I've just completed my second reading of this wonderful work by C.S. Lewis, the first reading done while I was a young teenager. It was almost like reading the whole series again, I had forgotten a lot. I remembered The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe pretty well, but had forgotten all the details of the other books, except for one chapter from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Dragon Island.
I've got a new favorite in this series, no long The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, but now The Silver Chair. Why? I am Prince Rilian.
Read more below, but there are spoilers.
To recap:
Prince Rilian has been enchanted and taken away from the Kingdom of Narnia by an evil witch. Two schoolchildren, Eustace and Jill, are called by Aslan to rescue the Prince. They are given several signs to guide their way (and they mess these all up rather well, though they get the last and most important one right). Prince Rilian is released from his enchantment, but before escaping his underground prison, they all must face the evil witch for one last confrontation. They barely escape from another attack of evil magic, and Prince Rilian slays the witch. They escape back to Narnia and Prince Rilian sees his father, King Caspian, just before Caspian dies.
How does Prince Rilian's life describe me?
Prince Rilian's spell which holds him fast is unconfessed sin and doubt. In my case, it crept into my life when I began to doubt the truth of Christianity, and began to think of all religions and all points of view as valid searches for truth. I expressed that doubt by attending a church in a liberal denomination which prides itself on rejecting orthodox belief and replacing it with a "free and responsible search for truth and meaning". Now I respect that a little bit, but the way it is put into practice, in this worldview, one can't find the truth. It doesn't exist, or if it does exist, it only exists for oneself, and of course, since your search is never ending, one can always toss it aside and search for a different truth. Even the Principles and Purposes of this religion cannot be considered absolutes, but rather mere postulates.
Something happened in my belief system which told me that truth really does matter. How did it happen? Well, one author who had an effect on me was Ayn Rand, whose philosophy emphasized the existence of objective truth (though I have since rejected her atheism and extreme individualism). I realized that a search for truth should acknowledge the existence of a destination, and the willingess to stop searching (but not to stop learning and growing) when we get there. Otherwise one is just emulating Brownian motion, and not getting anywhere. I didn't think that was a good model for life. I've studied other religions and philosophies, and the one which seems to be most grounded in reality, is the one I believed in as a child, the one described by the Apostles' Creed, and by this creed I wrote after hearing a childrens' sermon on the First and Great Commandment.
Love God with all you've got.
Loving Jesus is loving God.
The Holy Spirit is God in us.
I recommitted my life to Christ just two years before the passing of my mother, and three years before the passing of my father. Reading through some of my mom's letters, I found out that one thing that made her very happy was my wife's decision to follow Jesus just a few months after my decision. I'm glad for the wisdom my parents passed on to me, and glad that we recognized its truth in time to share it with them.
Thanks for sharing your path back to faith. It shows how truth can be found in unexpected places (Rand) and how one need not outgrow childhood teaching about God, but can build on it.
Posted by: Mark Soper at February 15, 2005 10:46 AM