we read the Gospels, we see he has power over demons, over sickness, over deafness and blindness, over the elements, over food quantities, even over death. The people he interacts with recognise his unusual power and authority immediately. And the response is either to follow him (in different degrees - many followed him just because they wanted to witness more miracles, while others gave up their way of life to become his companions) or to fear (and try to get rid of) him.

When I read of Jesus' interactions with demons (there are quite a few accounts in Mark), I was put in mind a little of the Doctor's interaction with certain aliens. It doesn't work for all, but there are some to whom he just needs to say his name and they immediately fear him. In this case it's pretty easy for him to tell them to leave Earth alone and go back to wherever they came from.  Of course this doesn't happen all that much, or the stories would be kind of boring. But with Jesus, the demons are so terrified they do exactly what he says. They just see him coming and beg for mercy.

I want to reiterate that these Doctor Who analogies are only coming up because I had them in my head. I'm not in the least inferring that the Doctor is some kind of Christ-figure or supposed to represent him or anything. They are so completely different and the concept of the Doctor was created without any religious connotations anticipated (if anything the complete opposite). But since I had "the Doctor is cool" in my mind when reading about Jesus, it was amazing to be reminded "so was Jesus - in fact he was cooler".

Something that comes out very strongly in Mark is that Jesus is being very careful about his popularity. The reason for this is explained more in the other gospels (I think John in particular): he is following a precise timetable. If he were to become too well known too soon, the plan would be jeopardised. Jesus' mission was to preach about repentance and the Kingdom of Heaven. And to train up his disciples to continue his message and mission after he was gone. Although he performed many miracles, his priority was always to preach. He healed the sick and demon-possessed as they were brought to him out of compassion. And the miracles confirmed to those who watched that he truly had authority from God, but they were secondary. His aim was not to heal physical ills but to heal people's spirits. For that, preaching his message and the culmination of his task (dying for the sins of all humans and rising again) were far more important than giving people temporary physical healing.

Continually, throughout Mark, we see him trying to downplay his miracles. When he cast demons out of people, he would forbid them from shouting out who he was (they recognised him as the Son of God) and he would tell those he healed or who witnessed a healing not to tell anyone else what he had done. This is not more clear than in the passage where he raises Jaris' daughter from the dead and tells those around him that "she's not dead but just sleeping". Only a few are allowed to witness the miracle, since raising someone from the dead is kind of a biggie. In fact the next time he does this - with Lazarus - it's not kept secret. And it pretty much seals his death warrant. 

This playing down his miracles was strategic. If people realised his full power and who he was the two parties (those for and against him) would become too radical too soon. Those who believed in him would want to make him King and use him as a political figure to overthrow the Roman oppression (which they actually tried at one point - he conveniently disappeared at the time). Those who hated him would do everything in their power to make sure that never happened and have him killed (which would be easy for them if he was being advocated as an opponent to Rome's authority). As it was, he only had three years of ministry before things escalated to this point. But three years was enough. Less time would have been a problem.

And I believe that is why he was so protective of people knowing who he was. It's a little bit like the way the Doctor lives a precarious life because of his abilities, becoming easily surrounded by both those who love and practically worship him and those who hate and fear and want to destroy him. In Series 6, this reaches a crux. He becomes too big, so big in fact that a war pretty much breaks out around him. And plans are put in place to remove him from the equation. As this becomes known to him, he realises just how powerful he has become and accepts his fate that he will be killed. Of course, at first he tries to escape it, but in the end, knowing he cannot stop it, he accepts that it will be better for the world if he is no longer there to cause such division. In the end, a series of events spiral into place and it does not end in the way he anticipated. But at least he is off the radar for now and the world can forget about him for a while.

Okay, so Jesus' story is so completely different, and I'll get to that. But I think the way the Doctor realises he is too big and needs to die is a nice illustration of why Jesus didn't want everyone knowing who he was or what he could do too soon. Of course, Jesus story deviates completely at this point. He knew he had to die all along, but the reason was completely different. The very reason he came to earth in the first place and was born a human was so that he could die. His death was a sacrifice. Not for peace in a world aligned or opposed to him. If anything his death caused the opposite, as his new followers were continually persecuted for their faith in him (and the battle between those for and against him has never really ended). His death was the sacrifice for humanity that the punishment for mankind's sins could be taken on one man and mankind could receive forgiveness and redemption and be reunited with the God we forsook at the creation of the world.

The Doctor was prepared to die because he felt it would be better for the world/universe if he wasn't around. Jesus went to die because he knew it would be better for the world if sin were conquered and a way made for man to renew his relationship with God. And a significant difference was that Jesus knew he would rise again. He wasn't getting out of the picture - he was becoming the centre of it. Jesus' death wasn't about dying and ceasing to exist, it was about death (and the spiritual agony of a condemned man being forsaken by God) being the punishment for sin. Death wasn't the end because he was sinless and death could not hold a man punished for sins he did not commit.

The Doctor is such a likeable person and his imagined reality so attractive it's easy to wish it was real. But there was (I believe) a man who lived the most incredible life, had the most incredible power and saved the world in a way the Doctor would not even realise it needed saving. Not everyone believes Jesus is real, or he really did the things the Gospels tell us he did. But I believe them and that makes me so excited. And he loves our world more than the Doctor ever could. And he wants a relationship with each and every one who is willing. He wants us to be his companions and to go on adventures with him that would boggle the imagination of even the writers of Doctor Who.

Not everyone accepts this adventure. Like those the Doctor meets on his travels, some say "No thanks, I like my life, I couldn't travel with you." But for those that accept it, we're stuck on the adventure of a lifetime. And it never ends. No teary goodbyes. No moving on. Just a lifetime and then eternity with him.

We live in a pretty awesome world and serve a pretty awesome God.

The Silver Chair: Chapters 13-14

Things are not always as they seem

This tale is full of mistaken identities and misconceptions. “Pay no attention to appearances” says Aslan to Jill of the signs. And it’s true of more than just the signs.

Right from the outset, things are not always as they seem. When she first meets him, Jill doesn’t trust Aslan. She is afraid of him, for the completely wrong reasons. When she realises who he is and he tells her that he has called them to Narnia, she assumes he has made a mistake - they are not the ones for the task. Mistaken identity. Aslan corrects her.

When she arrives in Narnia at the sailing of the King, Jill asks Eustace if he sees a friend. He doesn’t recognise that he is staring at Caspian because he makes the assumption that he would not look that much older than last time. Mistaken identity.

Eustace suspects the owls of plotting against the king, because they are meeting in dark in the night. Meanwhile they are simply used to meeting at night because they are owls. There is nothing sinister about their dealings. Mistaken identity.

Jill and Eustace are wary of Puddleglum at the beginning because he is so negative. They don’t see that there is sense, faith and dedication lying at the heart of his pessimism - just what they need as a guide. Mistaken identity.

When Jill first sees the giants lining the gorge, she assumes they are simply piles of rock. Until they start to hurl stones around them. Mistaken identity.

When they meet the Lady of the Green Kirtle, they think her kind, sweet and helpful. Mistaken identity.

When they come to the ruined city and the writing, they think it is merely a strange wilderness of ledges, dykes and trenches. Mistaken identity.

When they arrive at Harfang, they think the giants are friendly and that they want to have the children and Puddleglum take part in the autumn feast with them. Not that they will be the main dish at the feast. Mistaken identity.

When the three meet Rilian, they think he is nasty and not to be trusted. They don’t realise he is the one they have come to rescue. Mistaken identity.

When the mudmen come to themselves and realise what spell the witch has had them under, they prepare to fight for their freedom, unaware that the one who had them under their spell is dead. Rather than celebrate, they prepare for war. When they see Rilian and the others on horseback, they prepare to defend themselves against the onslaught by the witch’s people. They haven’t the slightest idea that these people were also subject to her lies and sorcery and that it is they who have killed the witch and freed them from her spell. Mistaken identity.

When the children, Puddleglum and Rillian see the mudmen letting off rockets and marching as to war, they assume that they are their enemy and that the rockets are warnings. They don’t realise it is their way of celebrating their liberation from the spell, and at the same time a taking to arms should the queen or her subjects try to stop them. Mistaken identity.

These last two points, which are the subject of chapters 13 and 14 bring about an almost fatal ending to the story. The earthmen think the heroes are their enemy and the heroes fear the earthmen. Both assume the other group are working for the witch.

Thankfully, the truth comes out quickly and the situation is ratified. Mistaken identities and misconceptions are brought to light, and both sets of people are able to make their way home and leave the cursed shallowlands of the underworld. The heroes head for the overworld, the earthmen for Bism.

There’s a lesson in all this. Things are not always as they seem. We need to be aware of this in faith as in life. Sometimes things look hopeless and as though there is no way out. But there is a bigger picture we can’t see. Just as the heroes and the earthmen did not realise that the other group was equally the enemy of the witch, and so feared them, what might be looking to us like a hopeless situation might just be a small bit of the picture.

I’m sure as the characters looked back on the story afterwards, they realised how they had missed the (sometimes almost obvious) cases of mistaken identity in their adventures. And so we can look back on events in life and realise that what looked like a bad job, was actually for the best.

When Jesus was arrested and crucified, it looked to the disciples as though everything was lost. All their dreams and plans for the Messianic kingdom with Jesus as the ruler were shattered. They couldn’t make sense of it, and feared they had been wrong. Jesus was not the messiah. It was a case of mistaken identity. Mistaken identity, yes, but not in the way they thought. Three days later he rose again. Jesus had a bigger plan at work, a bigger, more important kingdom to win. Once the disciples came to realise this, they could look back and see clearly what God had been doing and knew that what looked like defeat was the greatest victory of all - the victory over sin and death. Things are not always as they seem.

I can testify to this in my own life, when I was distraught last year over thinking I did not have a scholarship to study in Oxford. I couldn’t see any light or make any sense of it. When, after two weeks in this state, the unthinkable happened and I was awarded the scholarship, it seemed like the whole situation had been pointless. Why go through those two weeks of sadness? But as the truth sunk in, I realised all the good that came out of it. I had learnt to surrender to God and grown so much closer to him. I knew I was doing what he wanted me to do. And other girls’ lives were blessed because they were given the scholarship as well as me (something that might not have happened had I been awarded it first time).

Things are not always as they seem. But that’s okay. We have a God who sees the whole picture; who knows what is best. And he is the one who is in control.

The Silver Chair: Chapter 12

Good Old Puddleglum

A lot could be, and has in the past been, said of the witch’s attempt at making our heroes forget Narnia and Aslan, and of Puddleglum’s heroic refusal to be beguiled.

I wrote a while back on the thread: Conquering Lies - Lessons from Narnia

Ajnos wrote:

Another well-known passage where the antagonist tries to trick the heroes with lies it LotGK's speech in which she tries to convince them that Narnia is a figment of our imagination.

"I see...that we should do no better with your lion, as you call it, than we did with your sun. You have seen lamps, and so you imagined a bigger and better lamp and called it the sun. You've seen cats, and now you want a bigger and better cat, and it's to be called a lion. Well, 'tis pretty make-believe, though...it would suit you all better if you were younger. And look at how you put nothing into you make believe world without copying it from the real world of mine, which is the only world...Come, all of you. Put away these childish tricks...There is no Narnia, no Overworld, no sky, no sun, no Aslan..."

This lie, together with her enchanting music and powder almost takes them all in. In a place so far away from the Narnia they remember, they begin to think, that perhaps they did just imagine it. Our enemies try to make us doubt our own beliefs in a similar way. They try to reduce our experiences of God - experiences which we knew were real at the time - to figments of our imagination. They make us wonder whether what we thought was a word from God, was not just wishful thinking, or something we imagined. And when that moment has passed, sometimes we do start to doubt, whether it was real. Human memory is a strange thing, and becomes increasingly unreliable as time passes from when the even occurred. When we find people (or even ourselves) questioning the reality of our experiences, we need to respond like Puddleglum:

"One word, Ma'am... All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put but the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you've said. But there's one more thing to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things...Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones... We're just babies making up game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia."

Good Old Puddleglum!

In my Day Two post on Puddleglum and Paxford, I quoted Douglas Gresham as saying of Fred Paxford, on whom Puddleglum was modelled, “Fred was the ever cheerful eternal pessimist.”

When we first meet Puddleglum, that doesn’t seem like a fully accurate description. Pessimist, yes. Comical, perhaps. But ever-cheerful? Hardly. When he tells us that the other Marshwiggles think he’s quite bouncy and upbeat, we are inclined to disbelieve him. Could they possibly be worse than him?

But as the story goes on, we see what he means. Although Puddleglum always sees the worst side of things and always expects the worst, he is still cheerful despite this. He thinks things will be bad, but then imagines something worse and concludes that actually the bad things aren’t quite as bad as they could be.

Right at the beginning he tells them not to worry about the weather, because they’ll be so distracted by enemies, mountains, rivers, losing their way, almost nothing to eat and sore feet.

Later, when they are trying to find their way across the river gorge (before they spot the bridge) he says, “The bright side of this is, if we break our necks getting down the cliff, then we’re safe from being drowned in the river.”

It is Puddleglum who points out that if they had been paying attention to the signs, Aslan would have shown them away underground. “Aslan’s instructions always work: there are no exceptions”.

This is the first hint we get of his faith. He’s not only a cheerful pessimist. Behind (and despite) his eternal pessimism, he has an unrelenting faith in the supremacy of Aslan. Perhaps part of the reason he can be so gloomy, is that he knows Aslan is in control. He doesn’t even seem to fear death, and occasionally sees it as a better alternative (at least if we break our necks, we needn’t suffer drowning, and later, maybe we should go back to give the giants a feast rather than being lost in the depths of the earth and suffer threat of dragons and other dangers). He knows death isn’t the end.

When they are faced with the dreadful decision of whether to release Rilian or not, his cheerful pessimism comes to play again. He doesn’t sugar coat things by suggesting everything will turn out alright if they obey the sign, but says:

“Aslan didn’t tell Pole what would happen. He only told her what to do. That fellow will be the death of us, I shouldn’t wonder. But that doesn’t let us off following the sign.”

Because of his pessimism, he is able to bear the fact that they might die if they release the prince. But he recognises that Aslan’s orders come from a higher place. Doing right is more important than being safe. Even more important than living. Puddleglum has the heart of a matyr. And in part it is his pessimism that gives him that.

Finally, when it comes to the crunch, his pessimism saves that day. He is aware of the enchantment working on them and sees a way out (extinguishing the fire, the source of the enchantment). He knows it will hurt, but he’s okay with that. Things could and would be worse if he wasn’t willing to face that pain - so he embraces it.

And then in his speech, he expresses the true faith behind his pessimism. His pessimism lets him grant that perhaps the overworld, the sun, and Aslan are all imaginary. Perhaps none of what they seem to remember is true. But there is a worse alternative. That the world underground is all there is. And he will not accept that. He would rather embrace an untrue dream, than suffer the fate of one who has no hope. His hope at this point is fragile - he is full of doubt in what he believes. But he knows he would rather embrace that, and be proved wrong, than live in a world of such dreariness.

Puddleglum’s pessimism lets him see what is bad, and then imagine something worse. By doing this, the bad suddenly becomes bearable. It is this which saves him and his friends.

I’m not saying we should all be Puddleglums. His pessimism is draining, and leads to arguments and the children not always trusting his better judgement. But there is something in his mindset we can imitate. Not full pessimism, but a trust in God that means if we do God’s will, if we trust in him, even bad things will look bright and be bearable in the light of what could be so much worse - a life without him.

The apostle Paul comes close to saying what Puddleglum tells the witch. He acknowledges that she may be right, and they might have imagined Narnia and the sun and Aslan. But he’d rather chance that they be wrong than live without hope. Paul imagines for a second what would be the case if what we believe and what he preached was not true; if Jesus did not die and rise from the dead:

But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up—if in fact the dead do not rise. For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable. 1 Cor 15: 13-19

As Puddleglum and his friends soon learn - they were right. Their faith is rewarded because it turns out to be real. They find Narnia and see the sun and Aslan again. Their hope was not in vain. Paul, who had seen the risen saviour, knows the same is true of what we believe.

But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 1 Cor 15: 12-19

I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia!

The Silver Chair: Chapter 11

The Silver Chair

Reading chapters 11 and 12 got me thinking a lot about the witch’s motives and plans. What was she really after? And how did she expect to succeed?

I know a number of people, including me, have discussed before why Lewis chose the title he did for this book. The Silver Chair is seemingly one of the least significant things in the book and there are a number of other titles he could have used (including Night Under Narnia and Wild Waste Lands). But after reading these chapters, it’s made me wonder again. I think the Silver Chair is far more significant than we realise.

Rilian refers to it as “a vile engine of sorcery,” which is about the most information we are given on it. We don’t even know what it looks like, apart from it being silver. At a set time every night, Rilian is made to sit on it and tied up to it. He is told this is because of the fit of rage which comes upon him for that hour every night. He is tied to the chair because he becomes violent and it is a means of keeping him from harming anyone.

Yet we know that in actual fact, it is only during that hour every night that he is completely sane. Which made me wonder what kind of enchantment the witch had cast upon him? Usually, when people are bewitched to forget who they are, it is permanent; where does this one hour of sanity come from?

I’ve always thought it was the chair itself that made him sane - like some side effect of its working. While the witch used the chair to re-enforce the enchantment, it also meant that he would be sane while it happened. But thinking about it now, it makes more sense that the spell only lasts a day at a time. Every night it wears off, and has to be re-administered - by the chair itself. After an hour in the chair, the spell is restored and he forgets again who he is. A more basic spell by the witch (such as she tries to use on Puddleglum and the children), would not have been powerful or practical enough to keep Rillian under her authority all that time. The son of the King of Narnia, and someone known to Aslan would, sooner or later, have seen through her bewitchment and turned on her. Doubtless she could kill him should that happen, but she wants him alive.

And so somehow, she had made (or acquired) the chair. He needed to be kept in the chair for an hour every night for the curse to remain on him (it was like he needed a new dose of it every night to keep it in his system - like some kind of poison). Once the hour had passed, and the chair done its work, he had forgotten again and continued the next day under the witch’s spell.

I noticed something particularly interesting about when Rilian was in the chair (which I hadn’t thought of before). Although he claims to be “sane now”, he does not seem to remember everything of his past life. He does not even remember who he is. He knows only that

“Every night I am sane. If only I could get out of this enchanted chair it would last. I should be a man again. But every night they bind me, and so every night my chance is gone.”

In all his imploring that the companions release him, he doesn’t once claim that he is Rilian. This can only mean that he has not fully remembered his life before his enchantment, as those words, if any, would encourage them to release him if they were friends. Bu he doesn’t. Instead he continues to shout at them, even threaten them. His voice rises “to a shriek” and Eustace describes his behaviour as a “frenzy”. Perhaps this is partly because he is so desperate, but I think there is more to it. He threatens them and tells them if they do not release them they will make him their “mortal enemy”. These don’t sound like the words of a perfectly sane Prince Rilian. Despite having some degree of sanity, the chair is still working on him so that he only remembers something of who and what he is.

Thankfully, he remembers one of the most important things. Somehow, subconsciously, he remembers Aslan. He might not remember fully who Aslan is (for he does not call on him directly to save him), but in a last desperate attempt, he calls on the greatest powers he knows of to implore them to free him: “all fears and loves…the bright skies of overland, [and] the great Lion, Aslan himself”.

These are, as Eustace says, “the words of the sign”. Had Rilian been saner, and spoken to them more clearly, the decision to follow the sign would have been easier. But as Aslan had told Jill, “the signs… will not look at all as you expect them to look…pay no attention to appearances.” Thanks to Puddleglum’s wisdom, they choose to follow the sign no matter the consequences, “That fellow will be the death of us, I shouldn’t wonder. But that doesn’t let us off following the sign.”

Only once they have released the prince, does he become fully sane and remember who he is. He starts by rushing on the chair with his sword and destroying it “lest your mistress should ever use you for another victim”. He knows more than the others how important the chair was in the witch’s scheme. I think we can be sure here that the chair was made of real silver, since a stronger metal would not have been so easily rent (even by a very good sword with the strength of revenge behind it).

Next he recognises Puddleglum as a Marshwiggle and tells them that he is Rilian, the son of Caspian X, King of Narnia. There are no further threats, or anger. His complete sanity is evidenced by the words:

“And the something wrong, whatever it was, had vanished from his face.”

Coming back to the witch’s scheme, I still wonder what she was up to. We know that she wanted Narnia and her kidnapping of Rilian was part of the plan. But how was it really to work? Surely once they broke through into Narnia he would be recognised as the lost prince. Unless the silver chair was taken with, she could not keep him under the spell forever. Rilian says that he would be freed from his “enchantment” once he was made king, but the witch could only have meant by this that he would be forever under her enchantment and there’d be no further use of the silver chair. But that seems to me like nonsense - why would her enchantment suddenly become permanent just because he was above the earth?

Did she plan to kill him once the kingdom was won? If so, why bother capturing him in the first place? Her plan was to marry him so she’d be queen, but Caspian was not quite dead yet. The Narnians would never allow it, and either rescue Rilian from her clutches or brand him as a traitor and usurper (since his father was still alive). Of course, the witch had all the earthmen on her side, so perhaps she would have succeeded in defeating the Narnians in battle (many of their best warriors were lost looking for the prince), but if she could win it by force, why did she need Rilian? I doubt her being married to him would make the surviving Narnians any more accepting of her authority. She would have been better off convincing Rilian to marry her and returning with him as his bride (peacefully) on the news of Caspian’s death. Why did she plan to make him take take by force what would one day be his by right?

Perhaps I’ve missed something; perhaps there are more clues as to her schemes later in the book that I have forgotten. Regardless, the witch’s plans seem rather strange to me.

In the end, she failed. Her silver chair, whatever its full purpose, was destroyed, as was she along with her plans. We’ll never know, thankfully, exactly what she was up to. But reading it this time round, I couldn’t help but be curious.

It is clear, though, that the silver chair was indeed important to her schemes. In destroying the chair, Rilian broke her spell. I find it interesting that she returns (unexpectedly early) almost as soon as it is destroyed, as if she instinctively knew something had gone wrong. Her response on seeing Rilian free and the chair destroyed is telling:

“She turned very white; but Jill thought it was the sort of whiteness that comes over some people’s faces not when they are frightened, but when they are angry. For a moment the witch fixed her eyes on the Prince. And there was murder in them.”

The Silver Chair: Chapter 1

Not an allegory

Being the diehard Narnian fans we are, we all know that "Narnia is not an allegory, it's a supposal" (or supposition - I've seen both words used). But I've often wondered about this. Is it just a question of definition?

In a way the answer is "of course". Defining something as fitting into a certain category always depends on your definition of that category (and definitions of categories are almost always in some way ambiguous and subjective - something you learn early on if you study any semantics). But at the same time, I think for the most part most people would agree about the main elements of what makes something count, or not count, as allegory.

Right at the outset of The Silver Chair, we get a few passages which look like something dangerously close to allegory. Passages like these give me the niggling feeling that perhaps Lewis wasn't so anti-allegory when he wrote The Chronicles as he was later on in life (something I've suspected came from Tolkien's outspoken dislike of it).

In most of the Chronicles, Aslan only appears later in the story (sometimes only really at the end) and it is there that his role as the Christ-figure in the story is most clearly seen. But in The Silver Chair, Lewis is less "subtle" as we see the Lion interacting with Jill and revealing his nature right at the start.

In the conversations between Jill and Aslan in chapter two, Lewis uses what seem to me unveiled references to Christian truths (sometimes in language almost taken straight from scripture.) If allegory is an everyday story/account of events which is used to represent something unseen (or in the religious sense, spiritual), what do we make of these passages?

The first of these scenes is the most obvious - the conversation at the river where Jill wants to drink but is afraid of the lion standing there (whom, I had forgotten this until I started reading again, she does not know is the same Aslan Eustace had told her about - she has no idea that Aslan is a lion). He invites her more than once, "if you are thirsty, come and drink". When he does not move away on her asking him to and she suggests finding another stream, he says "there is no other stream". When she finally plucks up the courage (or lets her thirst overcome her fear), the water is described as "the coldest, most refreshing water ever tasted. You didn't need to drink much of it for it quenched your thirst at once."

The biblical references alluded to here can, I think, not be missed by anyone familiar with the passages in the bible where Jesus refers to himself as being or providing Living Water, and as being the "only one".

Jesus replied, “If you only knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me, and I would give you living water... Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.” (John 4:10, 13-14)

On the last day...Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” (John 7:37-38)

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. (John 14:6)

The next section which presents a strong, unveiled biblical parallel is when Jill suggests that Aslan has the wrong girl because he did not call them, but they asked him to let them into Narnia. His reply, "You would not have called to me unless I had been calling you," reminds me a lot of Jesus' words to the disciples: "You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain..." (John 15:16a). Without getting into any controversial topics, I think we all agree that the point made here, that it was Aslan who called the children to Narnia to fulfil a certain task, as Jesus chose the disciples to be given the task of proclaiming his message and founding the church, and as we are called to fulfil certain tasks in our lives, is a good and solid Christian one.

Finally, the passage where Jill is reminded to recite the signs regularly and daily lest she forget them, ("say them to yourself when you wake in the morning, and when you lie down at night and when you wake in the middle of the night") reminds me strongly of God's command to the Israelites concerning the law:

And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. (Duet 6:6-7)

There are lots of small and large lessons in The Chronicles that are much subtler than these. Sometimes it's hard to tell whether Lewis intended them or not. But I think in the case of these passages, the intention is unmistakable.

Does this mean that The Chronicles do, in fact, have allegorical aspects to them (even if they are not full allegories of the kind like Pilgrim's Progress)? Well again, that depends on your definition, but I think there is something in these that argue for Lewis' denial of allegory, or at least the bad kind of allegory.

Allegory, in the "bad sense" is something to be avoided, because of its obvious method of forcing one image onto another. It has its uses, but they are limited, as they have the tendency to annoy the reader, who spends so much time worrying about what everything means that they miss the story (that's my experience anyway).

Tolkien says something interesting about the difference between intentional and subconscious allegory in the prologue to the second edition of The Silmarillion:

I dislike allegory - conscious and intentional allegory - yet any attempt to explain the purport of myth or fairytale must use allegorical language. (And, of course, the more life a story has, the more susceptible to allegorical interpretations: while the better a deliberate allegory is made, the more nearly it will be acceptable just as story.)

So Tolkien says there's nothing wrong with a story being susceptible to allegory - so long as it is not overtly so. Yet is not what Lewis has done in these particular passages intentional allegory? I would say yes, but there is something about the way Lewis does it that saves it from the danger of it being the annoying or bad kind of allegory. Lewis is subtle.

I've said all along that these passages stuck out to me as pointing to very clear biblical references. But that is because I have read The Silver Chair a number of times, discussed it for many years, and am very familiar with the biblical truths and passages they reflect. Although I can't judge for certain, I suspect that someone unaware of the biblical passages, or reading SC for the first time and not looking for significance (which was probably the case the first time I read it, though I cannot remember), could gloss over the connections completely, and not see any kind of spiritual lesson being shoved down your throat. At least I hope and imagine that that is the case. I know Pauline Baynes was said to have illustrated LWW without being at all aware of the fact that Aslan represented Jesus (which, though it seems strange to me, is a testimony of Lewis' subtlety).

I'm not sure if this is what Tolkien meant when he said well written intentional allegory is at risk of being taken as just a story or whether he sees that as a good or bad thing. But it seems to me that Lewis gets something of both worlds. The events containing intentional allegory or spiritual lessons in this chapter are clear for those who want to see them and know how to recognise them, but appear as just a story for those who cannot. And yet I think they are more than just a story even then. They are imparting truths about life to all readers, whether as an overt Christian message or as subtle truths. I think all readers would still find beauty in the image of Aslan testing Jill's trust, of his omnipotence in being the one who called them and his insistence she not allow herself to forget the signs.

As Christians we see these passages as speaking of Christ, the only source of living water, of pointing out that he is the one who calls us to fulfil what he has planned for our lives and of the fact we must continually remind ourselves of what we believe, lest we forget in the chaos of the world (the reason we observe communion as a reminder of Christ's death).

And so, whether or not you think the word "allegory" be applied to what Lewis has done here, I think it is safe to say that he has got it right. He has got the right combination and balance of lessons with subtlety. And that is what is important.

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TLC Summer Challenge - 2012

From 16 to 25 July we held a Summer Reading Challenge on The Lion's Call, the Chronicles of Narnia fansite which I'm a member of. The challenge was to read The Silver Chair during that period, two chapters a day, and to write/design reflections or something artistic inspired by those chapters. Since this blog has been feeling a little neglected of late, I thought I'd use the opportunity to share my reflections on The Silver Chair on it.

Haman hanged - a reversal

Most of the ideas in the post come from a sermon by Pete Wilkinson, St Ebbes, Oxford entitled "Two Banquets"

Haman in One Night with the King

Those familiar with the story of the Jewish woman Esther who finds herself Queen of the Persian Empire, will know that Haman is the villain of the story. He is proud and evil and meets his just deserts in one of the most ironically satisfying reversal tales in the Bible. We cheer to see Haman leading Mordecai the Jew, his sworn enemy, on the king's horse like a common slave and proclaiming how much the king honours his rival. We cheer too when we see him hanged on the very gallows he had had built to hang this same enemy. This is a story of evil defeated and good being victorious. It's the way we expect things should be.

In this morning's 9.45 service at St Ebbe's, the speaker, Pete Wilkinson put something of a different spin on this story - one I've never thought of before. Yes Haman is the bad guy. But to what extent is Haman a picture of us? He exemplifies the human condition apart from God. Desperately wicked and fully absorbed in his own self-promotion and exultation, are we really that different from him? Pride is a quintessential expression of human sin. It was pride that caused Adam and Eve to desire to eat the fruit from the tree of  the Knowledge of Good and Evil; the pride that the fruit would make them like God so that they would no longer need to submit to him. And pride leads us to many of our our other sins - the belief that we are the most important person in the world and therefore have the right to do whatever we want, regardless of it's consequences.

When we look at ourselves in the light of Haman and his end, we may wonder: "Is there then any hope for us?" Haman's sins did find him out, what then of us?

The answer, however is that there is hope. Though we recognise the justice in Haman's story, it is not the most powerful reversal story in the Bible. There is another, more significant, in it's apparent injustice.

When Xerxes has Haman hanged he is careful to protect his own reputation. Esther's accusation against him is that he is planning the massacre of her people, but since Xerxes played a role in authorising that massacre, he accuses Haman instead of assaulting his wife (a charge it seems is only partially true). In this way the King punishes Haman justly, but protects his own reputation.

The other story, the one that brings hope for us Hamans, also involves a hanging of sorts. A hanging on a Roman cross. In this story, the king does not seek to protect his own reputation, but, being this time completely innocent, he takes the punishment that we the Hamans deserved. This reversal is one in which the just man is hanged so that the guilty may go free.

Looking at it from this point of view, it seems all wrong. It is, but the story doesn't end there. Because it wasn't just some good king that took the death penalty on the evil Haman's part; it was God himself in human flesh, in the person of Jesus. He wasn't only a good king, but was completely holy. In his holiness, the grave could not hold him and he rose again after three days, not only securing freedom for a world full of Hamans, but defeating the evil and need for death that all those Hamans possessed. When we acknowledge that we are among those Hamans, we come to understand the undeserved grace that is showered on us through this reversal. To all who accept this substitution, we receive not only life, but the power stop being Hamans. 

When we look on how the one deserving of all honour did not seek his own glory but humiliated himself, we begin to realise just how great this God is. With this new view, and with his spirit in us, we can't help but see the folly of our pride and begin to humble ourselves before him. Unlike Haman, we have a happier ending. Our life does not end on the gallows as we deserve, but we have the opportunity to repent and start a new life where honour goes to the one who deserves it! Not how's that for a reversal?