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Overview
The wisdom of C. S. Lewis comes in a form that is deeply moving as well as great fun and high adventure. Noted Lewis scholar and popular speaker Devin Brown reveals the lessons woven throughout this endearing text. Bringing Narnia Home presents Lewis’s timeless message for the Narnian in each of us. Imagine opening a book and finding chapters like these:
Of Mice and Minotaurs: Actions We See as Small and Insignificant Can Be More Important than We Realize Despite What White Witches, Tisrocs, and Other Tyrants Think
Narnia Would Not Be Narnia if It Was All Badgers: It Takes a Village (One with Giants, Dwarfs, and Everyone in Between) to Make a Community
Adventures Can Begin in the Most Unlikely Places (Something to Keep in Mind the Next Time You Find Yourself in an Unlikely Place)
A wise, winsome, and whimsical look at the important values and lessons the Narnia series teaches that actually provide the groundwork for a profound and meaningful life.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781426791895 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Abingdon Press |
| Publication date: | 04/07/2015 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 144 |
| File size: | 267 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Bringing Narnia Home
Lessons from the Other Side of the Wardrobe
By Devin Brown
Abingdon Press
Copyright © 2015 Devin BrownAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4267-9189-5
CHAPTER 1
Of Mice and Minotaurs
Actions We See as Small and Insignificant Can Be Far More Important Than We Realize
A Tale Of Two Stories
Long before The Chronicles of Narnia, there was a series of books collectively known as The Hardy Boys—tales of brothers Frank and Joe Hardy, Bayport High School students by day, solvers of unsolvable mysteries on evenings and weekends. Beginning with The Tower Treasure, published in 1927, the teen sleuths have thrilled readers down through the years as they track crooks across town and across the country and bring a long list of thieves, smugglers, kidnappers, spies, bank robbers, and other villains to justice.
The problem with this type of book is that while we find pleasure in reading it, we always return to our own world feeling as though our own lives can never measure up. Unlike Frank and Joe, we will never catch the uncatchable criminal, crack the uncrackable case, cross the uncrossable river, or ride the unrideable pony. We run to this book to escape the hum-drum of ordinary life, but then afterward we return to a world and to lives in this world that have been made a little less wonderful than before.
The unwritten rule for this kind of book is that the main characters—whether they are the Hardy boys or their female counterpart, Nancy Drew—must always be doing something exciting. Not a chapter goes by without something thrilling, suspenseful, or just simply big taking place and our heroes reacting in ways thatare equally thrilling and big. And the people they encounter while doing these big things are big as well—an eclectic mix of the famous and infamous.
And so we long to be one of the Hardy brothers or Nancy Drew. We imagine ourselves standing in their shoes and rescuing the trapped victim, finding the stolen loot, foiling the bad guys' plots, and making the world safe again.
The problem is that in our own lives we rarely if ever do anything big—not big in the Hardy Boys sense. What we seem to do are lots of small things. And stories like The Hardy Boys leave us feeling as though doing small things is not something that is all that important. We turn to this type of book because our own lives do not seem very exciting, and what we find there makes our day-to-day life seem even duller.
Fortunately, there is another type of book that helps remind us of our significance in the grand plan and makes the events of our lives—the things we do and the people we do them with—more special, not less. Yes, this type of book also creates a longing in us, but it is a very different sort of longing than we get with the first kind. C. S. Lewis suggests that the reader of this kind of book does not despise real woods because he has read about enchanted ones; the reading makes all real woods a little bit enchanted. Rather than making the real world seem duller, this other type of book gives our world what Lewis calls a new dimension of depth.
All seven works in The Chronicles of Narnia are perfect examples of this second type of book and serve as reminders that actions we may see as small and insignificant can be far more important than we realize. Let's look at some places where Lewis explores this principle.
Susan and Lucy Make a Huge Difference
One of the most dramatic scenes in all of the Chronicles takes place about two-thirds of the way through The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe when Aslan arrives at the Stone Table to give his life in exchange for Edmund's. A menacing crowd waits for him in the torch light—ogres, hags, bull-headed men, and other evil creatures best left unnamed. And right in the middle is the White Witch.
Everyone remembers what happens next as Aslan, without offering any resistance, allows himself to be bound and shaved and finally to be killed. Everyone remembers the marvelous events that take place the next morning when, with a great crack, the Stone Table breaks in two and Aslan appears alive once more, shining in the sunrise and shaking his mane.
What people may not remember as well is the tender scene that takes place on the way to the Stone Table.
If you were to ask Susan and Lucy about it, they would say it all began when neither of them could sleep because of a terrible feeling they had about Aslan. This feeling gets so bad they decide to get up and see if they can find him—and they do. On the far side of the campground they notice Aslan walking slowly into the woods, looking as if he is very tired and deep in thought.
On and on in the pale moonlight, the girls silently follow the great lion. Finally, as they are crossing an open space, Aslan turns around and sees them. When Susan begs to be allowed to go with him, Aslan makes a surprising response.
"I should be glad of company tonight," he tells them, but he makes it clear they will have to stop when he tells them and let him go on alone.
I should be glad of company tonight. It seems odd that the king of the wood, the son of the great Emperor-beyond-the-Sea, should need company—particularly the company of two ordinary schoolgirls from Finchley.
Forward they go again with one girl on each side. "But how slowly he walked!" Lewis tells us. Aslan's great royal head droops so that his nose nearly touches the grass. Presently he stumbles and gives a low moan.
When Lucy and Susan ask what is wrong and if he is ill, Aslan replies, "No, I am sad and lonely." And then comes one of the most touching moments in the entire series. The great lion asks the girls to lay their hands on his mane so he can feel they are there. The girls bury their hands in the beautiful sea of fur and stroke it, and so they continue on to the Stone Table.
Now if you asked Susan and Lucy what they had done on that sad, lonely night, they probably would say they didn't do anything much. They just walked with Aslan and kept their hands on his mane so he would know they were with him.
But if you asked Aslan about that same night, he would say that having Susan and Lucy there meant all the world to him. He would say that what they did made all the difference. They never left his side—not for a second. They always kept their hands on his mane. He was not alone.
And so the first lesson we bring home from Narnia is this: actions we see as small and insignificant can be far more important than we realize. This is true for kind and loving actions; it also is true for actions that are not kind and not loving.
"Go On, Edmund, Tell Them All About It"
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe begins during the London air raids of World War II, as the four Pevensie children are sent to stay at the house of an old professor. While exploring on the first day, Lucy enters a mysterious wardrobe. The problem comes when no one will believe her story of how she was magically transported to the land of Narnia and met a faun named Mr. Tumnus, who invited her to tea.
Several days later during a game of hide-and-seek, Lucy again enters the wardrobe, and Edmund follows shortly afterward. While Lucy visits Mr. Tumnus again, Edmund meets up with the White Witch, who puts him under her spell and has him promise he will return to her castle with his siblings. Lucy comes upon Edmund just moments after the Witch drives off, and together they journey back through the wardrobe to the professor's house.
Excited that her brother now can corroborate her story, Lucy immediately finds Peter and Susan. "Go on, Edmund," she says. "Tell them all about it."
At this point Lewis breaks in to warn readers. "And now," he cautions, "we come to one of the nastiest things in this story."
Fans of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe know that there are a number of nasty things that take place over the course of the story. Innocent creatures, including poor Mr. Tumnus, get turned to stone. Edmund keeps his promise to the White Witch and betrays his sisters and brother. Worst of all is the grim scene already mentioned where Aslan is sacrificed at the Stone Table.
So what is this terrible thing that comes next, something that will be one of the nastiest things in the story? Edmund simply decides to tell a lie about his trip to Narnia and says that he and Lucy were just pretending. Surely one little lie won't matter much. But Lewis does not see it as one little lie. He sees it as one of the nastiest things that happens in the book.
Again we see that actions we may think of as small and insignificant—whether good or bad—can be far more important than we realize.
Bringing Narnia Home
In the final chapters of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the White Witch is defeated, and Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy are crowned kings and queens at Cair Paravel. During the years they reign over Narnia, Lucy becomes known as "Lucy the Valiant." And in giving Lucy this title, Lewis makes it clear that courage is not limited to the battlefield—that someone can be valiant through what might seem to be small actions.
In Prince Caspian, the story that follows, we meet the great-hearted mouse Reepicheep, who is gravely wounded in the final combat against Miraz's troops.
Lucy is able to use her magic cordial to heal him but not to restore his severed tail. When Reepicheep appeals to Aslan for his assistance, the great lion agrees, not for the sake of Reepicheep's honor, as he tells the gallant mouse, but for "the kindness your people showed me long ago when you ate away the cords that bound me on the Stone Table." And here when Aslan says long ago, he really means it—as Prince Caspian takes place over thirteen hundred years after the events in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
From Lucy and Susan's walk with Aslan, to Edmund's lie about going to Narnia, to the mice who nibble away the cords that bind Aslan and whose deeds are remembered down through the centuries, Lewis reminds us that actions we see as small and insignificant can be far more important than we realize.
"Further In"
Questions for Reflection
1. Can you think of other times in The Chronicles of Narnia when actions that may not have seemed particularly big or spectacular at the time turned out to be important? What events or circumstances do you recall?
2. From your own life, can you think of something someone did for you that might not have made headlines but made all the difference to you? Try to remember some of the details. How did this person's generosity make you feel at the time? Or was it only later that you began to realize the importance of it to you?
3. Can you think of something you yourself have done that did not seem like something big at the time, but which you later realized was a big thing?
CHAPTER 2Despite What White Witches, Tisrocs, And Other Petty Tyrants Think
Being a Leader Means More Than Simply Being the Boss
She Calls Herself The Queen Of Narnia
Early in chapter 4 of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, we find Edmund sitting in the White Witch's sleigh, her warm mantle tucked snugly around him, shoveling down Turkish Delight as fast as he can. And with each piece of the enchanted candy he consumes, Edmund falls further under the Witch's spell as she entices him with promises of not only more Turkish Delight but of one day ruling Narnia.
"I want a nice boy whom I could bring up as a Prince and who would be King of Narnia when I am gone," the White Witch explains. "While he was Prince he would wear a gold crown and eat Turkish Delight all day long."
In the Witch's promise to make Edmund king of Narnia after she is gone, there are two points worth noting. First, the Witch is immortal unless killed in battle, and so her promise here to make Edmund king after she is gone is all a lie. She has no plans to ever be gone.
Second, her plan is actually a false imitation of Aslan's plan for Edmund. In fact, Edmund is supposed to rule as a king of Narnia—the prophecy related by Mr. Beaver makes this clear. However, Aslan's conception of being a king or queen involves far more than wearing a golden crown and sitting around all day eating Turkish Delight.
In The Magician's Nephew, Uncle Andrew's magic rings allow Digory and Polly to travel to another world where they meet up with the White Witch before she becomes the White Witch—back when she was known as Jadis, the last Queen of Charn. They learn that just as she was about to be defeated, she had spoken the Deplorable Word, which destroyed all living beings in her world except her. When Digory and Polly express horror at the thought of all the people who were destroyed, Jadis matter-of-factly replies: "I was the Queen. They were all my people. What else were they there for but to do my will?"
Earlier, the Witch had taken no notice of Polly because Digory was the one she wanted to make use of. Lewis then jumped in to explain: "I expect most witches are like that. They are not interested in things or people unless they can use them."
The White Witch is a tyrant, and her insatiable craving for control is the trait that most clearly defines her. We could say she is obsessed by her need to dominate everything and everybody, and because of this she can never rest. She is always on the offensive, always looking to bring everyone else into submission. For her, and for tyrants like her, being the king or queen means being the boss. And that is all it means.
Throughout the Narnia stories, Lewis shows us two rival conceptions of what it means to govern. One side—whether it's the White Witch, Miraz, the Green Lady, or Shift the Ape—sees being a ruler as simply a means of controlling others and using them to get whatever they want. Aslan's idea of what it means to be a ruler is radically different.
My Subjects Or My Schoolmasters
The last few chapters of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader take on an almost dreamlike quality as the ship draws closer and closer to the end of the world. After several days where they glide on a smooth sea of lilies, the water gradually becomes shallower and shallower, and finally the time comes when the Dawn Treader can sail no further east. Caspian calls for a small boat to be lowered and orders the crew to gather for an important announcement. It is Eustace—perhaps because he himself once lived a life of doing only what he pleased—who first notices a strange look in Caspian's eyes, a look that causes the young king to appear, as the narrator points out, not unlike his uncle Miraz.
Caspian tells the crew that with the seven lords now accounted for and Reepicheep sworn to remain at the end of the world and thus undo the sleepers' enchantment, they have now fulfilled their quest. He instructs Drinian to bring the ship and crew safely back to Narnia and, once there, to have Trumpkin pay out the rewards that were promised. Finally, should he himself fail to return, Caspian tells them, they must select a new king.
When Drinian interrupts to ask if Caspian is abdicating, the young king declares that he has decided to go with Reepicheep to see the World's End.
Reepicheep is quick to point out Caspian's mistake, telling him: "You break faith with all your subjects, and especially with Trumpkin."
Caspian's announced intention of going with Reepicheep to see World's End is not a terrible desire. In fact, this same longing in Reepicheep takes on a noble and heroic quality. So exactly what is it that causes Caspian for a moment to look like his Uncle Miraz?
Caspian's resemblance to his evil uncle stems not from his desire to see the end of the world but from the fact that here Caspian will not be told that he cannot do something. Briefly, and it is only for a moment, Caspian sees kingship as meaning only that he can do what he wants when he wants, and no one can stop him.
In words that could have been said by his uncle, Caspian complains, "I had thought you were all my subjects here, not my schoolmasters." His hand is on his sword, threatening violence, when Lucy intervenes to remind him that he has almost promised Ramandu's daughter he would return. Even then, Caspian is still in a temper at having his orders questioned and declares: "Well, have your way. The quest is ended. We all return." In fact, this is not an acceptable solution, for if they leave no one behind, the sleepers' enchantment will not be broken. Again Reepicheep dares to defy the king, saying: "We do not all return."
At this Caspian cries, "Will no one silence that Mouse?" and storms into his cabin and slams the door.
When the others join the king a short time later, they find him greatly changed. Through his tears Caspian explains that Aslan had appeared, a bit stern at first, and had told him that Reepicheep, Edmund, Lucy, and Eustace are to go on alone and the others must turn back at once.
Although Caspian is compared to Miraz in this scene, his intentions here are not inherently evil. Miraz had murdered the rightful king, Caspian's father, and taken his crown; Caspian only wants to go to the end of the world. But while this might be a very good thing to do, Caspian has responsibilities that prohibit him from doing so. Reepicheep points out to him, "You shall not please yourself with adventures as if you were a private person."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Bringing Narnia Home by Devin Brown. Copyright © 2015 Devin Brown. Excerpted by permission of Abingdon Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
"Opening Words","Chapter 1" Of Mice and Minotaurs,
"Chapter 2" Despite What White Witches, Tisrocs, and Other Petty Tyrants Think,
"Chapter 3" Bad Can Be Beautiful (At Least on the Surface),
"Chapter 4" I Thought We Were Getting Real Soldiers!,
"Chapter 5" Live Like It's Always Christmas and Never Winter,
"Chapter 6" It Takes a Village to Make a Community,
"Chapter 7" There Is a Way Back from Every Offense—Large and Small,
"Chapter 8" Bury the Hatchet and Don't Put a Marker on the Site,
"Chapter 9" Only the Good Have Fun,
"Chapter 10" The Virtuous Life Is a Real Adventure,
"Chapter 11" Adventures Begin in the Most Unlikely Places,
"Chapter 12" Of Course He's Not Safe,
"Closing Words",