Different ways into Narnia
Like many people I have a fondness for the Narnia stories. As a child, I read them listened to them at night time with Sir Michael Hordern reading abridged versions and enjoyed watching the BBC adaptations on a Sunday evening. Unfortunately, Disney did their best to ruin things…That said, I enjoyed the theatre production recently and would recommend to people even if I would quibble at one or two bits.
As a child I made some of the connections between Aslan and Jesus as, the writer, C.S. Lewis intended.[1] I understood the links we were to make with Aslan giving himself for Edmund; his return to life as “the table would crack, and death itself work backwards”; the “other name” the children would learn to call Aslan in our world; Aslan’s country and the “Real Narnia” and the “Real England” at the end of the Last Battle. As I have reread them over the years other parallels, motifs and themes that are supposed to point us towards Jesus and Christian story have become more evident such as providence in The Horse and His Boy and the need for continual meditation on God’s law as Jill is exhorted to remember the signs in The Silver Chair.[2] There are many others.
Two books that unpack these themes are Joe Rigney’s Live Like a Narnian and John P. Bowen’s The Spirituality of Narnia. One of the things that struck me from reading those books was the different ways the children come into Narnia in the various books.
In Wardrobe, Lucy discovers Narnia by accident; Edmund through malice; and all four arrive as they feel like they are being chased by “the Macready and a whole gang with her!” In Prince Caspian, the four Pevensie children are summoned through the blowing of Susan’s horn. Joining the Dawn Tredder on her voyage comes following discussions about Narnia and seeing a painting with, what looks very much like, and turns out to be, a Narnian ship. Eustace and Jill call out to Aslan as they try to escape school bullies. The Magician’s Nephew sees Diggory and Polly enter via a pool in the wood between the worlds with their rings on. Finally, in The Last Battle, King Tirian visits the friends of Narnia who then try to find a way in, but find themselves there through death, although they do not know it until Aslan tells them.
Within the Narnia books themselves, this supports the point of Professor Kirk that the children wouldn’t get back into Narnia through the wardrobe although they would return through other means. John Bowen also points out, “the fact that, in all the stories, getting tin Narnia is normally difficult, and sometimes painful, even when people really want to get there.”[3] The call to conversion, discipleship and following Jesus is a difficult one. The call is the same, the point of entry, faith, is the same, but coming to that place is different for everyone principle, with no two stories quite the same. Bowen also points out how this played out in Lewis’ life, which has been well-documented in various biographies as well as in Lewis’ own work, Surprised by Joy.
I think it is in Simply Christian that Tom Wright uses the analogy of someone waking up in the morning. Some people hear the alarm, leap out of bed and are ready for the day. Others wake up, but take a long time to get out of bed. Both, however, are awake. Some people can remember the day, time and place they came to know Jesus. Others, myself included, cannot do so. For some, it was a gradual realisation that the gospel was true whilst for others, again, myself included, we cannot remember a time we did not know Jesus.
What is common to all, however, is the words Aslan says to Jill in The Silver Chair. “You would not have called to me unless I had been calling to you.” We may all be in Narnia. We may have come in different ways. In the final analysis, however, we all responded to Aslan’s call.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Lewis denied the books were allegories. Instead, they were based on a “supposal”. He writes, “‘Let us suppose that there a land like Narnia and the Son of God, as He became a Man in our world, became a Lion there, and then imagine what would have happened.’ If you think about it, you will see that it is quite a different thing.” C.S. Lewis, Letters to Children, (New York, NT: Scribner, 1996), p.45
[2] Joe Rigney links this to spiritual disciplines. He writes, “We live down here in the fog where it’s hard to think. The signs elevate us to Aslan’s country where we know what we’re here for. The guide us and lead us when we meditate upon them day and night. And, of course, when we muff them, Aslan gives grace and still guides us.” Joe Rigney, Live Like a Narnian: Christian Discipleship in Lewis’ Chronicles, (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Eyes & Pen Press, 2013), p.160
[3] John P. Bowen, The Spirituality of Narnia: The Deeper Magic of C.S. Lewis, (Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2007), p.136