Dissident Veteran For Peace: Two Excerpts from, and One about, the Chronicles of Narnia

Dissident Veteran For Peace

"I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America." —Alexis de Tocquevile. Democracy in America, Book I, Chapter XV.

With a nod to the Most Rev. Dom Helder Camara: When I support Palestinians some call me an 'anti-Semite', when I try to explain why I stand in solidarity with Palestinians they call me a Nazi.

"WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives." —Major General Smedley Butler, USMC (ret.)

"... no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end." —character of O'Brien in 1984, part 3, ch. 3 by George Orwell.

"Every prophet has realized that nobody loves you for being the enemy of their illusions. Every prophet has realized that most of us want peace at any price as long as the peace is ours and somebody else pays the price. That is why the prophet Jeremiah said, ' "Peace, peace," they say, when there is no peace,' ..." —The Rev. William Sloane Coffin. "Not to Bring Peace, But a Sword."

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Two Excerpts from, and One about, the Chronicles of Narnia

And the longer and more beautifully the Lion sang, the harder Uncle Andrew tried to make himself believe that he could hear nothing but roaring. Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed.

Source: C. S. Lewis. The Magician's Nephew in The Chronicles of Narnia. (New York: HarperCollins, 2004) p. 75.

"Then I [Emeth] fell at his feet and thought, Surely this is the hour of death, for the Lion (who is worthy of all honour) will know that I have served Tash all my days and not him. Nevertheless, it is better to see the Lion and die than to be Tisroc of the world and live and not to have seen him. But the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, 'Son, thou art welcome.' But I said, 'Alas, Lord, I am no son of thine but the servant of Tash.' He answered, 'Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me.' Then by reasons of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, 'Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one?' The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, 'It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites--I take to me the services which thou hast done to him. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath's sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. Dost thou understand, Child?' I said, 'Lord, thou knowest how much I understand.' But I said also (for the truth constrained me), 'Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days.' 'Beloved,' said the Glorious One, 'unless thy desire had been for me thou shouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.'

Source: C. S. Lewis. The Last Battle in the The Chronicles of Narnia. (New York: HarperCollins, 2004) pp. 756-757.

In the field of literature, myth usually does not mean a "fictitious story, or unscientific account, theory, belief, etc." (literary critics do not dismiss something as just a myth). Instead, to Lewis and Tolkien, myths deal with matters beyond and above everyday life, concerning origins, endings, aspirations, purpose and meaning, in concepts or narratives that appeal to the imagination and the emotions rather than the intellect. They are nonrational and nonintellectual, not irrational or anti-intellectual. Thus Tolkien says that myth has a "total (unanalysable) effect." Myth, Lewis adds, "deals with impossibles and preternaturals." The experiences that myths generate are serious and awe-inspiring, conveying a sense of the numinous. Myths open huge vistas, plumb depths of the emotions and the spirit. The sheer imaginativeness of such stories, like that of much poetry, adds to life, creates sensations we never had before, and enlarges our conception of possible experience.

Source: Peter J. Schakel. The Way into Narnia: A Reader's Guide (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005). p. 34.