Orual's Hell (An Endnote Blog) - Kevin Crowley

It’s funny that I started out writing the blog assignment for Till We Have Faces with the intention of doing a parody. That idea slowly changed and evolved as I wrote. I was going to satire the concept of an unforgiving and judging god, the kind of god who is just as much endorsed by Christian theology just as much as a loving, merciful god is. I was going to show how her disbelief in the invisible god would lead her to an eternity of damnation and suffering. While I kept the eternity and damnation part in the story, I changed my approach to what that would look like exactly, and how she would get there.

Throughout Till We Have Faces Orual was thoroughly ignorant of the wrongness in her deeds. She presented to the reader ample justification for why she was in the right, though we know just be reading her tainted thought-process that she was clearly in the wrong. Constantly she would blame others instead of blaming herself, and her pride disabled her from believing her sister. Her biggest fallacy, of course, was that she sought to own people. She was so prideful that people became mere property to her.

Well, instead of a happier resolution with her and Psyche taking a stroll and going over everything Psyche had endured for her, I was for some reason drawn to a more horrific ending. What attracted me to such a terrifying conclusion stirred questions of interest and wonder in me. Perhaps I can relate to Orual in her ignorance, and perhaps I wanted her damned because of that. I thought it would be more interesting and have more impact (for me at least) to witness Orual refusing to see the god, but instead projecting her image upon it, and then going back to not seeing it (or hearing it) completely. I ended the story eerily with Orual kwnoing that Psyche was right and there was a loving god trying to reach her, but her choosing the contentment of torture instead. I suppose by writing this I wanted to show how often people are the creators of their own misery and hell. It is sad and disturbing to see from an outside point of view how people can often do this to themselves, and how often I do this to myself.

Orual's Judgment - Kevin Crowley

[My version of the ending takes place on pg. 297]

“I cannot hope for mercy”

“Infinite hopes—and fears—may both be yours. Be sure that, whatever you get, you will get justice.”

I closed my eyes, resting my head on the Fox’s shoulder. To be comforted like a child again, one last time before the god’s judgment, brought tears to my eyes. I sobbed, covering my face, forgetting my veil did a perfectly fine job at concealment. The Fox consoled me like the days of old when I would hurt myself playing outside, and held me while petting my head, whispering sweet utterances of comfort.

The reprieve did not last long however. Suddenly darkness overtook everything, except for a dull cascading light that shone from above, coming from some unknown source. There, within the shadows of grey and silver, the light (if you could call it that) materialized a body before me. I cringed peaking at the human-like form, though I could not make out what it was exactly, just to close my eyes again and I buried my face back into the Fox’s arms.

“Oh Fox!” I yelled, “Save me! I do not want to—“

“Quiet, my dear. Be brave and face your judgment.”

That voice, that eerie unforgettable voice, whose source was not from flesh and blood, but from divine authority, sighed. If world’s could sigh, it would be the sound of such, but greater than any thunder or earthquake, though it trembled my innards much the same. It was a masculine voice, but to say it was a man’s voice would be denigrating. It reminded me much of my Father’s voice, having a similar quality of rebuke in its tone. I could not bare to look up, but before I knew it the Fox suddenly swiped his left hand over my veil, revealing my entire head and face for the first time since I made my pledge. I could not believe what had just happened, but before the shock of such an action could be rationalized, the Fox then did something else more startling and out of character. He grabbed me by my hair and pulled my head up to look at the form in front of me. I gasped, tears rolling down my cheeks, I could only make out a faint blurry silhouette of a human form floating in the dull grey light.

“Orual”, the voice rang, Queen of Gnome, Queen of the dead, you have chosen your punishment.”

“Fox!” I screamed, “What are you doing?! Please stop this!” But he would not relent.

“Even now,” the voice continued, “You cannot see me rightly.”

He sounded disappointed, downright sad, but I could only stare wide-eyed into a figure of a man, that increasingly became more hideous the longer I looked. The body of the form became treacherous looking, its hands and feet resembling talons, its arms and legs looking black and decayed. Its head looked leprosy-covered to the point where I was unable to distinguish if it was a man’s face or not. It’s cheeks, eyes, and ears would melt and roll down its neck, bringing back that all too familiar smell of blood into my nostrils; but the head would morph into the appearance of a giant insect head with snapping pincers and hard rigid mandibles. Sometimes it would resemble a baboon’s face or a vulture. Sometimes the faces would appear to be overlapping all three creatures. I cried out in terror, misery, and shame, “Who are you?!”

“I am the One who you chose not see. I am Psyche’s husband.”

“I knew it! I knew it all along!” I shrieked, “You are some sort of Brute who devoured my sister! Now you here to devour me, you treacherous fiend! ”

“Before you heeded reason and chose not to see me…now you heed fear and see me how you wish to see me.”

While the Fox held my head up and in place to face this demon, suddenly Bardia and the Priest were on either side of me, grabbed my arms and held them outstretched. I was completely at the mercy of this beast now. I cried and whimpered, but nothing could be done. A soft “why?” is all I could mutter then.

“As I have said,” Interrupted the booming voice, “You have chosen your punishment.”

“The Brute knows no Justice!” I screeched, struggling against my captors.

“You blame Psyche for leaving you, as though you owned her; you blame your father for treating you with such disdain about your looks that you cover your face in shame, as though he put the veil on you himself. You blame the Fox for wanting to leave after you made him free, as though he too belonged to you. You blame Bardia for not wanting you, and worst still you blame his wife for taking him away from you. And you blame the people for twisting Psyche’s story when you know everything they say is true –“

“Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.” I cried.

“Silence!” roared the Fox from beside me, shaking and rattling my head. “It is the god’s turn now to speak.”

The Brute’s voice continued to speak out against me. But soon, like the hideous image that stood before me, its voice became distorted and scrambled. Soon I could not make sense of anything it said. In the deep silence I meditated on what it had said. I knew that everything it said was true. I knew what its real image was. I knew how Psyche could have left me for him. I would have done the same, if I was her. I then heard something, it could have been in my head…someone saying, “You also shall be –“

"No!" I found myself shrieking, trying to wriggle free from those who dared to hold me.

What was it? What was that voice saying? It’s getting fuzzy. I can’t recall. It’s on the edge of my brain. “You also shall…” The voice is fading away. “You also…” Its image too is going back to being blurry. Thankfully, I do not have to watch that grotesque creature cast judgment on me. “You…” Its voice is now a low humming sound. While the image and sound of the Brute vanished before me, suspiciously it did not get darker like one would hope in such a situation. All I wanted then was some peace. The darkness would have been welcomed, just a little solace. Instead, the grey light before me became brighter and brighter, until it filled the room. The light was unlike the sun’s light which gives off rays of warmth, though this light was not cold either. I had no idea what was happening, but I could still feel the Priest, Bardia, and the Fox all pulling at me. It hurt incredibly, but I was helpless. I could feel scratching of rings on my left ankle now. Fox jerked my head down to see it was my Father pulling my leg out, and then on the right side Trunia was pulling on my right leg. They kept pulling and tugging. I felt teeth bites and nails cutting into my skin. I could not tell if it was blood or their saliva that dripped down my body.

None of the pain mattered, however. I would gladly bear it for all time. The Brute was gone and everyone I ever cared about and loved was here, by my side.

Floating Islands - Kevin Crowley

Floating Islands

The most awe-struck moment I found myself reading in Perelandra was toward the end of the book when it occurred to the Green Lady (Tinidril) why she should not stay on the Fixed Island, other than of course for the reason that she was told not to by Maleldil.

“I awoke from sleep, my mind was cleared”, she says, “…How could I wish to live there except because it was Fixed? And why should I desire the Fixed except to make sure—to be able on one day to command where I should be the next and what should happen to me? It was to reject the wave—to draw my hands out of Maleldil’s, to say to him, ‘Not thus, but thus’…That would have been cold love and feeble trust. And out of it how could we ever have climbed back into love and trust again?” (p.179)

This trusting in Maleldil to provide resembles Jesus’ speech on the Sermon of the Mount, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear…” And the passage goes on. The idea portrayed here in Mathew, chapter 6, and in Perelandra is about trusting in God.

I believe C.S. Lewis uses an excellent analogy with fixed and floating islands. It’s funny because living on a planet in which all landmasses are fixed, we don’t see the idea of living fixed as a type of sin. Ransom says himself that his ancestors were not given such a forbiddance by God (for how could He if all lands are fixed?). But the sin is just the same. There need not be floating islands to recognize the temptation in permanence. Permanence gives rise to us being tempted in owning something. We believe we own this land. We believe we own our day to day lives. We believe we are owners of our own destiny. And as such, we lose our ability of adaptation. When we are fixed it is much harder to adapt to change…which is exactly what life is—a constant change. Any attempt to bring order to our lives is an attempt to enslave ourselves.

However, putting your faith in God…trusting God, some would say is just another form of slavery. Indeed, the New Testament scriptures are full of quotes revering an idea of being “enslaved to God” (Rom 6:15-23 speaks plenty on this). But this language used by Paul was seemingly reluctantly used to get through to the thick-headed people he was addressing. While the word slavery does not give one the best connotation, it is certainly not the same kind of slavery we are use to thinking about. Being enslaved to God/Maleldil is quite simply trusting in his providence. In effect, we are enslaved by our appetite for food, but one would not say this is a bad kind of enslavement, for food provides us with nourishment and life. We are also enslaved by air, the sun, the earth, and other things that without we would die. And the kind of slavery that Paul talks about is exactly the same kind that Jesus spoke of in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6); being enslaved to the life-giving objects such as food, water, and shelter, is the same as being enslaved to the one who provides such. The choice lies in trusting ourselves to provide ourselves or trusting God. Personally, the idea of self-providence is like an image of a snake eating itself.

Heaven's Veil - Kevin Crowley

My last post was rather critical of Perelandra, I know. While it wasn’t my favorite book of C.S. Lewis, there were parts of it that I really enjoyed. C.S. Lewis has a way of creating brilliant analogies, giving deep insight and concepts to meditate on. There are a few that stand out in my mind, so I will briefly discuss each one.

The Lady, who later is known as Tinidril, offers many wonderfully intuitive statements in her wise naiveté. The first I recall that really struck me was her statement to Ransom about the roof: “Oh, I see it…Your world has no roof. You look right out into the high place and see the great dance with your own eyes. You live always in that terror and that delight, and what we must only believe you can behold.” I like this quote because it really puts a perspective on faith. I never thought it was possible to take the Earth’s atmosphere for granted. But indeed, after reading that I did feel like I have been all this time. I could relate, and I think many can, to the fact that I really do take the sky for granted. I think most people in our culture do take the sky for granted…especially the night sky, as oppose to our ancestors who looked to the sky in wonderment and awe. Nowadays our night skies are damped by the luminosity of artificial light so we cannot see most of the stars. The dance has been veiled by our own doing. Tinidril, living on Venus whose skies are fully covered by clouds, does not have the luxury we Earthlings have in seeing the glorious night sky. Tinidril can only wonder, and of course as Lewis was allegorizing to, she possesses great faith. The fact that many people need to “see to believe” is a harsh reality that humans rely too much on the senses. As Tinidril did not need to see the night sky to know the great dance existed beyond the thick veil of clouds, we too should not need to experience everything sensationally to believe it’s there. It is a sad thing when our vision is veiled by our sight.

Plaigerlandra - Kevin Crowley

Plaigerlandra

Although it is obvious that C.S. Lewis imbues Christian elements into all of his fictional works, which is fine, it’s another thing to carbon-copy stories right out of the Bible. Much like he did with the latter part of The Magician’s Nephew, Perelandra is nothing more than a direct spin on the Fall of Man story in the book of Genesis. I can respect new spins on old stories, but when it vaguely differs from the original, then I have a problem. I feel like, when Lewis does this kind of thing, he is tired, worn out, rid of creative ideas. Another thing that pissed me off about the book was that not only are the characters of Tinidril and Tor simply Venus versions of Adam and Eve, but the other inhabitants of the planet are simply mythological beasts. It’s like he wasn’t even trying to come up with new creatures. At least with the first of the series, Out of the Silent Planet Lewis actually tried to create new creatures. It’s one thing to describe an extraterrestrial being to be like a creature on earth or in mythology, quite another to just rub it off as fantasy beings. Perhaps Lewis could not let go of the Narnia world he had left, and missing it decided to just insert them in his Space Trilogy. Whatever the case, I felt as though the creatures were out of place in a sci-fi series, and Perelandra all-around lacked conceptual originality.


(Although I have to admit this artist's depiction of Perelandra is pretty sweet!)

Nicole McLellan - Sacrifice In Narnia

In the book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, there is an interesting element of sacrifice intertwined in the story. Edmund betrays his family and Aslan, making him a traitor in the land of Narnia. The White Witch Jadis comes to claim his life, declaring that unless he is sacrificed on the Stone Table, all of Narnia will be overturned and perish. Interestingly enough, Aslan takes Edmund’s punishment, submitting himself to the White Witch’s tortures and ultimately dying on the Stone Table in Edmund’s place. Later, he is resurrected and defeats the White Witch during battle. This is a great example of agape love or sacrificial love. This also parallels the story of Christ and his death and resurrection. According to the Christian belief, every person who has ever done anything wrong is guilty of breaking God’s law, the penalty for which is death. Christ took that punishment upon Himself when he willingly died on the Cross. He was later resurrected, defeating death. The concept of agape love can be seen very clearly in both Aslan’s sacrifice in Narnia, and Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross.

Nicole McLellan - Uncle Andrew's Reaction

In the book, The Magician’s Nephew, I could not help but notice the difference between Uncle Andrew’s reaction to Aslan and the reaction of the children and cabby. Unlike the children and cabby who are enthralled at the sight of Aslan and the sound of his singing, Uncle Andrew is horrified. It even says that he would have run away and hid in a rat hole if he had not been frozen with fear. It seems that what Uncle Andrew is experiencing is something that Rudolf Otto labels mysterium tremendum. It is the “aweful mystery” of the Divine, which in this case would be Aslan. The Divine is considered to be something “wholly other”. Because Aslan is a lion, he can be considered something “wholly other” than Uncle Andrew and the other humans present. It is because of this “wholly otherness” that Uncle Andrew experiences feelings of terror. He does not understand Aslan or his singing, and he recognizes Aslan’s ability to overpower him. It is interesting that Uncle Andrew experiences mostly terror, while the children and the Cabby experience mostly awe when watching Aslan coming closer to them. Both are aspects found within Otto’s concept of mysterium tremendum.

Orthodoxy - Chesterton

In Orthodoxy, an essay by Gilbert K. Chesterton, he mentions that he is “concerned with a certain way of life, which was created in me by fairy tales, but has since been meekly ratified by the mere facts.” I can relate with Chesterton, especially after taking this C.S. Lewis course. In particular, reading the Chronicles of Narnia series truly allowed me to forget about all of the ‘facts’ my mind has accumulated since I was a boy, causing me to assume the world works a certain way. But as I read, my mind was liberated, and as I became a part of those stories, walking through Narnia with Peter, Lucy, Edmund and Susan, I was able to purely experience something which was fresh to my mind, uncontaminated by the things this nation’s culture has ruined for me.

Myth Became Fact – C.S.Lewis

C.S. Lewis discusses in his essay, Myth Became Fact, that “what flows into you from the myth is not truth but reality.” He continues in saying that truth is always about something, but reality is that about which truth is. As I read Til We Have Faces and The Chronicle Series, I experienced exactly what Lewis was hitting on in this excerpt. While I wasn’t enlightened by any particular truths, I did feel like I was delving into the fringes of something real, of something bigger than me, and bigger than this adulterated culture when I am stuck in the middle of. Each of those books were page-turners to me, and I think the reason why is because these myths allowed me to escape from my own little world; they allowed me to rid myself of the box which I place God in, and my philosophies of life in general.

Narnia

Most of The Chronicles of Narnia takes place in Narnia, a world constructed by C.S. Lewis. Passage between Narnia and our world is possible, though rare, and is accomplished through various ways in the different books. Visitors to Narnia observe that the passage of time while they are away is unpredictable. For example, if one year had passed since one left Narnia and returned, a thousand years, or perhaps only a week, could have gone by in Narnia. Narnia itself is populated by a wide variety of creatures, all exotic and beautiful, according to Lewis’ descriptions.
It seems to me that Narnia correlates somewhat with our world; only spiritual warfare could be seen as being symbolized through Aslan, the White Witch, the animals, and the visiting children. As I read through the book series, I found my own spiritual walk relating to the joy, struggles, and battles which the children face in their different experiences with Good and Evil.

The Ethics of Elfland - Chesterton

To Alfred Chesteron, fairy tales are the things he most believed in as a child and the things he would say he still believed to this day. “They seem to me like entirely reasonable things. They are not fantasies: compare them with other things they are fantastic,” says Chesterton in his essay, The Ethics of Elfland. The concept of fairytales is nothing like an idea of an infantile, imaginary story-land that has no connection with reality; instead, fairytales can be used as a link to truth and reality. Coming into this class, I honestly thought fairytales were made for mothers to read to their children to keep them entertained, or for creepy old people.. but I learned that fairytales are, in fact, meant for the grown, intellectual community as well, though the prideful would deny that.

Aslan

According to C.S. Lewis, Aslan is not an allegorical portrayal of Christ, but said that there was no intent of correlating the two during the portrayal of Aslan’s character. Although Aslan can be read as an original character, many readers see parallels with the character and story of Christ. The event which is most parallel to Christ, to me, is Aslan’s personal sacrifice - reminiscent of the accounts of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection. But his personality is also similar to that of Christ’s: being affectionate when necessary, always with the right thing to say (but silent when necessary), strong and brave, always loving, and standing for what he knew was Good, despite the cost.

Til We Have Faces - C.S. Lewis

While this book isn't nearly as well known as Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia," which I love, that doesn't in any way take away from how beautiful this book is. Lewis had an amazing grip on a very wide variety of genres, everything from apologetics (Mere Christianity) to autobiography (Surprised by Joy) to science fiction (his Space Trilogy) to mythology (Til We Have Faces), not to mention a lot of other well-known works (such as "The Screwtape Letters" or "The Great Divorce"). He is always managed to blow me away and I don't think I've ever read something by him that I don't like. This book is obviously very different than a lot of his other books, but no less amazing.
Although I didn’t think this book dealt with Christian themes quite as often or clearly as some of his other books, I still think he tied in amazing portrayals of some beautiful aspects of life. It explores profound questions of love, philosophy, morality, and all sorts of other issues.

Space Trilogy - C.S. Lewis

I read this trilogy just after reading Lewis's series, The Chronicles of Narnia. I was totally unprepared for the change in writing style after reading the Narnian books, whose descriptive language was colorful and fun. It took me a while to adapt to his more difficult style of writing, but as I began to enjoy it and become a part of the storyline, I discovered a high underlying level of spirituality, something I wouldn’t have ever expected to find in science fiction novels. Unlike what I found in the Narnia series, Lewis seems to make a lot of undertoned criticisms about things he dislikes in our world, like human greed and conformity.

Space Trilogy - C.S. Lewis

I read this trilogy just after reading Lewis's series, The Chronicles of Narnia. I was totally unprepared for the change in writing style after reading the Narnian books, whose descriptive language was colorful and fun. It took me a while to adapt to his more difficult style of writing, but as I began to enjoy it and become a part of the storyline, I discovered a high underlying level of spirituality, something I wouldn’t have ever expected to find in science fiction novels. Unlike what I found in the Narnia series, Lewis seems to make a lot of undertoned criticisms about things he dislikes in our world, like human greed and conformity.

Joy

When I first watched In the Shadowlands with our class, I was blown away by Joy, Lewis’ lover. A woman able to have such a significant impact on a man who has impacted the lives of millions of others ought to deserve some credit! Like Lewis, Joy had a difficult life leading up to the meeting of these two individuals. She was involved in an abusive relationship in America, but eventually left her husband in search of a better life for herself. Lewis and Joy eventually fell in love, becoming inseparable companions. Due to her physical health, life for her remained somewhat difficult after their meeting, becoming very ill and eventually dying of Cancer; but not before changing the heart of a stubborn man, gifting him with the emotion of passionate love for the first time in his life.

Evelyn Way Is Aslan Jesus?

Did Lewis sneak one past us as making Aslan the second head of the Trinity, Jesus Christ? If so, how can we really tell? Well, after reading the Chronicles of Narnia, I can only come to the conclusion that Aslan is made after the very life and image of Jesus.
Who was Jesus? What did he do that was such a big deal that people thousands of years later are still talking about? Jesus was the most magnificent, loving, gentle, and yet powerful man that walkd this earth. By his sheer presence people's lives were changed. He raised a man from the dead, he gave sight to the blind, made the lame walk again, healed disease, and offered life to the full! He was radical in his teachings and healings and performed miracles that no one had ever seen before.
Like Jesus, Aslan gives warmth, compassion to the children, and knows everything about his land. He is the King of Narnia, he sang it into existence, He is the creator, and his creation recognizes that. He is not to be made a playmate though, for his velvet paws can be used for great wrath. What he and Jesus have most in common is their capacity to love without limits.
Have you ever known someone who was completely innocent and decided to give their life in place of someone who deserved punishment? In the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Edmund betrays the trust of his siblings, and decides to go down his own path. A path that would ultimetly lead to death and destruction. He deserved to pay for this crime, the Witch had rightful ownership over his blood. But what Aslan did was meraculous and full of grace. He took Edmunds place on the Stone Tablet. He offered his life in order to pay for the debt that Edmund had aquired. In order for Edmund to live, Aslan sacrificed himself.
Where did Lewis get this radical act of love from? He got it from Jesus. Jesus came and took upon himself the sin and guilt of the world. The world consumed in sin had to have a price paid. The Bible says, "The wages of sin is death." Jesus, the perfect sacrifice, willingly gave his life for mankind. It is this gift of his life that makes eternal life possible for those who receive Him.
These acts of love are like none other. Aslan is the Savior of Narnia, he restores life, gives hope, and conqurs evil. He is the Lion of Judah!

Evelyn Way Myth Became Fact

"Would not conversation be much more rational than dancing? said Jane Austin's Miss Bingley. 'Much more rational' replied Mr.Bingley, 'but much less like a ball."
C.S. Lewis relates this to his arguement that Christianity is mythical and the only vital nurishing element of the whole thing. Myth's do not move away from time, it has outlived the thoughts of all it's defenders and all of its adversaries. "It is the myth that gives life. Those elements even in modernist Christiantiy which Cornieus reagrds as vestigal, are the substance: what he takes for the 'real modern belief' is the shadow."
I too often would stand on the side of the argument that there was no such way religion, Christianity in particular, could be a myth. To me myth was associated with things that aren't real. Fairy tales of jack and the beanstalk, the little mermaid, these stories which bear good moral teachings but held no reality. To me, Christianity was everything but a fairy tale, it held truth, it was real! Was I missing something? Was my perceptions of Christianity not fully acurate?
Lewis challenges this less than attractive stand I took by stating that by myth we are nearest to experiencing as a concrete what can otherwise be understood only as an abstraction. Then he throws in the kicker: "What flows into you from the myth is not truth but reality (truth is always about something, but reality is that about which truth is), and, therefore, every myth becomes the father of innumerable truths on the abstract level." WOW! Check and mate, well done Lewis. This whole time I was so caught up in "myths" being something that aren't "real" but what i didn't understand was that reality is always about something which truth is. It is possible to reconcile myth and religion. Infact to do so, makes the whole experience that much greater. Your eyes are opened to bigger things, God all of the sudden is outside of this box that so many Christian's don't even realize they had put him in. I am guilty of being one of those Christian's at one point in my life. How deeply sorry I am that I was missing out on the glory of God's creation and his absolute reality in my own life. I hope that you too can come to discover this for yourself and come to live a life fuller than before.

Mike Zang - Repetition

If we were to somehow create an overarching purview of myth since the beginning of humankind, we could probably categorize them into just a few broad archetypes. This can be both a good and a bad thing. Good because it shows the consistency of human thought throughout history; bad because it might reduce civilization to a restricted set of ideas, question our free will, and perhaps suggest that we cannot escape these fundamental ideas. However, Chesterton speaks of repetition in positive light in "The Ethics of Elfland." His understanding about repetition is that it points towards a cyclical positive energy. There is nothing particularly weird about repetition, but rather it seems more rational to him than anything. It is the redundancy of features that the cosmological force finds fitting. It is also the redundancy that humanity oftentimes gets sick of and perceives as lacking life.

The stories of Narnia and Lord of the Rings may be just another repetition of archetypal elements told throughout history, but they serve a primary purpose within the context of time. They have the auspicious capability of pulling together archaic mythological ideas, and conveying them to a widespread mainstream culture. Although modern culture may not interpret the stories how older societies interpretted them, that is fine. It works in with the evolution of myth itself. The important matter is how the story stands throughout time and becomes reworked into the fabric of contemporary culture.

Mike Zang - Ethics of Perelandra

When Lewis visits Ranson in the beginning of Perelandra, he is brewing with ambivalent feelings about the eldril. Lewis doesn't know how to interpret Ransom's ideas about humanity and about this cosmic entity he's keeping at home. It all sounds to far-fetched for Ransom to understand, but this is how the realm of faerie must exist. It cannot work from clear-cut logic and rational deducing. Reality need not make perfect sense. In fact, in most cases, the awe-inspiring, wondrous elements of life are fueled by sentiments that have no logical boundaries or definitions. Science attempts to impose labels and restrictions around our ideas of what is rational and irrational, and coerces us into believing that something is truly insane, but when we experience those things for ourselves, we came sometimes come to the understanding that those things which we are afraid of, i.e. the eldril in Lewis's case, are not to be feared, but admired.

"The Ethics of Elfland" describes this aspect of faerie, that the fantasies which take place within are fantastical and not always reasonable. They have their own laws, guided by other forces which we as humans cannot typically comprehend. The ethics of faerie go beyond our mundane thought processes and notions of rationality. What occurs there is truly of its own accord, but always in line with a certain rationale, albeit far from the human one. It is because of this that Lewis soon understands the eldril is not an evil entity, but rather just different, not one he is used to. When we can understand this about faerie/elfland, we can begin to embrace ideas that are outside of our comfort zone.

Mike Zang - Mythology and Religion

"On Fairy-Stories" brings up a distinction that is oftentimes muddied by cultural convention: the distinction between mythology and religion. Tolkien explains that the two are wholly disparate, however, religion has been communicated throughout the ages via myth, and likewise myth has taken on religious significance, despite being void of such implications by nature.

The telling of the Space Trilogy gives yet another interpretation of myth, albeit without religious meaning. "Out of the Silent Planet" metaphorically demonstrates how we as humans delineate superiority among different cultures, deeming some less human than others. In a way, this does have a religious significance to it, yet Lewis hardly calls to attention any explicit bibical references or direct parallels between the two. Essentially, "Out of this Silent Planet" deals with the contact between humans and an three exotic Martian cultures.

Reinterpretting this text in a historical/mythological sense, we could compare it with the context of Imperialistic age when Western European nations were expanding trade influence and conquering foreign civilizations. This exploitation was often fueled by crooked religious messages, backed by equally crooked misinterpretations of the myths behind them.

Susan Watkins -- Beautiful Repetition

(Topic of Choice #4)

When I read Chesterton's essay for this class, one of the ideas that leapt out at me immediately was his point of view on God and time. Chesterton argued that perhaps God did not allow repetition in time and space out of boredom or lack of creativity, but rather that His perspective is so perfect that a beautiful thing is just as beautiful with each new moment as it was when it was first created. I don't think that we as humans can really even begin to comprehend this, because the very nature of our brains requires that we filter out so much information brought to us by our senses. In order to focus we have to dull down our surroundings until they are "commonplace" and run the risk of becoming "boring." Thus it is that we are amazed with a new object or person for a limited amount of time until we get used to it or him, and then we lose interest and seek something new. We can't imagine repetition being anything but boring-- but Chesterton takes us back to the time of childhood, when we were perhaps not quite so jaded, and the smallest novelty could keep us entertained for hours without becoming boring. A child will kick its legs, Chesterton says, until it wears itself out because merely to kick is a joy beyond words.



How amazing! I have been noticing this in children around me ever since then, and their endless hunger to repeat those things which they find fun. When I was in middle school, I would play with the little kids who lived next door to my house and it used to drive me nuts how they would always want to play the exact same games over and over and over and over and over again! Now, though, I really get it-- and I am fascinated to watch children engage in these activities and find such a limitless, fresh joy in them. I desire that joy, that wonder.



What's neat is that while I maintain that we as humans will always tend towards boredom and indifference, we do have the power to develop our skills of perception and wonder in order to resist the trend. Sometimes I get restless with the day-to-day regiment of school and classes. Sometimes I even get tired of my group of friends, some of the people dearest in the world to me. Sometimes, I get sick and tired of the thing I love most in my life right now-- my ministry with Young Life. It's just natural for us to grow tired, jaded, convinced that there is nothing new we can find and that we have sapped every last bit of joy out of a situation.



How desperately wrong we are!



When I have a period of time like that, where I am falling into boredom and apathy, sometimes I go outside and just sit for a while. I try to quiet my thoughts and stop "filtering" so much and take in all the amazing things around me-- to regain a sense of wonder about the world around me and all the things I'm blessed with . I find that this is a great way to regain perspective and to rediscover joy in the things that had become boring. When I really take time to do this, my life just gets a jumpstart and I find joy again. I think this is a way of drawing near to God, and becoming more like Him in seeing beauty all around us.

Susan Watkins -- Dreams

(Topic of Choice #3)

Are dreams myths? It's an interesting question, because Lewis describes myth as bridging the gap between abstract thought and experience... something that reveals truth about reality to we, who can never directly experience objective reality. Thus, all kinds of art forms fall into the category of myth. But what about dreams?

To the best of my understanding, most psychologists figure that dreams are the results of our mind processing subconscious thoughts into semi-coherent images and sensations. Though dreams themselves often have non-sensical or impossible plots and events, they ususally do succeed in communcating a feeling or impression to the dreamer. They also usually contain objects and symbols recognizable to the dreamer's mind-- everyday representations of things like furniture, nature, food, and even people. Even in a dream, these things have specific meanings attached to them based on our daily experiences, though they may or may not tak on other meanings while within the dream sequence.

So do these strings of symbols and impressions constitute myth? I think Lewis would say that plot is essential to myth, and if a dream lacks coherent plot then it cannot be a true myth in full-- though it may display several aspects of it. However, I think that those dreams that we have which do have coherent storylines abiding by some kind of order could rightly be called myth. To be certain, in my experience dreams have revealed truth to me that I had never grasped when waking-- about relationships, situations, even my own feelings about something. If this isn't myth, then what is? Perhaps they lack the structure of artistic myth, but I think the essence in both is the same.

Susan Watkins -- Pan's Labyrinth

(Outside Reading/Watching #4)


The movie Pan's Labyrinth is one of the more beautiful movies I've ever seen, and a perfect example of a faerie story as discussed by Tolkien in his "Ethics of Elfland." The story is about a little girl, Ofelia, whose mother is very ill and stepfather is cruel and dangerous-- she wanders into a labyrinthine garden near her house one day and meets the mysterious creature Pan, who tells her she is really a princess from another land who is wandering lost in the world as we know it. He tells her that to return to her kingdom she must complete several tasks which will prove her worth. Ofelia soon finds that Pan's world and her own are bleeding into eachother, and that the boundaries between what is "real" and what is "imaginary" are not as distinct as she thought.

I think my favorite part of this movie is the dark flavor of the faerieland Ofelia journeys through. Another of my favorite movies, The Bridge to Terabithia, is an equally beautiful faerie story but is altogether lighthearted-- even those villians which live in Terabithia appeal more to the viewer's sense of action than awe. This is appropriate for a children's movie, but Pan's Labyrinth is meant for a mature audience and therefore has far more autonomy to explore the darker, more disturbing side of faerieland. The creatures Ofelia encounters are eerie at best and downright frightening at worst, and her faerieland is filled with equal parts beauty, fear, sadness, and tremendum. I love this because I think a crucial element of faerie as Tolkien and Lewis describe are the elements of possibility, unknown, and untamed wilderness... in faerieland, anything is possible and we are bound to be both mesmerized and terrified by parts of it when we truly explore.

Another thing I like about this movie is how its two storylines run alongside eachother-- the storyline of Ofelia and her family in fascist 1944 Spain and the storyline of Ofelia discovering the magical world of Pan. I've only seen it once so I haven't had a chance to really examine the relationship between the stories, but I was able to draw a few and I'd like to watch it again in order to look into more. One thing I really drew away from it was how callous indifference and pride instantly destroy the faerie-- at one point, Ofelia's stepfather discovers a magic mandrake root she has hidden to help with her mother's sickness, and upon finding it he destroys it and its magic is ruined. This is such a great image for our daily lives, realizing that as soon as we become indifferent or prideful towards eachother and towards the world we lose the ability to see magic in our surroundings.

I'd definitly recommend this movie-- it's in Spanish though, so if you are not a fan of reading subtitles you may have to either study up on your Spanish vocabulary or take it in small doses :)

Chrissy-Redeeming Love

I don’t know what else to write about, so I am going to write about my favorite book. It happens to be mythical. In fact it is a more modern twist on the tale of Hosea and his wife in the bible. Oh man, this is a great book. Any girl should read this, and any guy should also read this if he wants to know what love looks like. This book is more about what God’s love for us looks like, although it is shown through a prostitute and a farmer. But, this myth has certainly given me fresh eyes to see the beauty of the love of the Father. And the prostitute is a perfect example of how we desire love, but have forgotten its existence and when we finally receive it we know we don’t deserve it and so we push it away. This really is an awesome book, it is by Francene Rivers, she has also written other fabulous books, taking biblical stories and helping us to relate to them through artistic interpretation.

Chrissy-Irresistable Revolution

The Irresistible Revolution is a book written by Shane Claiborne. If you have not read it, I highly recommend it. This book is taking what everyday Christians consider myth, and making it reality. The truth of the gospel is being lived out, not perfectly mind you, but sincerely. Shane Claiborne has started a movement towards simple living and sharing in community to serve one another in love. This simple movement has taken the words in scripture and made them alive. He and others have taken something from the extreme abstraction and made it into concrete reality. It is sad that today the Christian faith does not provide a way to LIFE. It provides a way to conquer death, but what about life… what about now? It’s fun to be reminded that this life has meaning too, that we don’t have to sulk and wait for the coming kingdom, the time is now, the kingdom is here. We are the body of Christ.

Chrissy Jaeger-Myth and History

We spent so much time talking about myth. It seems that practically everything has myth. Perhaps all things are myth and nothing is concrete. Or perhaps stories that were true become myth for us so that we can experience them again in new ways. It’s like history. All the stories we are told do not truly relate to us as we hear them. We turn them into myth and this allows us to see it from afar, and not be actually engaged in it. I do not think this is good though. To be set apart from history, by calling it a story and making it a myth could be the reason history repeats itself. We forget the reality of it, and make it magical and mythical in our minds. And so, when the time comes, we either long for history to repeat itself out of fantasy, or we enable history to repeat itself out of naiveté.
The same happens in Christianity we call it a story… but it is history and truth. But, we forget how truthful it is, and the reality of the truth and so, we lose its beauty and power, and we think we need another savior because we’ve forgotten our first.

Mike Zang - Atonement with the Father

Many ancients myths, through a heroic character, emphasize humanity's need to apologize for some universal fault encoded within them by default. Christianity tells this story through Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden with the fall of Man; presently, Christians believe we are born with original sin and for that reason, must seek reconciliation throughout our lives by offering ourselves up to Christ.

Some find that a radical concept, but other cultures have embraced this notion as well, although perhaps not through sacramental practices. Other cultures' myths tell of great ominous, patriarchial gods who execute brutish torture upon individuals, sometimes for no obvious reasons. In many Greek myths, characters are chosen at random, seemingly arbitrary, as the target for wrathful vengence upon the human race. Perhaps they were chosen to take the bullet for all of humanity's anguish and evilness. In any case, many mythologists have uncovered this archetypal idea and have used it to better understand the ideology of ancient peoples.

Joseph Campbell in his book, "The Man with a Thousand Faces" talks about atonement with the father, the hellish torture that mythical figures are put through, all the while testing their character and faith, until eventually that torment ceases and they are once again at peace with serenity.

Going through these trials and tribulations reminds me a lot about our conversation concerning pleasure and pain, and how in order to understand one we must certainly immerse ourselves in its opposite. Polarities create one another. And so it would make human sense that the vengeful father figure would be followed by a placated mother. "With that reliance for support, one endures the crisis - only to find, in the end, that the father and mother reflect each other, and are in essence the same" (Campbell 131). This illustrates the codependency of pleasure and pain.

"The ladder to paradise is infested with parasites/
and if you don't ride in the carriage right/
you would swear that life's a bitch."
-Eyedea

Mike Zang - Ethnology: The Archaeology of Myth

Preserving our ancestral roots is apparently important. For what reason, I'm not sure why, but we as humans have an almost instinctive urge to reconnect with our past and understand indigenous motives. One way to achieve this is through the study of myth and tradition. The customs and beliefs of a culture are often imbedded within the celebration and retelling of certain stories, along with enactments that embody the underlying morals. Ethnology, a field that has sprouted from anthropology, is one method in which humans uncover these archaic belief systems.

In an article entitled "The Significance of Mythology and Tradition," the authro Livingston Farrand explains how psychology and ethnology are two magical disciplines that have the ability to dig through primitive societies, both present and past, and exhume the cultural significance behind them. By studying the myths of native tribes, ethnologists throughout the last century have noticed basic unifying themes across indigenous cultures from Siberia to South Africa. At first puzzling, this notion became more and more sensible seeing as to the overarching theme of oneness that grappled the reins of traditional myth.

Today, according to Farrand, several groups of ethnologists are trying to piece together mythical universals through rigorous field work. By taking the archetypes of traditional myths and correlating their cultural meaning, the ultimate objective is to create a cohesively compiled myth that collapses boundaries, both physical and cultural, and establishes a more unified outlook upon life of the indigenous. This is obviously not easy, and perhaps inconceivable, as many postmodern linguistics might say due to the very nature of interpretation and reinterpretation, however, I find their aspirations good-natured and their fundamental goal to be quite heartening especially during a time where religious myths are tearing political landscapes apart.

Susan Watkins -- Judgement of Orual

(Role playing exercise... Till We Have Faces)


I am Nienna, she who knows the depths of the darknesses in this world. It was I who wept with you in your utmost despair and tended your spirit in your fevers and madnesses-- it was I who cried out for you in groanings beyond words and tasted far more bitter tears than you could know. It was also I who, through such depths as we weathered, would offer you those hopes and wisdoms necessary to persevere. Never a sorrow came when I did not whisper truth to you, never a desperation when I did not tell you to lie still and be comforted. However, Orual, you rejected me in all but your very weakest moments, those moments when you came nearer to truth than you could possibly realize. You preferred sorrow to comfort, despair to hope, when these things must coexist if the darkness is not to destroy you.

And so you see, Orual, where throughout your complaint you turn away from the hope offered and always back into darkness and mourning. Orual, when you first journeyed to the Tree the very rocks cried out to you-- the gods and goddesses present at this trial were present even at that very moment-- of truth and light and hope. "Why should your heart not dance?" And you, Orual, used every power available to reject the knowledge and cast yourself once more into despair, into self-rejection. When the beauty of Psyche's lover first struck you as possible, you fled from that happy knowledge back into the desperation of believing that the world was ugly, cold. Even in hearing the joyful news of Psyche's redemption, of her being reunited with her Love, you threw away the happiness and focused only on your frustration and grief over the way the story was told. What does it matter how the story is told? One story may hold more than one truth, Orual-- of course you were not jealous out of desiring Psyche's house or lover. You were not jealous of her but rather over her, and angry because the god's house and love is so much greater than yours and you knew it had won Psyche's heart. But that, such a wonderful gift to your beloved sister!, grieved you further than anything.

How could we force you to see, Orual, when you would move to blind yourself whenever we tried? Our healings only allowed you to damage yourself further, and those around you in the process. And so I wept with you and even beyond you, for I knew there was hope and you refused to know. Still, you hardly even dare to believe it.

Orual, the despair will destroy you if you continue this way. To live in agony and hoplessness is terrible enough without further punishment-- and so all I advise is to warn you that life in hopelessness is nothing compared to dying in hopelessness. You still have a choice, still have time to open your eyes and understand -- you choose your own judgement Orual, as far as I am concerned.

Susan Watkins -- Visual Art as Epic Poetry

(Topic of Choice #2)

I have loved to draw since middle school. It began then with doodles in the anime-style of Sailor Moon and Pokemon, mostly as a means to the end of writing little stories and describing characters to my friends. I was pretty bad, to be blunt-- but over time my eye became more discerning and my process more refined. My anime images ended up fair but by the time I really had enough skill to produce decent work I was tired of the genre. Sometime while I was in high school I decided to try lifelike portraits of famous actors and fell in love with the raw amount of time and detail that goes into that kind of work. Since then I've worked primarily in that subject, although I find now that friends are far more interesting than strangers. That shift from actors to people I actually know is probably responsible for a beautiful experience I had this semester.

I finished a piece in March entitled "Tulkas," a portrait of my friend Caleb with a title derived from one of Tolkien's characters. When I posted the image on a novice art site, here was a little blurb I wrote about the process:

"If a picture is worth a thousand words, I feel like art must be at the very least akin to epic poetry. [And, being as I am in the middle of a class about them, I know it's safe to say that Lewis, Tolkien, Barfield and their contemporaries would strongly concur.] My newest piece, "Tulkas," is the embodiment and expression of more raw emotion than I care to mention. I'm very, very pleased with it because I think that... it is hands-down the most fluid portrait I've ever produced. Furthermore... the creative process was, I think, more pure. I was really lost in this image the whole time I worked on it, and it has become something really immensely close to my heart."

While my past two or three pieces have drawn nearer and nearer, this drawing was really the first time I've experienced true ritual through art. As I pored over the details of the image and of my friend, I was not only "drawing" but actually engaging with him in a new way and coming to love him better. The process deepend and altered my perception of him, revealing and affirming truths about him that I had never been able to put into words. I thought differently about him after I was done than I had when I began, and now when I look at the image again I'm struck afresh by the revelation which had to come through art and did not at first come straight through him. It's an amazing and humbling process.

Susan Watkins -- To Love and Be Loved

(Outside Reading/Watching #3)

The movie The Shadowlands was not really what I expected, and I'm glad about that. I really enjoyed its style and how everything was so character-driven as opposed to action, action, action like a lot of modern films. It was fitting for a movie about Lewis, who himself was a master of conveying the "feel" of a scene and story as opposed to just its plot. I really felt like I came away from the movie knowing Lewis better personally, as well as having a good understanding and appreciation for his realtionship with Joy.

I think my favorite part of the movie was when Lewis made the point that he thought God did not care primarily about our happiness, but rather that we learned to "love and be loved." This is such a beautiful revelation of truth, and something that is echoed to a degree in popular culture today-- the famous broadway production of Les Miserables says "To love another person is to see the face of God," and the pop-hit movie Moulin Rouge maintains "The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." This runs so counter in some ways to mainstream culture, which screams at us that hedonism is the highest virtue and we should pursue self-satisfaction at all costs. Lewis and these others would suggest that self-satisfaction is probably not a very high virtue at all, but rather that depth of love which sacrifices itself for the Beloved.

Anyway, I want to see The Shadowlands again now that I have experienced it in a kind of broad, impressionistic way, so that I can hone in on some of the finer details and really draw even more meaning from it. I'm excited about fully experiencing this great film and glad that I got to start this semester.

Susan Watkins -- The Coldfire Trilogy

(Outside Reading #2)

When I was in middleschool I stumbled across a science fiction / fantasy trilogy called The Coldfire Trilogy by C.S. Friedman. I know they say "never judge a book by its cover," but that was exactly how I came to pick this book up-- the cover art was so beautiful and intriguing that I just had to read the description on the back. After reading that, I flipped open the book and sampled a few paragraphs. It seemed interesting enough and like it had a language style I could follow, so I bought the first book and took it home.

Within no time, I was hooked. The story takes place on a world called Erna, a planet discovered by human space adventurers looking to colonize. According to all their tests, it seems like the perfect planet-- but once they land, they find that mysterious force called "fae" is active there and has the power to respond to the thoughts of humans and make their dreams reality. This book begins several centuries after the First Landing and follows the story of Damien, Ciani, and Senzei on a journey to heal Ciani of a strange illness. Along the way the meet the mysterious, evil Gerald Tarrant and find themselves temporarily bound in alliance with him against a greater enemy. Damien and Gerald, perfect foils to eachother, begin to realize that their definitions of good and evil are not as solid as they had thought and that they may be more similar than either ever imagined.

This trilogy was my favorite series of books for several years, and I could read them over and over again without tiring of them. Each book is about 600 pages and yet it would keep my attention flawlessly, and one point in the third book would never fail to make me cry even though I always knew it was coming. It was impossible for me to understand, and even more impossible for my mother who never re-reads a book. I just felt this deep desire to experience the story-- now I realize it was the myth which drew me, and the amazing depth of truth Friedman reveals through her characters and storyline. To this day Gerald Tarrant is probably one of my favorite characters in literature, and the interaction between him and Damien one of the funniest and most thought-provoking that I've read about. Anyone looking for a good myth, well-developed and well-written, should check out this trilogy... and then let me know what they thought!

Susan Watkins -- Hatred

(In Class Reading #6 -- The Space Trilogy)

One of my favorite moments in Perelandra is when Ransom is filled with hatred for the demonic Weston (no longer, for all intents and purposes, truly 'Weston' at all). It's one of my favorite parts because I remember reading it for the first time and finally understanding how negative emotions are supposed to fit into the world of a Christian. Since falling in love with Jesus I had struggled and struggled to understand what was "right" and "wrong" to feel and think-- for a long while I was under the impression that it was sinful to be angry with anyone at any time. After all, being angry with someone means that you think you're right and they're wrong, which I took as just being a disguise for pride.

But Lewis begs to differ. Here he describes a situation of a much stronger emotion, hatred, in its perfected form-- hatred towards the thing hatred was "designed" for. The demon in Weston's form hates the Lord and is utterly opposed to Him, even down to the very roots of its existence. It desires to corrupt and destroy all that is good in His sight. It desires death and pain, fear and despair. The Lord hates it because it is His antithesis, the very opposite of everything He is. And so it follows that hatred and other negative emotions are not inherently sinful, but righteous and good until misapplied. The Bible says in Ephesians 4:26 "Be angry, but do not let it lead you to sin." Righteous anger is acceptable and even worth praising as long as it stays there and does not progress into pride or violence.

Reading this book was really revolutionary for my understanding of God's plan in ordering the universe, and our roles in it as humans who think and feel such a wide variety of emotions. I'm coming to realize that there are very few thoughts or things which are, unto themselves, "wrong"-- but rather, a very great number of motivations which can corrupt anything we do and degrade us down to detestable things, devoid of even the desire to do good.

Out of the Silent Planet - Stephen Brock

I really enjoyed this book of the Space Trilogy, I especially love the way that Lewis created these different and distinct hnau, or what I translate as intelligent or sentient Beings. Each of these different species have their ultimate purpose in Malecandra, and they know their place. The seroni
were the more intelligent ones who sort of resembled scientists and historians, they were well knowledges of the way of the universe. The pfifltrigg were the workers, they were also intelligent but channeled that creativity into a sort of pragmatic way of accomplishment. Third there was the Hrossa, which the book goes into the most detail. The Hrossa were, most comparable to humans, in that they advanced in language and making great poems. These Hrossa were very mythopoetic in their poems and created great ballads attributing greatness to certain people, places, or feelings.
Just the way this world of Malecandra interweaves and interlocks varying duties and purposes of existence give this place an almost perfect existence. Without the Greed and envy characteristics these species can live in perfect Harmony and Balance with each other because each doesn't desire the duty of another species.

Horse and His Boy - Stephen Brock

When I was reading The Horse and his Boy, all of the Chronicles really, but mainly with this story I really enjoy how Lewis in a sense adds animal traits to the characters personality. Obviously it is a matter of perspective and imagination on his part but I really enjoy the notion. Example being how regal the war horses' attitude remained throughout the story until he felt shame and cowardice when they were running from 'the lion' and Cor fell off.
This way of thinking makes me think of cultural relativism, in a sense that whats to say that animals on Earth don't have these advances in language or even in complex thought or emotion. As the human brain has trouble enough for Americans trying to relate with people who only speak Chinese. Or for how much of a conflict in culture it must have been for the early American colonists to try to relate to the "savage" and "wild" Indians. They didn't have the same language at all, and their behavior was so foreign to colonist that they had no real connection to them.
What is to say that this is the same for inter-species, as opposed to inter-cultural. I don't think this idea too far-fetched, and I actually think that animals have certain knowledges and perceptions of the world that we as humans cannot comprehend.

Reading of Choice - Stephen Brock

For my Myth, Symbols, and Rituals class we had to read the "Sacred and the Profane" by Mircea Eliade. This book has done wonders for me in drawing similar together similar essences of religious beliefs around the world. The dichotomy between the profane which is quantitative space/time or actions that have no difference in value. This profane existence can only be distinguished space and time can only be distinguished geometrically. The Sacred however forms a break in this homogeneity of space/time or actions. This sacred existence actually creates a qualitative difference in reality. Creating what Rudolph Otto calls a Hierophany, or a manifestation of the Holy, and essentially creating Axis Mundi, which is a connection between this world and 'heaven' or the spiritual realm.
This dichotomy has essentially shifted my entire paradigm on religion and sacred space/time. This idea is very inclusive of world religions and points out how all cultures around the world have this 'nostalgia' for the Sacred and, inherently, religious beliefs.

Til We Have Faces - Stephanie Snyder

More Thoughts on Til We Have Faces

This belief in Christ is symbolically reflected in Till We Have Faces through the image of Psyche’s redemptive gift to Orual. Symbolism was a popular writing style during the early 1900s, thus Lewis parallels his faith in Christ’s redemptive gift with Psyche’s gift to Orual.
“You know” Psyche tells her sister, “I went on a long journey to fetch the beauty that will make Ungit beautiful” Orual's ugliness isn't just a characteristic, it's a running theme throughout the whole book. The theme of spiritual-ugliness is also demonstrated through the plot, and conflict of this story.
The plot gives a clear image of this ugliness, beginning with the exposition as Orual’s unsightly grasping of those she loves becomes evident, in contrast to Psyche’s gentle, generous love. As the action rises, Orual’s ugly possessiveness of Bardia, the Fox, and Psyche grow to a life-sucking death-grip upon those loves, and finally Orual sees the hideous nature of her heart. “It was I who was Ungit. That ruinous face was mine… …Glome was a web –I the swollen spider, squat at its center, gorged with men’s stolen lives.”
At the climax, it is Psyche who gives Orual the casket of beauty that will change her ugly Ungit-like heart into a beautiful, Psyche-like heart. Finally, the conflict of man versus self demonstrates the theme of spiritual ugliness, for as Orual desires an answer from the gods for her perceived injustices, it is her ugly, bitter selfishness that keeps her from receiving an answer. Her spiritual ugliness that has lain festering in her soul must be removed first, before she can get the answer. “I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word [the festering bitterness] can be dug out of us…
How can they meet us face to face, till we have faces?” It is when Psyche gives Orual a new, beautiful face that she can finally receive her complete answer from the god. Till We Have Faces masterfully portrays the theme of ugliness, not only as a minute charicteristic of the main character, but in a deeper, spiritual thread that runs throughout the whole tale.
LOVED THIS BOOK!

Til We Have Faces - Stephanie Snyder

Ugliness in Til We Have Faces

Orual's ugly face is only a parallel for the real ugliness in her heart. Her grasping of all that she loves is a manifestation of that soul-ugliness, just as Ungit represents the epitome of that ugliness. When Orual realizes that she is Ungit, -that her very soul mirrors that ugliness, it is a crucial moment.
“To say that I was Ungit" Orual pontificates, "meant that I was as ugly in soul as she; greedy, blood gorged.”
Evidently Lewis is trying to give us an image of the soul-ugliness that resides in each of us, of which we can not escape unless we are redeemed from it. Ugliness -in spiritual terms is innate in man’s nature. Orual says herself: “We bring our ugliness, both kinds, with us into the world, with it our destiny.”
Yet Lewis also shows how Orual’s inherent ugliness is like all of mankind’s, and how Psyche’s gift of spiritual beauty is like the salvation Christ offers.
Having grown up in the Christian faith, Lewis struggled during his college years with the question of God, and finally came to the conclusion that Christ would be his savior.
He wrote “I have just passed from believing in God, to believing in Christ.”

Topic of Choice - Stephanie Snyder

A Sacred Place

The beach is the most spiritual place for me. Of all the places I have been in my life, quite simply the ocean, the sand, the horizon… it takes me to a place that no other place on Earth can.Every summer, my family goes to the beach for a week in the Outer Banks. This time is special in that I spend quality time with my brother, sisters, and parents, I get to play in the water, work on my tan, and eat awesome seafood. But I have to say that the most amazing time I have at the beach are the nights when I can steal away by myself with a blanket and escape to the beach.
There is something about the whole sensory experience. Hands down, the view is a heavenly portrait. The smell of salt in the air, the feel of the sand as I dig my feet into it, the sound of the great waves crashing on the shore… I never feel more alive than I do in that moment.The best experience I had on the beach was one night on the fourth of July. Such a night where there is so much going on, fireworks shooting along the shore as far as I could see… I laid there for hours. As the craziness died down, all I could see for miles were stars.
I started realizing how big the universe was and how very small I was. It was a very spiritual moment. I had never felt so insignificant and small that I prayed that God would send me a sign to show me that I was loved and that I was small, but still significant to Him.
And then I saw it… a shooting star flashed across the sky. It was as if it was shot across from God himself saying “Stephanie, this is for you.” And the beach came back alive again.Ever since that moment, the beach has become my spiritual place. It was as if that star stamped that spot as my special place to meet with God. He moves in me every day, but he dances with me at the beach. And I ache for those times to be completely in His presence, fully alive and energized.

Topic of Choice - Stephanie Snyder

Christian Community

I was just reading Romans 12 today, and I saw something that I thought would be worth sharing. Romans 12:4-5 - "Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others."
What stood out to me here is that we each belong to all the others. This is cool, because we have a great sense of belonging. But, also, this implies that there is a need to be willing to submit one to another and to surrender our rights for the benefit of the community. For we belong to one another. God said way back in Genesis that it is not good for man to be alone. Our discipleship is going to happen in the context of community.
Also, in the context of community, sooner or later there is going to be conflict. When that happens, I think it can be tempting to disengage from the community, but I believe that God wants us to learn how to deal with conflict in the context of community. This is where the refiner's fire of the Holy Spirit will sanctify us. Finally, our community needs to be Christ-centered.
This is key, and this is difficult. But the word fellowship, when properly used, is really reserved for believers. Non-Christians can experience community and friendship, and God can and does use those kind of non-Christian communities and friendships for His glory to draw men toHimself. But non-believers can not experience authentic fellowship, because real fellowship can only happen between Christians.
The point is that not all community - even between Christians - is really Christian community. But when Christians come together for the purpose of glorifying God as a community (rather than as individuals), then we experience something the world can never experience without God.

Topic of Choice - Stephanie Snyder

Life After Graduation

I am finishing up the last semester of my time here at Christopher Newport. It is a scary but exciting time in life. I keep thinking about how I have no more school left in between me and adult-hood.
It’s a funny feeling. I always thought that I would know exactly what I wanted to do and that I would have everything all figured out by the time I was a senior in college. Boy, I have never been more wrong.
I find this time in my life to be the most spiritually challenging. I feel I have never been so reliant on God. My faith is being put to the ultimate test: Do I really trust God with my future, the unknown?
The hardest thing to do is to completely surrender my expectations and ideas of what is SUPPOSED to be after graduation. I am beginning to realize that God is the God of the impossible and that if I dream big dreams given to me by Him, regardless of how outlandish they may seem, I should not believe that they cannot happen.I am beginning to dream beyond the ordinary.
I do not desire the 9-5 office job with salary and security. I want to travel, to meet people, to venture out into the world and love people and experience God through the different cultures and lands He has created. I want to take risks.
It’s funny how you realize you are never fully prepared. I can only trust that my time here has taught me enough to help me take my next step into life after college.

Myth Became Fact - Stephanie Snyder

Myth Became Fact

" Those who do not know that this great myth became fact when the Virgin conceived are, indeed, to be pitied."
In this conclusion of this exerpt from Lewis' ingenious mind, He makes a point that the meaning I get out of this passage, on a presonal level, is that Christianity is not necessarily synonymous with historal accuracy, but that should not matter.
I believe that we are imperfect beings who cannot grasp the full concept of God and His mind. When we try to understand things fully on our own human terms in our limited small mind capacities, I find it ironic that we do not understand why we do in fact do not understand.
We are not God. If we were to know or understand all of the great mysteries surrounding the miracles and marvels that occur at the sound of His voice, we too, would be gods and would have no need for Him.
After all, isn't the Christian religion based on faith? I mean, maybe the birth of Christ etc. happened exactly the way it's presented in the Bible, and maybe it didn't. At any rate, there was a Christ and re-creating this scene every year at Christmas makes us feel more in touch with our spirituality.
After all, isnt that what its all about?I, like Lewis, pity those who are unable to make these event real simply by believing in them. To me, Christianity is synonymous with faith.

Narnia - Stephanie Snyder

The Role of Aslan

I love the character of Aslan in C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia. I know that it is a widely acknowledged parallell between the character of Aslan in the world of Narnia and Jesus Christ. As a Christian, I am captivated by the character of Jesus. The love that he has for his people is overwhelming and the great lengths that he goes to show his love is remarkable, case and point, His humble and blameless death. Aslan is not unlike Jesus in this aspect, as seen in the story of the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
I love how Aslan is spoken about by others. My all time favorite line comes from Mr. Beaver when he is asked if Aslan is safe. He responds that he isn't safe, but he is good.
The stories told in such simplicity to children, such as those in the Chronicles of Narnia, help paint a clearer and simpler picture of who Christ is. Through Aslan, we see played throughout the story of Narnia how he protects, how he is omniscient, forgiving, and loving. But he is also just, fierce, and wild.
I remember thoughout points of reading through the Chronicles how I expereinced a vast array of feelings that drew me to the character of Aslan. These are the same reactions I have when I encounter Jesus. I think Lewis did a great job translating the character of Christ into the character of Aslan.
The ultimate example of Christ I found was in the situation of Aslan taking the place of Edmund when the white witch demands she receive the blood of the traitor. Lewis portrays Aslan in a tangible way that makes me think of the great sacrifice of Jesus. While he knew the outcome would be glorious resurrection, the weight of sin was on his shoulders and his heart was broken for those who he had to suffer for. I remember the feeling I had when I recognized how alone and isolated Jesus must have felt in those last hours before his death. Lewis helped me understand the weight of the price Christ has to pay and the expereince he went through leading up to the cross through his portrayal of Aslan at the stone table.

Topic of Choice - Stephanie Snyder

My Dad, Cancer, and Faith

My dad was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer my freshman year in college. It was out of the blue the day before finals started my fall semester and I received a phone call from my mom that said they had just come from the hospital and that my dad found out he had a T3 tumor, an advanced form.My life screeched to a halt. I completely tanked all my finals, withdrew from my new relationship with a boy I had just started dating, and completely avoided interaction with my friends. I was heartbroken and distraught.I remember coming home that day to my dad and recall promising myself I had to stay strong and be the encouragement that he would need. I was running through my head all the things that must’ve been going through his. I came home ready to see my dad somber and sad, but to my surprise, he was smiling and gave me a great hug and asked me how I was doing!The next 6 months were life changing for me. I was living at home as a commuter student at CNU. This was a blessing in that I was able to be home with my mom, dad, and little sister and was able to help take my dad to his treatments and cry and talk with my mom and sister.The thing that surprised us all was how positive my dad was.
Immediately after he found out he had cancer, he had a fighter’s spirit. Anyone who asked him how he was, he said God was good, life is good, and that even if he would not have chosen cancer, he knew it was God’s plan and there was a greater reason beyond our own understanding.
I saw how my dad used something that threatened his life to bring life to others.While we tried our hardest to be encouraging to my dad, he turned out to be the encouragement for us. Everyday we wanted to cry and our spirits were down, he was the one to pray with us, to encourage us with scripture, and to lighten the mood with laughter.
I remember that I had hit rock bottom and my saving grace was my dad. It has now been 5 years, and my dad is still cancer-free. I look at him everyday and reminded of what it is to live life fully, to fully trust God, and to always believe that God has a bigger plan than I can imagine.

Chrissy Jaeger-Cannot See Until You Know

I love this idea that you cannot really see something until you know what it is. For example when you are in the dark and you cannot see anything when someone tells you there is a desk in front of you the shape starts to appear before your eyes. Some would argue this is just your eyes adjusting. But what about when you see a picture that someone drew for you and you do not recognize the shape at all. But once they tell you it’s a dog, you can begin to make out the outline of the dog ears and paws and maybe a tail. Is the mind only capable of understanding what it can analytically understand? It is like myth and fantasy. It takes what is abstract and gives it concreteness through comparison. By saying “dog” one understands what to look for and how to analyze the picture. It is necessary to use common understanding to bring something out of abstraction into concreteness. This is like Lewis says about a story that does not have any relation to what is known, it becomes unbelievable and un-relatable to the reader.

Chrissy Jaeger- Confinement

We have spent the entire class talking about myth and going beyond our realm of existence and expanding and experiencing and it is these things that bring us into understanding and appreciation for our reality. The emphasis is going beyond, or adding to our primary reality. But what about taking away? What about using less reality to better appreciate and understand reality? For example when one is locked in a room with no food or water, no window to enjoy the view. It is these people when they first see the sky and taste food again they see how wonderful everything truly is. They cannot take it for granted because they have longed for it. Confinement can be a type of secondary reality that helps us understand our world better. That our world is not about the grand things like money and houses, it’s about nature and relationship and all the things we forget are so special. It would be really interesting to explore, in the same way Lewis and others do with myth, how the other end of the spectrum produces a similar outcome.

Chrissy Jaeger- Love as Longing

In our last class we talked about the difference between love and longing. I think that longing cannot be love in itself. There has to be more. Love is not always about a feeling, sometimes it’s about choosing to love the person despite how you feel about them or their actions. For example, when in a marriage people hit that wall where they are bored and tired of that person. It is the choice to stay in that relationship that shows how much you love them, the fact that you have decided to remain even when you do not feel like it. Of course you hope the feelings and emotions return (which in most cases they do if you stick with it).
So, what is it about longing though that is so necessary? I think longing can be deceitful. We might long for the person or deity to be something they are not, or be somewhere they are not, or even to do something they will not. What then of longing and love if the longing is misplaced and wrong? Is it still love then? Or are you really not longing for the person at all but you are long for something they are not. I think longing is only associated with love when it is a longing that is for that person or deity to be with you, so that you can enjoy their great characteristics. We also mentioned longing that is selfless. I think that love can only be love if it is not self-seeking, relationship is self-seeking because it is about enjoying each other and being with each other, but love separate from if the relationship exists or not is not self-seeking. Longing on the other hand can be self-seeking or not, one can long for the other’s well being or one can long to have the other person as “theirs.”
Love cannot be interchangeable with longing, because love alone is not self-seeking and it is not about emotion and feeling all the time. Longing on the other hand can be either selfish or selfless and is completely based upon emotion and feeling.

Chrissy Jaeger-Matrix

The movie the Matrix is really similar to Chronicles of Narnia. Just like he said that he did not intend for there to be any religious undertones, but there are. In the Matrix there is a world that is not the real world, in fact the world that everyone lives in is being controlled by “evil.” And there is the “one” who can save them all. In this movie you can see underlying principles of Christianity. The “one” is like a Christ, who saves man kind from the evil they are not even aware of. Not only that but I like that the real world is dirty and hard and broken, but you are more alive and you know the truth, and it can be better. This is sort of like Chrisitianity. Being a Christian is hard, and dirty, and broken, but you know the truth and it makes you alive. I wonder if the people who made the movie meant for this to happen, or if it was just a coincidence. Or, maybe it is more that eternity is in the hearts of all men, and so even if they do not realize it the truth seeps out.

Chrissy Jaeger-Topic of My Choosing

When we were talking about I think C.S. Lewis who first knew beauty when he saw his brother’s toy garden we got into the idea that beauty is not in the art but comes to us through the art. We long to experience beauty and to know it and feel it. We search for it as human beings in different things, that is why the extreme sport is so enticing. To almost taste death and come back again is like experience true otherness and beauty and still living. But, there has been a loss of desire in our nation. People today lose the sense of change that brings the “experience” of beauty. They settle for normalcy, in fact they start to want and desire normalcy because trying to get the “experience” seems impossible. And to desire the impossible is to thirst without any hope of water. So, people settle for what’s easy and desire it because at least their desire is satiated. But, this is where we have gone wrong. The desire is good, and it is true that it is never fully satiated and this is why… the experience, the beauty we seek, is only found in God. He fills us with imagination and transcendence and all the things we long for. It is our holy discontent to desire Him and know that it may never be fully satiated. But what we can know and the reason we continue to seek Him, or should continue to, is that He will give us a taste. Perhaps more so, He gives us art so that we can long, because one day that longing will be fulfilled. If we do not lack something than we cannot appreciate being given something. So, when we long for the fullness of God, and the day we receive it we will know the greatness of it, because we have been searching and longing and desiring it and getting only a taste of its goodness our entire lives.

Chrissy Jaeger-Chronicles of Narnia

What I think the Chronicles of Narnia really represents is every child’s desire to get away from this world that has so many expectations, and can be so dull, and to discover a world where even though things may be difficult…the world revolves around you. Even though Narnia is a place belonging to Aslan, the stories are revolving around the children. What child wouldn’t want a magical world that revolved around them? The myth may give us a glimpse into a world that helps us better understand our world. But doesn’t it at the same time set children up for the disappointment that our world isn’t really that great? Is it is more like Chesterton suggests that it is the magical world that helps us remember and appreciate the mundane in our own world?
I cannot help but think that most people will never see the silver lining.. they will never realize that the magical is supposed to get us to appreciate the natural. I would offer that in most cases people will just wish they had what they don’t. Especially in America. That is what this culture is all about, the grass is always greener on the other side. The idea in America is that you can never have enough, and there is always something greater to get. Wouldn’t it be more practical for children to learn that sometimes life is hard and that is the reality. In the Chronicles the children run away from their hardship, they get to leave the war and the heart ache and find a magical world. But, reality is that most children have to go through the war and face the heart ache.

Chrissy Jaeger-Outside Reading

We’ve spent much of class talking about stories, and reading stories and the myth that is created there. But I want to dive into the realm of telling stories, orally. In the Innocent Anthroplogist, Nigel Barley talks about the funny thing that occurs when anthropologist retell their fieldwork stories. It is always romanticized. They say they had a wonderful time and it was easy to learn the language, and they just thoroughly enjoyed themselves. But, this of course is after they struggled to get into the country for months, got food poisoning, and other terrible diseases. So, you see people create their own myth out of a truth. By doing this one is able to better understand and appreciate the true story.
These anthropologists change their story, or leave out part of their stories because it helps them to fit into the society constructed view that anthropologists have wonderful, exciting experiences. Even though they know the truth, by not orally portraying their difficulties it reduces the “truthness” of it. As a result, the anthropologists myth is continued and it is only by personal experience does one realize that the experience is not what they had said at all- even though it has those aspects.

Chrissy Jaeger- Space Trilogy Again

I enjoyed this trilogy because it develops a new perspective of space. Everything is counter-intuitive. The way that C.S. Lewis describes spiritual beings is incredible. That they are always there, and we have to have the right perception to see them and notice them. Not to mention their spiritual beings (Elidila) see us as “translucent” and that their realm is more real than ours, even though they walk through ours like walking through walls. The way Lewis describes the sun is against common notion too. The sun is supposed to kill as one gets closer to it, but for Ransom it makes him live more. The way that the Ransom responds to the new world. For most it would look like it did for the other two characters, they would try to take advantage of it, and not see it for its own glory.
Even though I did not finish the trilogy I noticed such growth in all of the characters because of the maturity they were surrounded by. This is an interesting concept considering the maturity is what this world would consider dull and somewhat ancient, unsuffisticated. I would agree that often the most wise and mature are those that remember the basics, and stick to what is necessary, and do not add to the world with flowery excess. America has so much that is unnecessary and people have lost their wisdom because they’ve focused on materials not knowledge. Knowledge is only a means to things, and it has no further value in the U.S.

Chrissy Jaeger- Space Trilogy

In the first book Out of the Silent Plant in the Space Trilogy I found that the book moved quite slow. Although it was interesting because of the topic and the plot, I found myself dragging through the chapters. I think this was largely due to the fact that in order to follow the book one had to really pay attention. With C.S. Lewis making up his own language, it was hard to follow what was happening when. Lewis is a huge advocate for creating a feeling and atmosphere for the reader of the location in the book, but with the new language it was hard to picture and understand which part of the land they were talking about. It was also hard to follow when the situation was truly dangerous or not. This may have been on purpose because I think part of the idea was that the Soran were considered bad at first and then Ransom comes to find out that they are very nice to him.
I did love the part in the book about the sun. They were in the space ship and one part of the ship was engulfed in this light that was from the sun. Ransom would describe it as a feeling and experience that was more joyful and complete than anything he had felt before. In fact, space became not a place to be afraid of and a place that was lacking and empty, it was more full and more powerful than earth had been to him. I love the way Lewis really draws the reader into this idea, and redevelops the myth that space is so scary and unknown (and perhaps not worth knowing).