Narnian Legacies

Last night I finished reading “The Final Battle”, the last book in C.S. Lewis’ “The Chronicles of Narnia”. I don’t know what is it about this book particularly, but just exactly as it happened the last time round, after I finished reading the book, I put it down and started sobbing uncontrollably. Somehow between the emotions the book stirred up in me, of longing, of beauty, of hope and of even fear… somehow my reaction was to finally give vent to everything that was going on inside of me with 15 mins of violent sobs.

Inside of me I was absolutely bewildered at my reaction also, but I just couldn’t help the tears that came out. But after I managed to calm down, I had a bit of time to sort through all that was going on in my head when reading that book.

I think… of all the Christian analogies and allusions that could be found within the series, the most obvious ones were all found inside “The Last Battle”. From the despair and hopelessness of the situation that Prince Tirian found himself in – which mirrors the situation so many of us feel when dealing with the odds we’re up against in life, to the helplessness of even Aslan Himself to make the dwarves see Him for who He is – which so often mirrors our own obstinacy to acknowledge God when He moves to speak to us in our lives… there were so many things to be picked out from the book, and to marvel at how cleverly Lewis had inserted all the elements of Christian Theology into a book that spoke to children.

I looked at my illustrated copy of the book, and the picture of the 7 children who were the kings and queens of Narnia, and I couldn’t help but think of the verse where Jesus said “Let the little children come to me, for theirs is the kingdom of God.” There was even a reminder within that, where Susan did not return to Narnia as High Queen because she had turned too worldly grown-up, and rejected Narnia as a fairy-tale.

So many thoughts were running through my head today as I spent the whole morning and half the afternoon talking to a very old friend of mine. At one point in time our discussions became very heated as he accused me of wanting to stop him from realising his dreams, not having faith in him to be able to do what he wanted, and not trusting him to know his own limits.

I was very hurt by the conversation, to be honest. To have someone whom I’ve spent so much time and effort nurturing a friendship that dates easily over ten years turn around and basically push me away because he thought I was in the way of him realizing his dreams isn’t something easy to swallow. And even though he apologized afterwards and we basically ended the whole day on an amicable note, I couldn’t stop thinking about it for the rest of the day. It drained me enough to can my plans to go to the gym, and I ended up sleeping for 4 straight hours.

The gist of our argument had revolved around my hesitance to endorse him on the career track he wanted to pursue. So I had started out by warning him of the consequences of his choice… and that I needed to point out to him how as difficult as it may be to do in real life, we have a duty to God even before we have a duty to our family. That when we compromise our Christian principles, or even embark on that slippery slope, the price we end up paying at the end of the day is so much higher than we thought it would be.

His reply to me was “At this point in time, I need to choose between the two. It is impossible for me to be both a Christian, and to pursue my career. And if it is what it takes, I’ll choose my career… for now.”

I never knew how much it hurts to see a brother of more than 10 years in church say that to my face. Until today. And yet I guess now that I’ve had more tie to think about it, he only articulated what so many have actually done… including my sister and her husband. Yet both of them would not see themselves as having separated their faith from their work… they only will say justify it as a temporal phase which does not count as compromise.

“The Last Battle” painted the beautiful idea of the Shadowlands… where the Narnia we read about in the first 6 books is but a shadow of the real Narnia that is revealed only at the end. A Narnia within a Narnia!! So that even when the end seemed to have come for Narnia at the last battle, Aslan actually had something better in mind…

At this point in my life it was a poignant reminder that even as so many around me are seemingly overwhelmed with the events in their life that threatens to break them beyond what they can bear, what happened to Narnia and to Prince Tirian brought to mind what Paul says in Romans, that “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” The question “Doesn’t God care that what is happening to me now is probably going to kill me?” suddenly has an answer that makes sense.

I think it was the sum of so many biblical principles that I was reminded of just by reading that last book, that made it feel like almost a personal rebuke from God of how much I myself have lost the plot in my own walk with God, and forgotten so many of these principles that I cherished so much when I was 17…. In my bedroom and on my bed, when I was sobbing uncontrollably, it felt as if Aslan Himself was in the room and I was so afraid to meet Him because I knew I wouldn’t be able to give up a good account of myself.

I guess after spending so much of my time moping over the apparent under-achievements of my life, be it academically, financially or career-wise, just for last night and tonight, I am ashamed of myself for having not stopped to ask why I don’t feel any sense of regret at my under-achievements for God. Henry wanted us on Sunday to spend time this week before Missions Sunday, to really think abt God’s calling in our own lives, and how we are all to become the living sacrifices that is expected of us. I guess that given my inertia to do so, God decided to give me the shove I needed…