This past week we read Till We Have Faces, and even though this book was completely different than anything else I’ve read by CS Lewis, I picked up on some familiar themes.  One that I really noticed was types of love.  Orual “loved” Psyche so much that she didn’t want her to be happy with her new God/husband; she only wanted her to be happy if she was the one making her happy, and she would rather her die than be happy in this new “world”.  Her love was a selfish, prideful love, to the point where it really wasn’t love at all.  A lot of Orual’s thoughts and dialogue sounded very familiar to the mother in The Great Divorce who refused to love God because He “took” her son Michael from her.  She wanted to love him on her own terms and would have dragged him back down to hell if it meant they could be together.  This diseased love blinded her from the reality that was right in front of her—if she could learn to love God more than her son, she would then be able to love her son on an entirely new level and both of them could be happy in God’s love.  Orual’s situation is different, but still similar to the mother in the type of selfish love she possesses.  She doesn’t want what is best for Psyche, and is blind to what Psyche tries to explain to her about the gods.  Stabbing her arm in order to blackmail Psyche was not love, only manipulation and selfishness.  When Psyche refused to listen to Orual, Orual interpreted this as betrayal and thought her sister didn’t love her anymore.  She learn in the end of the book, however, that Psyche truly loved her all along, just in a different and higher way than she was familiar with.

       This week, we read The Four Loves, which discusses four types of love: Affection, Friendship, Eros, and Charity.  I found it really interesting to think about how all of these types of love work together and complement each other in a relationship.  For example, you can’t have a romantic relationship solely based off of lust, yet you need more than mere friendship.  The four loves work in harmony with each other.

        In the introduction, Lewis also discussed two larger categories of love: Need-love and Gift-love.  The ideal exemplar of Gift-love would be our Heavenly Father—He gives all He has to us, and is the embodiment of love itself.  There is nothing He stands in need of, but pours out blessings upon us.  We, on the other hand, exemplify Need-love.  There is nothing we can ever do to be able to begin to pay back God, and we do not need to.  Our love is a different kind of love, one of dependence and gratitude, like a child to its mother.  We not only have an innate need for God, but for love from those around us.  Beyond our constant physical needs, we need companionship, empathy, self-assurance, and intellectual stimulation.  We need comfort from those around us, and we need to feel important, we need to fulfill others’ needs in some way.  The list goes on and on, and it’s interesting to see how those four loves all revolve around the needs that innate to human nature.  The way we interact and form meaningful relationships with one another is through meeting one another’s needs.  And through recognizing others’ needs, we begin to learn about Gift-love—though we will never fully exemplify Gift-love in this life, I think we can come closer by learning how God loves us.

       This week, we read excerpts from The Problem of Pain, which answers an important question in Christianity: why must we suffer?  Lewis begins by pointing out that people who are stuck in their sins often need pain to come to the realization that everything is not well in their life.  They will later realize that their life is not their own, and the false happiness and pleasure that they have experienced in their sins are contrary to God’s will and in fact preventing them from experiencing true joy.  It is often those that achieve worldly success, not the poor and downtrodden, that reject or forget God because they don’t need Him, and we are quick to forget that He was the one who granted us our success.

       He also asserts that although many associate pain with the negative things of the world—violence, depression, and immorality—it is more common that pain brings out the best in people.  Pain is like the refiner’s fire—it’s not enjoyable, but you come out of it purer and humbler than before, more submissive to God.  When we can overcome the concept of being a “self”, we can let God into our lives and follow His guidance, which will ultimately lead us to real happiness and joy.

       This past week in class we read The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which is the story of Edmund, Lucy, and their cousin Eustace going to Narnia and journeying to the “utter East”, which is the edge of the Narnian world and the beginning of Aslan’s world.  The symbolism throughout this book was interesting—the journey itself represented the journey that we all take through mortality, towards Christ.  There were countless temptations and dangers along the way, but Aslan was always there as a comfort and a reminder to stay on the right course.  And within almost all of the characters you could see a transformation brought about through the mercy and love of Aslan.

       What really stood out to me throughout the book was the personal relationship Aslan had with each of the main characters, shown at various points in the story.  Eustace was the first to experience the change that came through his love—when he accidentally turned himself into a dragon, the process of “undragoning” was only possible through Aslan.  He could not peel back the layers of skin on his own, Aslan had to do it for him.  Furthermore, he was in a sense “baptized” in the healing waters after being stripped of his sinful disposition.  Lucy also had a personal experience with Aslan as he helped her resist the temptation to make herself beautiful by magic.  He also lovingly makes her aware of her mistake in spying on her friends, but forgives her and welcomes her back into his arms.  Caspian and Edmund were at the brink of a fight over the goldwater, but Aslan appeared in the distance as a reminder to not fall into that trap, and later Aslan appeared to Caspian when he wanted to abandon his country.  He appeared to the entire crew as a white albatross when they were lost in the mists of darkness—very symbolic of sin and despair.  And at the edge of Narnia, he appeared to Lucy, Edmund, and Eustace as a lamb who fed them fish, clearly symbolic of the “lamb of God”.

       He also told them that they would know him in their own world by a different name, which we know to be Jesus Christ.  This applies to the characters in the book, but I think also to readers of the Narnie series.  By coming to know Aslan’s character in the book and learning to love Aslan, we learn how to love our Savior Jesus Christ.  While he is not an exact representation of him, reading of the power, mercy, and love he embodies in the book can bring us closer to Christ.

       This week in class, we read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which I hadn’t read since elementary school.  It was interesting to read it again not that I’m older and also more familiar with Lewis’ other works because I picked up on so much religious symbolism that I completely missed as a child.  The most meaningful part of the book to me was when Aslan, who represents Christ, gave himself to the Witch for death so that Edmund would be saved.  The way the Witch and her followers mocked Aslan was so similar to Christ’s crucifixion—they shaved Aslan’s mane, bound him, and put a muzzle over his jaw.  Yet he remained calm, submissive, and even sad for the evil choices they were making.

       When Susan and Lucy found the Stone Table broken and Aslan gone, it resembled the empty tomb of Christ.  I also think the Stone Table was a symbol of the lower law, the Law of Moses, and the “deeper magic” Aslan spoke of was the higher law that Christ brought forth.  Aslan defeated death and brought forth a sort of resurrection in Narnia.  He breathed life back into the creatures that had been turned to stone, and the gates of Cair Paravel, or hell, were trodden down.  The power of the Witch, who symbolizes the devil, was nothing up against Aslan, and the battle was quickly won by Aslan and the good creatures of Narnia.

       What was also interesting was the way that the Witch tempted Edmund with hunger and with the promise of power.  Once he had given in and was under her spell, he could no longer see things clearly and was terrified and uncomfortable at the mention of Aslan.  However, once he realized his great mistake and tried to return to Aslan, he was welcomed with open arms and forgiven of his sins.  Aslan was willing to die for him alone, despite the fact that he had betrayed them all.  I thought this was a beautiful symbol of the Atonement—Christ was perfect, yet He gave himself to death so that we could be saved from our sins, so that He could overthrow death itself.  And He would have done it for just one of us.

       This past week, we read Perelandra, which gives almost an allegory of Adam and Eve, except it occurs on Venus, which is called Perelandra.  The Green Lady, who is similar to Eve, is able to withstand the temptations of the devil and he is ultimately cast out.  She and Tor, the Adam-like figure, learn good and evil not by falling but through Maleldil, or God.  It is interesting to see in this how CS Lewis’ views conflict with the LDS view on the Fall.  Lewis believes that the Fall was not necessary, but that God will still make everything work for the best.  Christ’s descent and crucifixion were only a response to the Fall, to fix a mistake, a second option instead of the cornerstone of eternity.  In Perelandra, Tor speaks of how he was able to learn of good and evil, but not as the Evil One wished them to learn.  He asserts that those on Thulcandra, or Earth, are in a deeper ignorance than they were before the Fall since they are immersed in evil.  “Men by sleeping lose the knowledge of sleep,” he points out.  This is an interesting viewpoint, and it is true that there are many on Earth today that do not understand evil because they are being fooled by the devil into thinking it is good, but I think overall we are able to understand the distinction clearly between good and evil when we are able to choose good over evil.  Of course, it seems that it would be easier if men had never fallen, but I think one must experience evil in order to truly understand and value good.  That is what we learn in the Book of Mormon—there must be opposition in all things.  We not only need the knowledge of good and evil, but we need to sin and have trials in order to progress and become like God.  In was in God’s plan for man to fall, and as far as we fell, we will ascend that much higher through the Atonement.  We will be able to truly taste of good.  While Lewis’ views are similar to LDS views on many aspects, this is one area where he doesn’t quite hit the mark.

       In class, we’ve read a lot of different shorter excerpts by Lewis lately, but one that stuck out to me was Christianity and Literature.  It talked about the difference between Christian writers and other writers, claiming that the main difference is the purpose for which they write.  Christian writers are not writing trying to be original, or to increase their personal stature, but for God.  Lewis says that the Christian “knows that the salvation of a single soul is more important than the production of preservation of all the epics and tragedies in the world” (10). 

       I think this concept rings true for everything else we do—art, athletics, academics, or even leisurely activities.  All these activities could be considered “good on their own terms, but if we have the ultimate goal in mind of doing God’s will and serving our fellow man, it heightens the entire experience to a whole new level.  Not only will our life take on new significance, but I believe God will strengthen our abilities when we seek to serve Him.  This goes along with another point Lewis has made—that the most insignificant of activities can become divine if you have God as your motive, while the most noble of activities can become evil if God you are turned away from God.  Basically, through God everything is good, and the absence of God in our lives turns everything sour.