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.
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