Chapter 3: The Lone Islands

I know there is kidnapping and adventure in chapter three, but my favorite line was, "There was a lark singing."

That simple statement felt out of place. The pause pointed me to read the entire paragraph again, and this time I actually connected with what I had already read: "barefoot on downy turf," "delightful," "warm," "pleasant."

How many times do we speed through life the way I sped through that paragraph, missing the beauty? Lucy was soaking up her world – every sense was tuned to the feel of downy turf, the smell of earth and grass, the sound of a lark singing. Her senses were heightened to squeeze every nuance out of every moment.

Notice that Lucy has been engaging the Narnian world all along:

• "…as Lucy and Edmund sipped [the spiced wine] they could feel the warmth going right down to their toes." (chapter 1)
• "When she had finished dressing she looked out of her window at the water rushing past and took a long deep breath. She felt quite sure they were in for a lovely time." (chapter 1)
• "…the smell in the cabin when she opened [her flask of cordial] was delicious." (chapter 2)
• "…when they turned aft to the cabin and supper, and saw the whole western sky lit up with an immense crimson sunset, and felt the quiver of the ship, and tasted the salt on their lips, and thought of unknown lands on the eastern rim of the world, Lucy felt that she was almost too happy to speak." (chapter 2)

And notice the contrast with Eustace’s responses to the same events:

• he spat out the spiced wine and began to cry;
• in his cabin we find him with a scowl and seasickness;
• he labeled the cordial "beastly stuff;"
• and at the time of the sunset, Eustace "would be pleased with nothing."

I think I can safely say he missed the lark singing.

Are you more like Lucy or more like Eustace?

I am reminded: I have five senses that I can too easily ignore as I go through my day. There is work, laundry, e-mail, shopping, mowing, cooking, repairing, and cleaning to be done. I can be overwhelmed with life and miss the lark singing. But sing he does…and when I take it in, I allow the bubble of my busyness (or crankiness) to be burst in order to enjoy the world God has put me in.

For me, the lark’s song looks like a hug from my daughter, my husband’s eyes as I welcome him home, a beautiful harmony I hear on the radio, the warmth of a cup of cocoa, my mom’s laughter on a phone call, the smell of a campfire, the sight of leaves dancing in the breeze, the kindness of one person to another.

"We tend to think of pleasure as oases of enjoyment in a desert of humdrum. But Narnia shows us that pleasure saturates all of life… All creation is infused with delight that tells us something of the love of the God who created us to experience pleasure. Just wake up your senses and enjoy." (Thomas Williams, The Heart of the Chronicles of Narnia, p. 28-29)

What does "a lark singing" look like in your world?
What do your senses enjoy that show you where God is throughout your day?

Chapter 2: On Board the Dawn Treader

Edmund and Lucy responded to Eustace’s bad attitude in different ways. Edmund felt that they should leave Eustace alone in his sulkiness. According to Edmund, “It only makes him worse if you try to be nice to him.” Lucy, however, felt guilty enough to postpone the tour of the Dawn Treader in order to check on him. Lucy even used a drop of her precious cordial to cure Eustace’s seasickness. (Later, she also took care of Eustace’s hand after his run-in with Reepicheep.) Why did they react so differently? Was it just a difference in their personalities, or did their parents raise them differently, even in the same household? More importantly, which response to Eustace will help him overcome his sour disposition? Or will both help him in unique ways?

Apparently, Eustace did not feel very grateful for Lucy’s help in curing his seasickness. In his diary, Eustace wrote, “it’s a good thing I’m not seasick.” Either he was lying and boasting, claiming he never had been sick, or he was stating the present facts, without mentioning Lucy’s selflessness. Whichever was the case, he forgot about his weakness and neediness the moment that he felt better. In my own life, there’s nothing like a case of the stomach flu to remind me that I am utterly dependent on God. There’s something about being tethered to the toilet that makes me beg for his help. Yet, once I feel better, it’s not long before I fall back into the illusion of my own strength.

Perhaps no one got on Eustace’s nerves quite like Reepicheep. Maybe it was because Reepicheep’s dreams so far out measured his own small stature. Of all the heroic figures on board the Dawn Treader, it was a mouse who dared to think they could find the actual country from which Aslan came. Even more ridiculous to a naysayer like Eustace, Reepicheep based his goal on a poem that a Dryad told him as a baby. He said, “I do not know what it means. But the spell of it has been on me all of my life.” C. S. Lewis knew what it was like in his own life to be ‘haunted’ by something beautiful, mysterious, and just out of one’s grasp. Lewis called it “northernness.” In that word he tried to sum up the delicious longing he felt when he read Norse mythology. What haunts you? Perhaps a song, a movie, or a painting hints at it, but you can never quite look at it full on. Don’t give up. As Lewis said in Mere Christianity, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

Chapter 1: The Picture in the Bedroom

There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.

From the moment you read these first words of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader you know you are meeting the unlikeable character, if not the villain, of the story. What is it, we wonder, that makes Eustace Scrubb so deserving of such an unpleasant sounding name?

Why of course, he has no imagination.

That's it?

Indeed it is. Eustace has no imagination. His parents have no imagination, and for that, they emerge as the "bad guys" of our tale. Eustace can't dream of better things and so he is completely caught up in ordinary things. And the ordinary is so dreadfully ordinary that it leaves Eustace with nothing better to do than evil.

He can't imagine imaginary countries, and so he makes fun of others who do. He has no daring or sense of adventure, so he settles for criticizing. He has no hope to be great or heroic, so he must content himself with being practical. And complaining about things which are not practical occupies all of his time.

Much that is wrong with our lives as Christians springs from our lack of imagination. We don't read the scriptures because they cause us to think. Not wishing to think, we'd rather sit around and say, "I can't understand them. They aren't clear enough. I tried once and didn't get anything out of it." We don't pray because we cannot possibly imagine how it might profit us. We don't give generously because we see no potential for good in it (an anyway, was anything EVER less practical than giving money away?) Suffering for us is not "a part of every great adventure"; when you have no imagination suffering is simply something you use to prove there is no God. Small Groups? Who needs those silly people? Worship? I don't like singing--I doubt God likes it either. Serving? I have better (more practical) things to do with my time (like laundry). Compassion on the poor? They should get a job. Tell My Story of Faith? I haven't one to tell. Nothing special ever happened to me.

Erwin McManus tells us, "We all want miracles in our life, but then spend our life ignoring the places and avoiding the situations where miracles happen." [Seizing Your Divine Moment]

When did you last take a chance on Jesus with a fiery imagination?
What are the divine moments you passed over because you let Eustace Scrubb rule the day?