Tag Archives: C.S. Lewis

Lessons From Puddleglum and Wulfstan

In C.S. Lewis’ Narnia tale, The Silver Chair, one of the characters, Puddleglum, along with two children, are trapped underground by a wicked witch. She tells them that the good things in the world above, the world of the children’s protector Aslan, are all made up fantasies. Puddleglum, as pessimistic as his name implies, nevertheless leads the children to victory over the witch and her contention that the good things the children believe in are only made up.

Puddleglum answers the wicked witch: “Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things–trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones.”

Times of crisis and danger require real life Puddleglums to lead us. Such a time happened in the British Isles around 1014 A.D. In “The Sermon of the Wolf,” (Plough, Summer 2022), Eleanor Parker tells of the English Anglo-Saxons when they were being overwhelmed by the Vikings. Christianity had reached England by that time, and the archbishop of York, Wulfstan, gave a sermon. For him and those around him, it may very well have seemed the end of the world. He did not pretend that the Vikings might not conquer. His aim in the sermon, however, was to call for personal integrity and repentance.

Indeed, the Vikings did conquer. However, Wulfstan continued to work with them also, seeking reconciliation and just laws. Parker writes: “. . . the laws they made formed the basis for many later codes, ties that still sought to hold English society together centuries after Wulfstan was dead.”

Perilous times are nothing new. Bad things will happen. We can choose to give up or perhaps lose ourselves in frivolous pursuits.

Or, as Parker says in telling us of Wulfstan: “Whatever the darkness of the times we live in, some good can yet be done by every turn toward the truth.”

The World’s Last Night

Even if the world does not end today, time will end for some of us today.

In an essay entitled “The World’s Last Night” (Fern-seed and Elephants), C.S. Lewis wrote about our tasks that stop, finished or not, when time ends—for us or the world.

“For what comes is judgment; happy are those whom it finds labouring in their vocations, whether they were merely going out to feed the pigs or laying good plans to deliver humanity a hundred years from now from some great evil. The curtain is indeed now fallen. Those pigs will never in fact be fed, the great campaign against white slavery or governmental tyranny will never in fact proceed to victory. No matter; you were in fact at your post when the inspection came.”

Few of us complete great deeds or find the success we intended when we began. It is enough, I think, that we are engaged in what we are called to do and follow it to the end.

Chronological Snobbery

The professor and writer C.S. Lewis had a name for the tendency to suppose one’s present age is superior to all others. He called it “chronological snobbery.” In his talk, “Learning in Wartime,” Lewis said:

“… we need intimate knowledge of the past. Not that the past has any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need something to set against the present, to remind us that the basic assumptions have been quite different in different periods and that much which seems certain to the uneducated is merely temporary fashion.”

Doctors used to think bleeding a sick person rid them of harmful humors. Some used to believe that moonlight contributed to insanity. Decades ago, smoking cigarettes was considered sophisticated. Then we learned that tobacco was a factor in lung cancer, as well as other diseases.

In the future, Lewis said, that which we now consider the height of learning may turn out to be ridiculous.

We should carry our present assumptions lightly and treat with respect those who cherish past ones. Who knows, present dictates may turn out to be merely temporary fashion.

Comfort for a Pessimist

When I was thirteen, my father died. He had suffered a coronary attack days earlier and was rushed to the hospital. He recovered, so it seemed. I last saw him in the hospital on a Wednesday, two days before he was due to return home.

On Friday, the day we looked forward to his return, a woman showed up in the back of my school classroom. I saw her talking to my teacher. Probably they looked my way. I knew why she was there. I knew my father had died. She came and gave me the news and took me home to my grieving mother and the many friends of my family.

That’s the day I realized how suddenly good can turn to bad. It’s the time I began accepting good times as always temporary. It’s why I wait for that knock on the door or that phone call or that visit by a policeman.

Nobody enjoys a pessimist, so I try to blunt my tendency to melancholy. After all, I have close friends. I have enjoyed more blessings than I have a right to expect. I take pleasure in friends and books and hiking and travel and a thousand other pursuits.

Still, I accept my tendency to pessimism. No reason to stress over it. We pessimists have our place.

The character of Puddleglum, from C.S. Lewis’ The Silver Chair offers solace. Puddleglum, as his name indicated, was a born pessimist. It certainly made him a less than ideal companion during good times. On the other hand, Puddleglum was an ideal companion when bad times came. Unsurprised, he offered stoical help.

Perhaps there’s a place for us pessimists.

 

Imagination: Where Reality Ends

 

Reality is rationalism at work. A stove is hot, so we don’t touch it and teach our children to avoid it as well. We plan careers and investments (provided we have any extra money) on rational input. We make day-to-decisions on reality. A tornado advisory suggests we not plan a picnic today and we postpone it.

Rationalism fades when someone we love dies. Rationalism tells us that humans, like other creatures, die. We know this. Yet this rationalism goes only so far and not far enough. We want something more, not something that says reality is false—but something that takes over when reality doesn’t satisfy.

C.K. Chesterton talks of the truth in fairy tales in his Orthodoxy. No, we do not believe, literally, in little elves or fairy godmothers or trolls. It’s the truth embedded in the stories that calls us, a reality not evident in the material world. Sometimes our imagination, by its own weird reasoning, leads to answers unavailable in “reality.”

C.S. Lewis gave us his Narnia tales. One of my favorite characters is Puddleglum in The Silver Chair: Imprisoned by a witch, despairing of any change in their circumstances, Puddleglum and his friends are tempted by the witch to accept her view of things.

Puddleglum replies: “Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. . . . We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. Bur 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.”

The point is that sometimes the “real” world is hollow. Something is missing, something we yearn for, a new order, when things like death are not denied but transformed. Why do we yearn for it if it is not there? Perhaps it is. Sometimes we do catch glimpses of a new order, when a wrong is righted because of the courage of one or a few people to act irrationally for interests other than their own. And sometimes we receive comfort from unexpected, irrational places.

Fair Play and Community

 

C.S. Lewis in his book Mere Christianity states his belief in a moral law of nature which most people in most cultures adhere to. We, by and large, believe in things like fair play and unselfishness. Nevertheless, though we profess to believe in these principles, we may fail to carry them out in actual practice. We excuse ourselves when we fall from our own standards by suggesting that, in our case, an exception can be made. We are overtired, stressed out, or deserve special consideration.

Since the recession, much talk has centered on the greed of some Wall Street executives who are paid astronomical salaries in a time of privation for many Americans. Recently I read an article in the Seattle Times by John W. Dienhart , director of Seattle University’s Center for Business Ethics. He suggests that these executives probably do not think of themselves as greedy. They believe their salaries are justified because they work hard or because others who bring in less money for their companies are paid more or for other reasons which seems valid to them.

Dr. Dienhart suggests that all of us, including those executives, look at our choices from the standpoint of the community instead of self-centered viewpoints. Will the community as a whole be better off if I insist on a high salary? Do the choices I make impact the community as a whole for better or worse?

What about the amounts spent on campaign financing? Why do we spend millions to influence elections when job creation and education needs go unmet? Is our democratic community better off if elections are won by those with the most money?

We need to view ourselves as part of a community of all the people rather than a subset of our special interest groups. Is that reasonable or possible? How could that transformation occur?

 

 

Comfortable or Anxious Faith?

What exactly is faith? Throughout Christianity, its adherents have veered between a comfortable faith and an anxious one. When Christianity is the dominant religion, the majority of Christians accept their faith as a certainty. They are not threatened by other religions or contrary movements, and the culture around them breathes the Christian world view. Such was the case for American Christians throughout most of the twentieth century until the last decades.

But when Christianity is a minority religion, it is more likely to develop apologists, those who apply reasoning to persuade others of their faith. During the early centuries of the church, leaders like Augustine wrote “apologies” for the Christian faith. Apology in this sense doesn’t mean sorrow for a mistake, but a defense of a particular belief or way of life. The apologists of the early church did not assume a common acceptance of their faith. They understood that the Christian’s God was not universally acknowledged. They attempted to persuade, not to revive.

During the earlier days of our country, Christianity appeared a more emotional religion, with revivals and calls for repentance. Recently, however, Western Christians have become a minority faith. Thus, people like G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis created defenses of the Christian faith. In more recent times, other apologists have joined them. It is a time of ferment.

 

What the Apostle Paul, Johnny Cash, and C.S. Lewis Taught Me

Christians sometimes seal themselves off from the arts, the sciences, academia, and other pursuits not overtly religious. The apostle Paul did not shut himself off from culture; he invaded it. He went to Athens and spoke to pagan philosophers and thinkers about their altar to an unknown God.

When country music singer Johnny Cash died in 2003, Time Magazine ran a special report on “The Man in Black.” Cash would never have been so well known for his Christian faith if he hadn’t first become a great musician.

C.S. Lewis is quoted as saying, “We don’t need more Christian writers. We need more great writers who are Christian.”

Christians must prepare to compete in the marketplace and academia and the public sphere. We must strive to be among the best.

Christians may rail against much that they see in today’s society, but such admonition is useless to a non-Christian who sees Christians as being mostly against things he has no problem with. We may not agree with today’s standards of right and wrong, but, for many reasons , the Christian world view is no longer the dominant one in our culture.

In the past, we’ve had a lot of hangers-on when it was popular to be a Christian. Now the hangers-on are leaving.

Christians now will be respected for who they are rather than what they say.

 

Christianity’s Success: A Problem?

C.S. Lewis mentioned in his autobiography, Surprised By Joy, how his early life at a “vile” boarding school prepared him for real life. It taught him, he said, to live by hope. At school, hope of the holidays sustained him. During holidays, however, the knowledge that even the best of vacations must end, prepared him for not accepting present situations, even favorable ones, at face value.

Dark times can include seeds of victory and success may hint of struggles to come.

When Christianity at first was rejected by religious leaders and persecuted by secular ones, it grew mightily. When finally it found success and even power as it joined with worldly governments, it suffered from schisms and disharmony. Then Muslims conquered much of the lands that had spawned Christianity. Turks overthrew the last of the Byzantine Empire, and a reduced Christianity was left to the backwaters of a primitive Europe.

Christian leaders developed, and the new printing press spread their ideas. Christianity prospered, increasing the faith of many and bringing deeper understanding. Then adherents of various religious movements tied it to political alliances. Their actions contributed to a lessening of Christian influence and to the rationalism of the eighteenth century in the Western world.

Christianity revived in the nineteenth century and became even more influential, leading directly or indirectly to the abolishment of slavery, the improvement of women’s status, and various programs to alleviate the sufferings of the poor.

It was popular to be a Christian, and Christianity was carried to vast reaches of the world as Europe and America, the “West,” became dominant.

Now we are inheritors of that time and are surprised to find that Christianity has lost its primary position in the West. In truth, Christianity is always carried out by a remnant living within the world. When the influence of that remnant is great, Christian principles weave into our laws and our ways of life. Success, however, brings the temptation to ally with Caesar and Mammon— power and wealth. That alliance may injure us. We must again earn the right to be taken seriously.