On Intuition, Narnia, and a little mediaeval astrology...

I don't recall how old I was when I first read the Narnia septet by CS Lewis. I know that I was captivated by the series at a young age, and read them regularly.

I do, however, remember a thrilling moment when I was perhaps ten or eleven. I was re-reading the books, and had reached the end of 'The Voyage of the Dawn Treader'. Aslan the Lion appears as a lamb, and invites the children to a breakfast of roast fish. Then he tells them that he is in their world too, by another name.

It seems odd in retrospect - the Christian imagery in the books is so well-known, and so obvious to me now - but until that point I had not made the connection. I had grown out of hoping that I might find Narnia myself in the back of an old wardrobe; I no longer believed in fauns and talking mice. But I did wish, with an intense longing, that Aslan could indeed be found in our world. I suppose it was a classic moment of Introverted Intuition, when it all suddenly made sense. Aslan was Jesus. I went from a deep wish to a deep insight within a few seconds, and was then able to see the allegorical nature of the books - or, at least, the metaphors which were well-known to me at that age such as Creation in 'The Magician's Nephew'; Good Friday and Easter in 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'.

It was a great moment, and I'm glad that nobody made the mistake of explaining it to me before I was ready to find it for myself.

Over the forty-odd years since then, I've picked up and read the books again and again. It has occasionally occurred to me to wonder why they seem such a disparate set of books: 'The Lion...' is almost a classic fairytale story of good conquering evil with the Redemption story at the heart of it. It's uplifting, cheerful, and probably still my favourite of the books. It's also the best-known. I never particularly liked its sequel 'Prince Caspian', which is filled with battles and conversation in the forest. It brings the children back to Narnia, but in a disappointing kind of story, even though it ends well enough.

On the other hand, I very much liked 'The Voyage of the Dawn Treader', in which Caspian is a little older and on a quest over the sea. It has a lighter feel to it, several instances of people overcoming different temptations, and the beautiful ending which first gave me the insight into the Christian nature of the series. The only chapter I didn't like at all was the one called 'Two Narrow Escapes', where the company visited an island with a dangerous pool.. when reading the book, I used to skip that chapter. On the other hand, the amusing chapter about the Dufflepuds is one of my favourites in the whole series.

'The Silver Chair' has a different feel to it again - of swamps and gloom, of another kind of quest, this time to rescue a missing prince. I loved Puddleglum the Marshwiggle, but found the story increasingly tense even on the tenth or fifteenth time of reading.

I would usually read those four books in order, then 'The Magician's Nephew', even though that is chronologically the first, dealing, as it does, with the creation of Narnia. It always felt to me like an add-on, a book to explain how the other books came about, with a lot more set in the real Earth than in any of the others. Then there's 'The Horse and His Boy', a book which never felt to me as if it fit with the others at all. It's the story of a boy taking an important message, learning about Narnia, realising his courage, and discovering some surprising roots. I like it - but it seemed very much like a misfit, with no forays at all into our world.

Then there's 'The Last Battle', a final book if ever there was one, with graphic pictures of 'end times', taking us to the very end of Narnia and the hope of Heaven. I don't much like that one, either, but would always read it as the last in the series.

A year or so ago, Amazon recommended that I read 'Planet Narnia', in which Michael Ward, a learned scholar, had apparently found a new 'key' to what he calls the Narniad. Something to do with mediaeval astrology. I read reviews, which were mixed, and might have thought no more; but then a friend read it, and felt that it was worth reading. Then I saw it referred to elsewhere, and became increasingly curious.

I've finally finished reading it.

The author makes an excellent case for an underlying theme which Lewis did not spell out to anyone. He quotes extensively from his works, and from his early study of mediaeval planetary images. He also goes deeply into the explicit use of planets-as-archetypes which Lewis employed in his science fiction trilogy. He makes his case well, and it felt like another piece of the jigsaw, or perhaps a sight of the picture on the box of a puzzle, helping the whole to slot into place.

The theory, in a nutshell, is that each of the seven mediaeval planetary archetypes influences the writing of one of the Narnia books. Sounds unreal? Yes, it did to me at first. Michael Ward sums up his theories on the FAQ page of the Planet Narnia site - and they are quite appealing.

In five of the seven suggestions he advances for a planetary theme for each of the Narnia series, I agree entirely.

The planets are not the ones we know today; indeed, two of them (Sol and Luna) are the bodies which we know as the Sun and the Moon. Uranus had not yet been discovered in the mediaeval times from which Lewis takes his imagery, nor is Earth included. She seven 'planets' are: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Sol and Luna.

While I have some knowledge of ancient Greek and Roman myths, I was impressed at the thoroughness with which Michael Ward went into detail about each planet. Detail is really not my thing, but I did very much like a term he coins early in the book: 'donegality'. This is taken as the essence or theme of something, the underlying tone of a book, the 'big picture' one retains when the particulars have vanished from memory. For each of the books Ward gives us his understanding of its 'donegality', linking it with one of the mediaeval planetary deities, and then picking out a lot of fine detail to reinforce his point.

I could see instantly that according to this theory, 'Prince Caspian' is connected to Mars, the Roman god of war. Woods and battles are the donegality of the book as far as I'm concerned; Mars, apparently, was also supposed to have an affinity with trees and vegetation. There are themes in the book of chivalry, knightliness and 'necessary' wars to overcome evil, and I found myself actually liking it more in the context of the planet Mars.

Perhaps the next most obvious one is 'The Silver Chair', which is connected with Luna, the moon. Her colour is silver, her light reflected. Much of the story takes place underground, or in the marshes, giving a feeling of half-light. There is discussion of 'lunacy', too, and much more. Then 'The Last Battle' is evidently about the passing of time and its ravages, fitting in well with Ward's theory that this final book in the series was written with Saturn in mind, known in some circles as 'Father Time'.

There are long chapters dedicated to each of these, of course; I'm only touching on what I perceive as the 'donegality' in this post.

Ward also contends that 'The Lion..' was written with the influence of Jupiter in mind, and that 'The Horse and His Boy' relates to Mercury. These are not quite so obvious at first glance, but as I read the relevant chapters, I could see that they make sense. Jupiter - also known as Jove - features jollity, feasting and kingliness, as well as winter becoming spring. Father Christmas, who always seemed like a bit of an oddity in the first book, suddenly fits in rather well with the image of a genial giver. Mercury, by contrast, is known as the message-giver, and master of language and liguistics. Of all the books, 'The Horse and His Boy' is most concerned with language - with Bree the talking horse, and Calormen poetry, and the importance of getting words correct. Mercury is also related to twins, something else that leaps out of the book.

This brings me to the remaining two books, and here is where I find myself in disagreement with Michael Ward. He matches Venus with 'The Magician's Nephew', citing the great fertility of the newly-formed Narnia, and the apple which Digory plants. And he matches Sol, the sun, with 'The Voyage of the Dawn Treader'. There's a sense of light, and mention of gold in the book which seem to back this up.

But although I was prepared to accept Michael Ward's explanations, I didn't find either of those two chapters convincing. And while I hesitate to disagree with such extensive research, I would personally put them the other way around.

Ward claims that the name 'Dawn Treader' suggests the sun. To me, it suggest Venus, the 'Morning Star'. Moreover, the word 'Voyage' is one used in the alternate title for 'Perelandra', the second of the science fiction trilogy ('Voyage to Venus'). In 'The Voyage of the Dawn Treader', most of the action - like that in 'Perelandra' - takes place in a watery world peppered with islands. Venus is the island goddess, her home planet supposedly one covered with water.

There are temptations galore in 'The Voyage of the Dawn Treader', including Lucy's temptation to make herself more beautiful - similar, again, to one in 'Perelandra', and surely related to Venus, once more, rather than Sol. Moreover, it seems that the simple (and very low-key) romance Caspian finds at the end of the book is much more appropriate, in a children's book, than Ward's mention of carnality at the creation of Narnia, notwithstanding Frank and Helen's future children and grandchildren.

What of 'The Magician's Nephew'? As I said above, I don't have much of a 'feel' for the book as a whole, but if I must have a nutshell image, it is of suns.. the dying sun in Charn, the daylight in the 'real' world, and the newly formed sun of Narnia. The scenes at the end involving the apple tree and Digory's mother are used by Ward to add to the Venus image, but it seems to me rather more appropriate to Sol; besides that, the idea of a Tree of Life is surely an overt reference to the temptation of Eve in the book of Genesis. According to the Planet Narnia post about Sol, his influence makes people wise and liberal: this is what Aslan asks of Frank and Helen when he crowns them as the first King and Queen. And I'm quite sure Lewis's choice of name for the first Queen is not an accident: 'Helen' is derived from the Greek word for sun.

Finally, Ward makes much of Sol's metal being gold, and points out various references to gold in 'Dawn Treader'. Undoubtedly they are there, but in re-reading 'The Magician's Nephew', I found just as many. Significantly, most of them were referring to Aslan himself, whereas in 'Dawn Treader' they are more related to the temptations of wealth (such as the dragon's lair, and the 'Deathwater' island). Venus the goddess is associated with sweetness, warmth and laughter. The ship's company in 'Dawn Treader' find warmth and sweet water at the end of their journey; and while there is certainly some laughter in the creation of Narnia, it's not nearly as amusing as the 'Dawn Treader' chapter featuring the Dufflepuds.

So, while I cannot begin to emulate any of Michael Ward's scholarship, and am well aware that I may be totally wrong... my feeling and intuition tell me that 'The Voyage of the Dawn Treader' is more connected with imagery of Venus, and 'The Magician's Nephew' with Sol.

Christians, alcohol and drunkenness

A few days ago, I read a brief commentary on Genesis 9:18-29 This is the passage where Noah plants and harvest a vineyard, invents some kind of wine, drinks it, and then falls asleep in the nude. One of his sons sees him; the others reverse into the tent and cover him up. Reading the passage I noticed that while Noah is upset with the son who was disrespectful (did he, perhaps, laugh at his dad's nakedness? Make some lewd comment? Try to persuade his siblings to take a peek?) the passage does not in any way pass judgement on Noah himself.

So I was rather surprised that the commentary focused only briefly on the different behaviours of Noah's sons, and then made quite a big deal about what it called the 'sin' of Noah's drunkenness. It was making the point that even people as righteous as Noah can fall into temptation, and that it's easy for all of us to trip up over relatively small issues. Undoubtedly true... but I didn't feel that it was actually relevant in this case.

Disclaimer: I am not, in any way, a champion of alcohol. I don't personally drink it at all, as I don't like it. I very much dislike the behaviour of people who have had too much to drink, even when they're just at the slightly silly stage, and I am well aware that drinking makes drivers dangerous and causes some people to turn violent. It's expensive, it's addictive, and although a glass or two of wine may be beneficial to our health, it certainly isn't good in excess.

However, just because something is harmful in excess, and under certain situations does not make it automatically sinful. I know that there are some Christians who believe that all the references to wine in the New Testament actually refer to unfermented grape juice. This suggests that they have not looked at the passages in any detail, and also that they have no idea about the times of grape harvests in the Middle East. Without the benefits of freezers or tetrapak processing, unfermented grape juice would only have been available between about August and October in Palestine, where Jesus lived as a man. By Passover (March, usually) the only possible way to drink the 'fruit of the vine' was in its fermented state.

In addition, I can't avoid thinking about Jesus' first miracle, where he launched his public ministry. It's described in John's Gospel, chapter 2. Jesus was at a wedding with his friends, when the wine ran out. Did he give an impromptu sermon about the evils of alcohol? Did he tell a parable about the need to be prepared, the kind that featured later on in his teaching career?

No.

He used his power as the Son of God to save the public humiliation of the bride's father, by transforming ordinary water into wine.

And yes, it would have been regular fermented wine. Good quality wine, too. The wedding host makes a comment about how impressive it is to bring out top wine at this stage in the party. Most people, he says, serve the best wine first and then produce cheaper wine when the guests have drunk so much that they can't really tell the difference. So Jesus is actually producing high-class wine, even though the guests have reached this stage where their discernment is impaired.

Quite startling, really, even if - like me - you've grown up in a culture where Christians are happy to drink alcohol. Jesus is apparently condoning not just a glass or two, but continued drinking at a lively party.

I started this post by thinking about Noah, who lived several thousand years before the famous wedding in Cana. Possibly he made the first wine that was ever grown. Prior to the flood, people were corrupt and violent, but there is no mention of their being drunk. So it's quite possible that Noah had no idea what he was producing when he made some wine. Maybe it was a happy accident - he wondered how bad some old grape juice was, and found that it was surprisingly good. Or perhaps he knew exactly what he was doing - the passage doesn't say.

Either way, Noah drank a lot of wine. And then he fell asleep. He didn't hit his sons or beat his wife, he didn't tear the tent down, or smash crockery. He didn't take his donkey out. He didn't even fall down comatose outside his tent. He went in, and took off his robe, and then fell asleep - apparently - before he had time to cover himself up.

Is that sin? I don't see it. Perhaps he had a headache when he woke up - the natural consequence of over-indulging. Undoubtedly his actions were the catalyst for his son's bad behaviour that upset Noah so much when he learned about it (but then, who would have told him? His other, holier-than-thou sons tattling...?). So it was certainly a pity that this happened. I hope Noah learned his lesson, and was more careful in future.

But sin?

When the law had not been given, and when wine was apparently God-given - and, later, sanctioned by Jesus?

Somehow, I don't think so. It seems to me that, instead, Noah's rather dramatic condemnation of his son's actions (driven, quite possibly, by embarrassment as much as anything) was his sin in this story.

I would be interested to know how others see it.

The 'third place'

Today, still reading the intriguing book about Starbucks and the Gospel, I came across the concept of the 'third place'. The idea, apparently is that the home is our 'first place', and those who live there are, I suppose, our first community. The workplace - if we have one - or, I suppose, school or college, if relevant, is our 'second place'. And then any other socialising or community gatherings happen in the 'third place' wherever that might be. The book, naturally, implied that Starbucks coffee houses are ideal 'third places'.

The main features of these 'third places', apparently, are that they should be open to anyone, with some regulars, but freely welcoming newcomers. They should be a place to relax, with a sense of fun, and where there's plenty of conversation.

I immediately thought of the traditional British country pubs, where farmers and other workers would congregate in evenings, not to get drunk but to share a few pints of beer, and perhaps have a sandwich, and talk about their days, and perhaps play a few games of darts. Women, traditionally, would have their coffee mornings and sewing circles and so on. Terribly sexist of course. But these did provide a sense of community, separate (for the men) from their workplace, and (for the women) from their home, where they also worked. British pubs still exist, usually with meals available, and attracting women as well as men these days. But so many women are in paid employment that there are considerably fewer women's gatherings during the week, in most circles.

The book suggested that churches used to provide a 'third place' for Christians. In some cases, they still do. Sometimes people arrive early for a Sunday gathering, to spend time catching up with their friends; there may be time to talk within the service - if, for instance, the Anglican 'passing of the peace' takes place - and there's almost certainly half an hour or more for coffee and chat afterwards. Perhaps the church community has Mums-and-Tots, Day Centres, Tea Dances, Youth Groups, Scouting organisations, Coffee mornings and more, providing opportunities for both regulars and visitors to drop in, and socialise, and relax.

Sadly (from my perspective) too many church services focus on music and 'teaching' (which fails to teach anything to the majority). Congregations increase in size, and many church buildings are not conducive to socialising. When people drive several miles for a Sunday morning service, they're unlikely to pop back during the week to catch up with their friends. So the Sunday service may provide something useful - a way of connecting, of worshipping God (for those who like to sing), of learning (for those who are auditory learners), and perhaps, for anyone, a time to be quiet and to listen to God in the company of others. But they don't provide the 'third place' in the sense used in the Starbucks book. Which, perhaps, explains why so many people hang out at coffee bars or restaurants, or on the beach, or anywhere else where they can hope to find a sense of community.

The Internet has become a 'third place' for many. The astounding success of sites like Facebook, and the continuation of online forums and chatrooms suggests that we all long for connection, even if we can't find it in 'real life'. When, on (thankfully rare) occasions our Internet connection is down, I feel almost bereft. But for me, at home most of the time, the Internet feels like my 'second place'. My work, such as it is, involves writing web pages, and researching, and emailing. I socialise there too, and play games (mainly Scrabble).

So I'm thankful for friends who invite us to their homes, or who come to ours, for informal 'cell groups' of Christians. For me, friends' home are my 'third place', whether we hang out and chat, or play a board game. Perhaps that's why I have little desire to visit a coffee house.

The Gospel and... Starbucks?

Two or three years ago, my husband was given the book The Gospel According to Starbucks: Living with a Grande Passion by one of our sons. Interesting title. Interesting book, so my husband told me.

I only picked it up recently, intrigued by the title, and wanting something different to read.

I like post-modern books, in general. I like Christian books which offer a new perspective on faith. And I was curious to know how the author would approach his subject.

I haven't finished yet. When I do, I'll review it on my books blog. But the first few chapters have raised some interesting questions in my mind. The author talks about Jesus being radical, relational, exciting. About the Christian life being a great adventure, with multi-sensory thrills. I'm paraphrasing, but that's the idea. Fair enough. Too many people see the Christian life as boring or restrictive, God as some benign Santa character in the sky. Life with Jesus can and should be much more exciting than we often see it.

However... my problem with the book is that the author keeps comparing the Christian life with Starbucks. A coffee shop. Yes, a new idea in coffee shops when it started - offering easy chairs to lounge in, free wi-fi, books to browse, snacks to eat, and a large number of variations on the theme of coffee. I thought perhaps there might be fifty or sixty possible ways to drink coffee at Starbucks. According to this book, there are several thousand. Fair enough. One can customise one's drink, to a pretty cool degree. And, of course, pay through the nose.

But still... Starbucks is not actually different, in principle, from any other food chain. Yes, the first ones may have been radical. But the owners found a formula, it was popular, and so they started spreading around the world, training their staff to produce exactly the same drinks, to the same specifications, wherever they happened to be.

Isn't that pretty much what McDonald's did?

Except that McDonald's products are pretty inexpensive. Junk, to be sure. I suppose paying anything at all for fast 'food' is rather a waste of money, but it's popular, and cheap, and at least provides calories. The shops are clinical white, with fairly uncomfortable seats. I doubt if anyone lingers in McDonald's for longer than they have to.

Starbucks is the other extreme. Ridiculously expensive, comfortable seats, and they want people to hang around. On the face of it, the only thing it has in common with McDonald's (other than coming from the USA) is the enormous numbers of calories that can be consumed in a single portion.

So, the originators have made a fortune, the advertising worked, the product sells. Fair enough, that's how capitalism works. Nobody has to go to either of these chains if they don't want to.

But to compare Starbucks with the Gospel? Isn't that just a little sacrilegious? The uniqueness of each human being created by God is surely far more significant than umpteen thousand blends of coffee, identical whether ordered in Singapore or Switzerland or Spain. The artificiality of the comfort and supposed friendliness of the Starbucks baristas (carefully trained to give the required responses and make the exact drinks required) bears no resemblance at all to the reality of life with Jesus.

I guess it doesn't help that I'm not a huge fan of Starbucks coffee anyway. I like it - well, the two or three varieties I've tried, when nowhere else is available for wi-fi - but didn't find it as good as either Costa Coffee, or the Coffee Bean chain, popular in Asia.

And since nothing would convince me to buy Starbucks coffee first thing in the morning - I am plebeian enough to prefer my Maxwell House instant - many of the book's analogies rather leave me cold.

Perhaps this makes me rather a has-been, albeit a mostly post-modern one. Or is it just that I can see through the hype, and fail to see why an over-priced coffee shop should have my custom (other than those necessary occasions mentioned) merely because it has an internationally recognised image?

Life stages and patterns

This has been something of a year of milestones, as I shall no doubt mention when we write our annual Christmas newsletter at some point in the next few weeks. I celebrated my 50th birthday. We celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary. In between those two events, our older son became engaged, planning to be married next year.

Thirty years. It feels like a lifetime, but then I still feel about 26 on the inside. How can I possibly have been married that many years? How can my sons, who were children for such a short time, now be young men with their own lives, separate from ours ? And most of all, how can I be fifty years old?

I'm not particularly worried about advancing chronology. I'm not embarrassed about my age, or the lines on my face, or the grey hairs slowly creeping in. I don't hide any of them - I don't see the point in pretending to be younger than I am. I am still in good health, for which I am thankful. And as I sit here in my jeans and a tee-shirt, I can't quite reconcile it with the way that people in their fifties seemed so elderly when I was in my teens. Even when I was in my twenties. I vaguely assumed that one day I'd start wanting to wear tweedy skirts and tights ('panty-hose' in the USA), and court shoes. But I, and other people my age, still dress the way we did when we were 20. Perhaps younger people see us as old-fashioned in our styles, but I like to be comfortable.

The scary thing about being 50 is that, most likely, I am now more than half-way through my life. At 45, I could say cheerfully that I was half-way to ninety. My grandmother started to seem old when she passed 90; that seemed about right to me. I'm from a fairly long-lived family, on the whole. Barring accidents, I probably have a good chance of living into my nineties. But very few people make it to 100. Would I even want to? I don't know. My grandmother didn't.

Of course, it feels like a very long time since my childhood. Another 50 years - even another 40 years while I still feel energetic - is also a long time. I feel the years spreading out around me; my schooldays passed, my early married life gone by; the children, born, grown, and moved out. Our 'nest' became empty nearly two-and-a-half years ago and I found it very upsetting at first. But we've grown accustomed to it; we welcome our sons home when they come to stay, but it's not likely that either of them will live here again. So the future seems calmer, more settled. Unlike many people my age, I have no hankering to take university courses, or study further. Living abroad, there's no real chance of getting a job, even if I were looking for one. I like to look after the house, and cook, and spend time with friends, and write emails and blogs, and run my websites.

Still, my main question remains: what will I, primarily, do for the next forty or so years?

The subsidiary question is: do I need to know? Or do I continue living one day at a time, doing what needs to be done today, and letting tomorrow take care of itself? It sounds like a Biblical way of living; the problems are (1) I don't necessarily know what needs to be done today (2) even if I do, I don't necessarily do it (3) If I'm to do something significant, such as write a book, or build a new website, I need to have the ideas, and spend many months working on them.

I'm not unhappy. I'm basically a contented person, thankful that there is no urgent need for me to find paid employment. But I do sometimes wonder what the pattern of the future will hold.