This breathtakingly beautiful piece of photography – a silhouette with golden tinges of sinking sun defining the presence of the lion against a deep dark, and the whole form of the animal still also a mystery – calls to mind a favourite scene from The Chronicles of Narnia.
In The Horse and his Boy – the third book in CS Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, there is a scene right near the end of the narrative journey in which the orphan runaway boy called Shasta is walking in the dark, his part in the grand mission of saving a city accomplished, but himself, now alone and at a loss for what will become of him. And there comes beside him a voice – the reader knows immediately that this voice will turn out to be Aslan, the Great Lion. But Shasta does not recognise it. He does not yet know that he knows Aslan. The conversation provides a retrospective of the key scenes of the story, and then collects together the meaning, and reveals the identity and presence of the Great Lion through the narrative.
“Oh, I am the unluckiest person in the whole world.”
Once more he felt the warm breath of the Thing on his hand and face. “There,” it said, “that is not the breath of a ghost. Tell me your sorrows.”
Shasta was a little reassured by the breath: so he told how he had never known his real father or mother and had been brought up sternly by the fisherman. and then he told the story of his escape and how they were chased by lions and forced to swim for their lives; and of all their dangers in Tashbaan and about his night among the Tombs and how the beasts howled at him out of the desert. And he told about the heat and thirst of their desert journey and how they were almost at their goal when another lion chased them and wounded Aravis. And also, how very long it was since had had anything to eat.
“I do not call you unfortunate,” said the Large Voice.
“Don’t you think it was bad luck to meet so many lions?” said Shasta.
“There was only one lion.” said the Voice.
“What on earth do you mean? I’ve just told you there were at least two lions the first night, and -”
“There was only one, but he was swift of foot.”
“How do you know?”
“I was the lion.”
And as Shasta gaped with open mouth and said nothing, the Voice continued. “I was the lion who forced you to join with Aravis. I was the cat who comfroted you among the houses of the dead. I was the lion who drove the jackals from you as you slept. I was the lion who gave the Horses the new strength of fear for the last mile so that you should reach King Lune in time. And I was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at midnight, to receive you.”
“Who are you?” asked Shasta.
“Myself,” said the Voice, very deep and low so that the earth shook: and again “Myself,” loud and clear and gay: and then the third time “Myself,” whispered so softly you could hardly hear it, and yet it seemed to come from all around you as if the leaves rustled with it.
This unfolding revelation upon revelation, the meeting, the knowing, as the mysterious breath
becomes a voice – becomes a form – becomes one who knows –
becomes one who has carried and rescued and protected and guided and empowered Shasta.
This beautifully prompts the reader to think of how a mysterious, present, but selfless God might relate to a young person – indeed to any human. Not as a heavy hand steering a captain’s wheel; not as an instructor ordering directions; not as one behind a control panel, but as one who shapes lives from alongside, without having to be seen or known, without needing to control. I wonder if this image of God is comforting or confronting for us?
Certainly, Lewis means us to think more creatively about the way a Cosmos-Maker might interact with a complex and beloved cosmos. The invitation to magnify our imaginations, relinquish second guessings, and simplistic one step, linear cause and effect divinations is a healthy antidote to anxious pieties that fret over finding [capital T] The [capital W] Will of God. And a necessary defence against the power grasping conspiracies theories of apocalpytic determinism, plotting events crudely on a schema spun from some spiritual playbook.
The Aslan of Lewis’ Narnia – an imperfect image of God for sure – nevertheless challenges us to make intellectual and imaginative room for God to be free, alive, adventurous – and to be more deeply free, more definitively alive and more daringly adventurous than humans are.
Turning aside from Narnia to scripture for a moment, if there is one non-negotiable biblical theology, it is the theology of Love. God is Love. God Loves and calls us to Love.
Love is always free and dynamic and risky.
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The past 4 years have had many major plot twists, but about a month ago, I had a week in which a series of plot twists came so fast it was hard trying to keep up with what was happening in my own life, let alone keep my significant others in the loop of where i might be living, and how i might be earning a living and who i might be living with – or whether indeed there was any provision for any of living to happen.
In the midst of updating my eldest son who lives 6 hours and at that time stage three restrictions away, i tried to give a sense that, although there were a pile-up of adverse outcomes to report, there were still lines of possibility cast that may (although in the end didn’t) provide some equilibrium.
In this moment, he listened and then responded:
“Yep, I guess it’s take the adventure Aslan sends us then.”
This phrase – a favourite quote which appears in several places across the Narnia Series – is one that I used to encourage a robust and courageous faith in my sons, to expect God to be wild and undomesticated, surprising and beyond our control or comprehension.
And here my son was – serving it back to me. I was accosted by this grace and heartened by his apt word.
Yes indeed. Of all the understandings of God i might have offered in the faith formation of young lives in my care, I am most glad God has been revealed as an adventure sender.
Still, how shall i survive this – the adventure that Aslan is sending me? Walking, like Shasta, alone and lost in the dark, my purpose spent, shall i wait for the breath, then the voice. The Horse and His Boy is a story of secrets and hidden identities, of unknown stories and of their uncovering. There are in the unfolding of the story many revelations in which characters come to know their true selves, and be seen and known by others for who they really are, and behind all of these uncoverings is the revelation of Aslan – seen though unknown in many forms by some, and known though unseen by others.
How will i hold my story? Defined as unlucky and abandoned and spent as Shasta believed his story was?
Or dare I let it be re-told in the depth of dark, lucid in outlines of glory struck by the setting sun, that reveal the presence and shaping by a subversive and subtle and surreptitious Loving Breathing Roaring Whispering Power.
Elizabeth Waldron Anstice
multivocality 