ON THE MULTIPLICATION OF DRAGONS Pt. 1 Written by the Hobbit:
We live in an enchanted world. When we are young this is easy. The large round rock at the end of the block is a dragon’s egg. Beware! Be careful! When we grow older this becomes more difficult. It is harder for us to remember, and as we have forgotten we tend to repress that enchantment in others. My particular concern is the loss of enchantment in our faith.
One of the familiar phrases associated C.S. Lewis comes from his essay “Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What’s to Be Said”. Lewis is explaining the how and why of writing The Chronicles of Narnia. He says:
“I thought I saw how stories of this kind could steal past a certain inhibition which had paralysed much of my own religion in childhood. Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or the sufferings of Christ? I thought the chief reason was that one was told one ought to. An obligation to feel can freeze feelings. And reverence itself did harm. The whole subject was associated with lowered voices; almost as if it were something medical. But supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday School associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency? Could one not thus steal past those watchful dragons? I thought one could.”
Stealing past watchful dragons, is then, for Lewis, getting past dry (sometimes we might say legalistic) pictures and perceptions of God and Jesus, and making them come alive. It is over 60 years since the time the essay first appeared in 1956. This is certainly still an issue – indeed, I believe Lewis’ dragons have multiplied and are continuing to do so at an alarming rate.
2 Kings 6 is a wonderful example of this . The king of Aram has sent an army to capture Elisha. Elisha and his servant are in the city of Dothan. A “great army of warriors, along with many horses and chariots” “encircled the city of Dothan at night.” (Voice translation)
Elisha’s servant sees the army and panics. Elisha then simply prays, “I ask You to allow my servant to see heavenly realities.” And what does the servant then see? God’s army – chariots and horses of fire- much larger the human army.
Even when we chose the good spell (for that is what gospel means) we often forget the enchantment and the wonder around us. Fiction, music, poetry, drama – these are all reminders that the world is enchanted. How do we use these? More to come…..
Sources:
“Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What’s to Be Said” C.S. Lewis (from On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature, Harcourt, Inc., 1982).
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
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