The Horse and His Boy

In 2010 a band known as A Horse and His Boy released an EP entitled Trilogy. From that recording is a haunting song called “Kramer’s Wall.” Jackson Harper (formerly Seth Harper) calls himself a “scrappy Narnian” and thus identifies himself with a genre of literature and music that sees light and darkness, and right and wrong in a world of chaos and apathy. His images are highly influenced by C.S. Lewis’ writings and particularly the book that bears almost the same name as the band. He is a talented singer-songwriter from whom I hope we hear much more. I offer you the lyrics from “Kramer’s Wall” followed by my impressions from the song.

Kramer’s Wall

(Listen while you read)

In the land of apathy

There’s a pretty girl who waits for me

I was standing there when she looked down

From Kramer’s Wall at the edge of town

I stayed ‘til all the rest were gone

And my pretty girl she stood alone

She wouldn’t leave, I asked her why

This my friends, was her reply

She said, shadows fly away from me

They cannot face the light you see

But if they come I’ll fight them all

So, I’m standing here on Kramer’s Wall 

What injustice had decreed

This lonely life she had to lead

I pitied her but didn’t stay

And the road I followed passed away

From that day on I had no rest

And my heart kept burning in my chest

I couldn’t stand my fatal choice

For every night I heard her voice

She said, if you are who I hope you are

You can never run too far

I will never let you fall

I’m watching you from Kramer’s Wall

I realized I would rather be

In chains with her than alone and free

She had shown the kind of love

The greatest ones had been made of

Her haunting words inside my head

Revived the heart I thought was dead

So, I took the higher call

And stood with her on Kramer’s Wall

I said, everything may come undone

The sky may fall and bring the sun

You and I are standing tall

Here on top of Kramer’s Wall

Nothing breaks a lover’s soul

Nothing makes the young grow old

Except the time that kills us all

But there is no time on Kramer’s Wall

I will never let you fall

I will stand with you on Kramer’s Wall

Music and lyrics by Seth Harper

Produced by Andrew Osenga

All rights reserved

At first glance/listen, it sounds like a simple “boy meets girl, boy ignores girl, boy can’t get girl out of his mind, boy goes back to girl, and boy pledges his love to the girl for life.” Simple enough, right? But, at second glance, there is more to this song. The girl is the real hero of the song and she is resolute in her stance against darkness. We get the impression that all of Hell could come against this woman and she would stand upon a crumbling wall until the last vestige of light was extinguished! Yet the darkness would never overcome, and the light would never be extinguished because of this valiant woman. 

The man in this song cannot escape the beauty and justice of this woman and the more he tries to walk his own path, the more she haunts and burns his heart. While others around them are lost in apathy, indecision, immorality, injustice, and indifference, the woman stands alone and draws others into her pursuit of justice and light. The man is drawn in and stands with her and then sees her for her beauty and grace. He pledges his love and the two of them now stand resolute against the apathy of the land. The two stand timelessly like Greek gods in perfect union and perfect defence, there on top of Kramer’s Wall.

The Land that Inspired Narnia

I am in the land that inspired Narnia: Rostrevor, Northern Ireland, UK. It is a picturesque place with vines growing over every surface of some of the houses, a quiet stream with a stone bridge running through the middle, and I can almost imagine a Faun with an umbrella coming up to ask me in to tea. But, alas, we are in The Church Bistro having tea and scones. It is a 1920s Methodist church building which was converted to a bistro and bar about three years ago. (This Bistro used to be a cute Cathedral – to parody a Steve Taylor song.) Although, it is not as interesting as a Faun’s cave, it is a beautiful bistro with delicious scones, clotted cream, and wonderful tea. The Irish (like the English and Scots) certainly know how to brew a pot of tea.

Yesterday, we stayed in Kilkeel, a beautiful fishing village which is just inside the border of Northern Ireland, a 20-minute ferry ride from Carlingford. Kilkeel is the place where my paternal grandfather, Thomas (Tommy) Shields lived until he was 14 and set out to live in Canada. I went for a run along the beach as the sun came up over the sea and I felt like I was reliving the opening scene of Chariots of Fire. What a glorious morning it was.

C.S. Lewis was inspired by the Mourne Mountains around Kilkeel and Rostrevor. I find myself imagining what he would have written if he had ever seen the Rocky Mountains near Calgary, Alberta. It is here, near the coast of Ireland, a little south of Belfast that he dreamed up the idea of Narnia, a land where it was always winter and never Christmas, until Aslan is on the move. It must have been a particularly cold winter when he came through this region. We are here in mid-October on a 17-degree Celsius afternoon and the humidity and sunshine feel wonderful. I am working on a book as we vacation, and the Literary Society of Rostrevor has many inspiring poetic quotes posted around the town and so I am feeling suitably inspired to write and think and dream. Ireland has always inspired poets and writers and sent them off to inspire the rest of the world. Who knows what will get written in this wonderful country? 

Imagination and Logic

Bethany Sollereder, Ph.D., is a fellow graduate of Regent College and a Christian who has spent much time exploring the relationships between Science and Faith. She has written a helpful paper entitled, “Evolution, Suffering and the Creative Love of God,” in Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith.[1] It is a philosophical and theological paper that is technical enough that I will not try to analyze it here in this post. Her logic and conclusions speak for themselves and the paper is a valuable read for anyone who would like to explore these topics more deeply than is often done in this blog.

What I will note here in this space is the interaction between logic and imagination. Sollereder and I met once when I was at Regent working on the Comprehensive Exam for my Master of Arts degree. I was wrestling with the question of the historicity of Adam, and my supervisor, Ross Hastings, Ph.D. had suggested that I should interact with Bethany Sollereder on this topic. I found her to be an exceptionally brilliant and logical mind and knew that she would make significant contributions in the literature regarding Faith and Science, and Theodicy (a technical term for the theological study of why we have evil in a world created by a good God). In the paper to which I am referring today, Sollereder is not only extremely logical but also, at points, imaginative, creative, and poetic. One sentence in particular caused me to pause and think carefully: “In describing divine action, then, our compassionate imagination—rather than our logic—may be the more reliable guide.”

Here is an especially logical young mind arguing for the inclusion of a “compassionate imagination” in the technical fields of theology, philosophy, and theodicy. For a person like me who writes poetry, creative novels,[2] songs, science papers, and religious journal articles, this statement by Sollereder was an encouragement of the highest degree. It would seem to me that she is calling for an application of all aspects of the mind. For such interesting and difficult subjects as the relationships between science and faith, we must apply every aspect of our mental faculties. We do not simply use logic in one conversation and poetry in another. We use both to help us understand the intricacies of the universe in which we live. Indeed, the very consciousness with which we think, is capable of a variety of methods for coming at difficult topics. Sometimes, imagination and poetry are the only ways to adequately explain a concept and they may open other avenues of thought leading to a greater logical understanding. 

In her paper, “Evolution, Suffering and the Creative Love of God,” Sollereder uses creative thought experiments and metaphors of life to logically explain possible explanations for the workings of God and our universe. The logic is exemplary, but her logic would not stand as well if it were not for the helpful images that bolster the logic. Perhaps this makes even more sense when we read Sollereder’s bio which states that she “enjoys hiking, horseback riding, [and] reading novels (particularly those of “the Inklings”).” This paper encourages me to continue to use creativity, logic, poetry, and metaphor to explore the universe and the explanations which help us live in this amazing place in which we find ourselves. May the spirit of writers such as Lewis, Tolkien, and MacDonald (some of the writers known as The Inklings) live on in the works of Sollereder and others.

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[1]Sollereder, “Evolution, Suffering and the Creative Love of God,”Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith68, no. 2 (2016): 99-110, http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2016/PSCF6-16Sollereder.pdf

[2]See the novel, The Great Beyond for an example of how I have dealt with complex questions of life and death, punishment and reward in a metaphoric fiction. https://amzn.to/2HUGeF5 or, in the USA, https://amzn.to/2ro8Lb2.

The Miserable and Corrupt

“Christ did not die for the good and beautiful. It is easy enough to die for the good and beautiful; the hard thing is to die for the miserable and corrupt.”
-Shusaku Endo; Silence, Picador, 2016.

Thy will be done

There are only two kinds of people: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, "All right, then, have it your way."
- “The Great Divorce” (1945) 

Originality

Everything of importance has been said before by somebody who did not discover it.

- Alfred North Whitehead (English mathematician & philosopher; 1861 – 1947)

Works Cited:
"Quote of the Day"; http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/26863.html; Accessed 2016-08-28

Agency and Prayer

 

We know that we can act and that our actions produce results. Everyone who believes in God must therefore admit (quite apart from the question of prayer) that God has not chosen to write the whole of history with His own hand. Most of the events that go on in the universe are indeed out of our control, but not all. It is like a play in which the scene and the general outline of the story is fixed by the author, but certain minor details are left for the actors to improvise. It may be a mystery why He should have allowed us to cause real events at all, but it is no odder that He should allow us to cause them by praying than by any other method.

Pascal says that God “instituted prayer in order to allow His creatures the dignity of causality.” It would perhaps be truer to say that He invented both prayer and physical action for that purpose. He gave us small creatures the dignity of being able to contribute to the course of events in two different ways. He made the matter of the universe such that we can (in those limits) do things to it; that is why we can wash our own hands and feed or murder our fellow creatures. Similarly, He made His own plan or plot of history such that it admits a certain amount of free play and can be modified in response to our prayers.

- C.S. Lewis in “Work and Prayer” and republished in God in the Dock, 1970.

C.S. Lewis has a way of saying things that helps me to “get it.” Here he helps me to understand the agency God has given us. We truly are “small creatures” in a very large universe, and yet God has given us the ability to change our neighbourhood, our city, or even our world. We can do physical actions to flour, water, and yeast, making bread that did not exist before we started. With that bread we can feed a family who needs a loaf of bread. We can change the course of history with our actions.

Perhaps equally surprising is that God has given us the agency of prayer. Lewis says there is “free play” in God’s plan of history that can be modified by God in response to our prayers. God’s Kingdom will come and His will, will be done; but there is “free play” in the will of God that can be affected. We have an opportunity to influence the Kingdom and will of God. We can change the course of history with our prayers.

Time to Think

We live in a time in which sound bites are designed to express a world of emotion and perspective in the fewest possible words. Social media, news tickers, media scrums, question periods, and press releases are expressions that have become shorter and denser in recent years. We seldom slow down sufficiently to read long articles or multi-volume books. Our attention-span is considerably shorter than that of previous generations. While our ancestors may have sat around a fire for hours at a time listening to well-told stories, we get our information, wisdom, and emotional direction from 90 second news updates covering multiple stories. The incessant speed with which information is presenting itself to us does not allow for much consideration. Most often our reactions are highly influenced by the emotions and intensity of the person who gives us the news. Alternatively, our reactions and emotions default to well-worn channels of our thought processes that take us in the directions that we have always taken before.

Recently, I was struck by the words of a person who was very good at slowing down and thinking through concepts with which he was presented. This author, thinker, and teacher seemed much more able to slow his thoughts sufficiently to get to the heart of a concept. I found myself desiring to be more like C.S. Lewis. The following example may help to show you what I mean.

Many of us struggle with the words “hate the sin, but not the sinner.” This phrase has been much maligned, and both those who use it and those toward whom it points feel uneasy in the use of the expression. In the early seventies, C.S. Lewis found himself struggling with this terminology and so he thought about it long enough to come up with a solution. He had this to say about it in his extremely insightful book, Mere Christianity.

“I remember Christian teachers telling me long ago that I must hate a bad man's actions but not hate the bad man: or, as they would say, hate the sin but not the sinner. ...I used to think this a silly, straw-splitting distinction: how could you hate what a man did and not hate the man? But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life -- namely myself. However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself. There had never been the slightest difficulty about it. In fact the very reason why I hated the things was that I loved the man. Just because I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

I know that this will not solve the struggle in using this terminology for every person; C.S. Lewis’ opinion will not be the last word on any subject. Yet, his thoughts are helpful precisely because they show that he did not reject a concept quickly. One can tell that he was uncomfortable with the concept and so he meditated upon it until he could get at why he was uncomfortable and how he might resolve his discomfort with a concept that was accepted by others whom he respected. There is a great deal of humility and a search for unity in the process that Lewis uses.

It seems to me that I might use a similar technique when it comes to phrases that do not sit well with me. Rather than using stock answers to sound bites, could I seek a similar humility and search for the common ground of unity. Might I try this with phrases like, “Black lives matter,” and “All lives matter”? Could I seek greater respect toward those whose foundation for truth, morality, or love is different than mine?

It takes a great deal of strength and considerable time to truly listen to another’s argument and feel it in our bones rather than simply rejecting it outright. It is much easier to counter one argument with another argument without truly hearing the other person. In this way, many a debate between opposing positions has fallen short as we watch the speakers talk past each other’s understanding and over each other’s heads.

I want to learn to slow down and listen before formulating my response. I do not want to be guilty of responding with a half-formulated answer to a concept, rather than thinking upon the words that have been spoken to me. May God grant me greater peace, greater patience, greater understanding, greater love, a greater desire to walk a mile in another’s shoes. Perhaps I might be able to contribute to a better and more unified world.

Works Cited:

Lewis, C. (1978). Mere Christianity. Glasgow: William Collins Sons and Co. Ltd.

Of Hobbits and Books

Peter Jackson’s movies have done a great service in making stories come to life on the big screen. One of his greatest accomplishments has been his ability to make The Hobbit (also known as The Hobbit, Or There and Back Again) by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (J.R.R. Tolkien) accessible to all. He has created a trilogy of movies that are visually stunning; and, in doing so, he has opened the door to a world of wonder, adventure, battle, and the triumph of courage over despair. Yet, I can’t help but notice that some believe that because they have seen these movies, there is no longer a need to read the books. I have begun to ask people if they have ever read any of Tolkien’s books. Several, jokingly reply, “No, I don’t need to, I have seen the movies.”

I know that it is not easy to find the time to read nearly 300 pages of intricate prose in The Hobbit and over 1200 pages in The Lord of The Rings; yet, I do hope that people will continue to read these two books. For all of the hours of amazing film footage found in the 6 movies, there is still much that cannot be covered and much descriptive language that cannot possibly be brought to life in a movie of this nature.

Many years ago I introduced the Hobbit to my daughters as bedtime stories; and with them I relived the wonder as they pictured this world in their minds. We read many other books together including The Chronicles of Narnia (C.S. Lewis). Recently, a friend told me that he was reading The Hobbit to his daughter and I felt a sense of nostalgia at this simple joy. Reading aloud to another person is an experience in itself and allows both people to enjoy the book at another level. I suspect that my daughters still remember the voices of various characters and the tunes we made up for the songs and chants. Tolkien’s prose is some of the most poetic and evocative in the English language and speaks to deeper realities than the simple world of hobbits, dwarves, trolls, and elves.

Lately, my wife, Maureen, and I have been reading The Hobbit aloud to each other. Tolkien continues to speak to us of simple pleasures, profound fears, and great joys. Last night, as we were ending our day with the author's description of “The Last Homely House” in Rivendell, these words describing Elrond’s house captured our attention. We had to go back and read them multiple times.

"His house was perfect, whether you liked food, or sleep, or work, or story-telling, or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all. Evil things did not come into that valley.”[1]

Movies are able to impress our minds with a glorious picture of a location and may even make us want to go and experience “The Last Homely House.” But as Maureen and I read those two sentences, we were aware that these sentences meant more. They made us want to make our own home a place that was perfect for food, sleep, work, story-telling, singing, sitting and thinking, and a pleasant mixture of them all. We desired to create a place where “evil things” do not enter.

The narrative of The Hobbit reminds us that,

“. . . it is a strange thing, but things that are good to have and days that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much to listen to; while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a deal of telling anyway.”[2]

I think this may also be true of movies. The “days that are good to spend are soon told about” and painted in the scenery of the movie. The battles, that are “uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale” and fill the content of many a scene in the movie. I wonder, when we think of the movies, do we think of the scenes in Rivendell, or the scenes on the battle-field? What does one remember from reading the books?

C.S. Lewis, a man who made a living reading, writing, and giving lectures, had this to say about his emotions when it came to tea and books. “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”[3] Perhaps we would do well to recover this feeling. On this rainy day in Calgary, I think I will go and put on the kettle!

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[1] The Hobbit, Or There and Back Again;  John Ronald Reuel Tolkien; Random House, New York, 1982 Revised Edition; p. 51.

[2] The Hobbit, Or There and Back Again;  John Ronald Reuel Tolkien; Random House, New York, 1982 Revised Edition; p. 50.

[3] http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/2467-you-can-never-get-a-cup-of-tea-large-enough

Uncertainty and Hope

1

David P. Goldman, in an article entitled "Christianity and Myth: Why There's No Jewish "Narnia'" says that he thinks J.R.R. Tolkien is a better writer than C.S. Lewis. Goldman goes on to say,

Whereas C S Lewis tries to make us comfortable in what we already believe by dressing up the story as a children’s masquerade, Tolkien makes us profoundly uncomfortable. Our people, our culture, our language, our toehold upon this shifting and uncertain Earth are no more secure than those of a thousand extinct tribes of the Dark Ages; and a greater hope than that of the work of our hands and the hone of our swords must avail us.2

A writer exhibits a great gift when he or she makes us uncomfortable with what we think we know and points us to a greater hope than we could otherwise imagine. Perhaps all writers would aspire to such writing, but few attain it.

Do those of us who live in the 21st Century understand that we live in uncertain times? Or, do we actually think that we can save ourselves by the "work of our hands and the hone of our swords?" Can we see a greater hope? Is that some discomfort I feel creeping into my safely constructed world?

1 Image courtesy Michael J. Kruger, at http://arautodecristo.com/2012/10/23/curiosidade-a-batalha-das-cosmovisoes-dualismo-e-teismo-em-tolkien-e-lewis/

2 https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2010/03/christianity-and-myth-why-theres-no-jewish-narnia

Christianity and Myth: Why There’s No Jewish “Narnia”by David P. Goldman, 2010-03-05.

Silence

“. . . a silence that is overwhelming in its eloquence.”

Somebody should write a book someday about the silences in Scripture. Maybe somebody already has. "For God alone my soul waits in silence," the psalmist says (62:1), which is the silence of waiting. Or "Be not silent, O God of my praise," which is the silence of the God we wait for (109:1). "And when the Lamb opened the seventh seal," says the book of Revelation, "there was silence in heaven" (8: I) - the silence of creation itself coming to an end and of a new creation about to begin. But the silence that has always most haunted me is the silence of Jesus before Pilate. Pilate asks his famous question, "What is truth?" (John 18:38), and Jesus answers him with a silence that is overwhelming in its eloquence. In case there should be any question as to what that silence meant, on another occasion Jesus put it into words for his disciple Thomas. "I," he said, "I am the truth" (14:6). From a sermon by Frederick Buechner entitled “The Truth of Stories;” in The Clown in the Belfry and also in Secrets in the Dark.

With thanks to the Jordan Blasetti and Mahogany Church for drawing my attention to this quote.

C.S. Lewis on the Reading of Many Books

"My father bought all the books he read and never got rid of any of them. There were books in the study, books in the drawing room, books in the cloakroom, books (two deep) in the great bookcase on the landing, books in a bedroom, books piled as high as my shoulder in the cistern attic, books of all kinds reflecting every transient stage of my parents' interest, books readable and unreadable, books suitable for a child and books most emphatically not. Nothing was forbidden me. In the seemingly endless rainy afternoons I took volume after volume from the shelves. I had always the same certainty of finding a book that was new to me as a man who walks into a field has of finding a new blade of grass.” ― C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy1

 

1. With thanks to Jennifer Neyhart (http://neyhart.blogspot.ca/2014/10/c-s-lewis-on-reading.html) for reminding me of this quote.

Silence and Reflection

Silence, reflection, hearing the Word of God, and understanding; Augustine instructs us in all of these in Sermon 52, 22.

"Let us leave a little room for reflection in our lives, room too for silence. Let us look within ourselves and see whether there is some delightful hidden place inside where we can be free of noise and argument. Let us hear the Word of God in stillness and perhaps we will then come to understand it."— Augustine, bishop of Hippo Regius, in the Roman province of Africa: present-day Annaba, Algeria; 354-430 Common Era.

Lewis, Tash, Aslan, and Emeth

Many of us love the writings of C.S. Lewis, not because they tickle our ears with things we want to hear; but precisely because they challenge us with a new way of hearing the old message of the Gospel of Jesus. When we think we have our theology and practice all worked out, it is good to be challenged by the insights of others.

In The Last Battle, book seven of Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, there is a scene in which a soldier, a devoted follower of the god Tash, interacts with Aslan the Lion, the true Lord of Narnia and of the world. Emeth, who was raised to serve Tash, is extremely loyal, ethical, and spiritual. His faith in Tash is strong and he lives with whole-hearted devotion to the only god he knows.

Near the end of the book, Emeth is confronted with the evil and impotence of Tash as this false god falls before Aslan. Emeth realizes his error in serving Tash all of his life and prepares to be judged by the true Lord, Aslan. He believes it to be his "hour of death" "for the Lion (who is worthy of all honour) will know that [he has] served Tash" all his days and not Aslan. Still, he considers it "better to see the Lion and die" than not see him at all.

Aslan surprises Emeth by calling him a son and welcoming him into Aslan's presence. Emeth and Aslan exchange the following words. "Alas Lord, I am no son of thine but the servant of Tash. He answered, Child, all service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me." Emeth asks if it is true that Tash and Aslan are one and the same Lord. In the following quote Emeth relates the Aslan's response.

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.

Let that last line settle in for a moment. There are several clues here that Lewis is not espousing universalism. He was not prone to such errors. He is, however, speaking of a form of inclusivism that does make me somewhat uncomfortable. This discomfort is just the kind of challenge I said I needed; and yet it is disconcerting just the same.

The fact is, I am more like Emeth than I would like to believe. I serve Jesus with a degree of devotion and loyalty that is imperfect and I understand this God whom I serve less than completely. Even though I sometimes convince myself that I understand him pretty well, I serve an image of Jesus that is woefully incomplete (every time I read about him in the Bible I realize another way in which I have missed an aspect of his nature). This false image of who Jesus is sometimes approaches idolatry.

For now, that is how we all must live. We serve a God whom we know in part and proclaim in part (1 Corinthians 13:9). The complete revealing of God must wait until the end of time (1 Corinthians 13:10). For now, we serve with slightly more knowledge than that with which Emeth served. Thomas Merton expressed his own angst this way,

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.1

Despite my imperfection, despite my inability to understand even a basic principle like the trinity, I choose to follow God. Out of gratitude for this Lord who understands me perfectly and who has sacrificed himself for my sin and imperfection, I give my life. To quote an old hymn, I say to Jesus, "Take my life and let it be consecrated Lord to Thee; Take my moments and my days . . . Take my hands . . . Take my feet . . . Take my voice . . . Take my lips . . . Take my silver and my gold . . . Take my intellect . . . Take my will . . . Take my heart . . . Take my love . . . Take myself . . . ."

1Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude

Doubt (Speak It Plain) - A Follow-Up To "No Answer"

The song "Doubt (Speak It Plain)" by Sandra McCracken, alludes to a novel written by C.S. Lewis. Her words, "Until we come to set things right I have no words and I have no face" are a direct reference to the words of Orual in the book Till We Have Faces,1 in which Queen Orual first accuses the gods of being distant and non-communicative and later comes to understand that things must first be "set right" before we and God have words and faces. (See my previous blog on this subject.)

Doubt (Speak It Plain)
by Sandra McCracken; from the album Gravity | Love 2

You whisper in some other language
Gospel songs and hidden things
And when I call you in the midnight
I cannot find a phone that rings 

You show to one your kindest favor
And make one go numb... 

so speak it plain, or leave it out
I see it plain, love drawn with doubt
I'm made to serve my own device
(Until we come to set things right
I have no words and I have no face)
'Till you speak it plain, speak it plain 

You take my troubles like a river
You drain them slow down to the dregs
I throw myself down thru the floorboards
And see my image in the glass
In myth and reason we uncover
What effort could not win 

I wanna know this love without a doubt
I wanna know this love will find me out
I wanna know the wrong will be made right
I wanna know some peace tonight
And in the dark and holy places
I just come undone

So speak it plain, or leave it out
I see it plain, love drawn with doubt
I'm made to serve my own device
Until we come to set things right
I have no words, I have no face
Until you come to speak it plain
I have no words
And I have no face

A line from the book says, "How can [the gods] meet us face to face till we have faces?" and Lewis once explained that a human "must be speaking with its own voice (not one of its borrowed voices), expressing its actual desires (not what it imagines that it desires), being for good or ill itself, not any mask."3 May we all "know this love without a doubt . . . And in the dark and holy places . . . just come undone."


1 Lewis, C.S. Till We Have Faces: A Novel of Cupid and Psyche. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1980.
2 http://www.newreleasetuesday.com/lyricsdetail.php?lyrics_id=31453
3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Till_We_Have_Faces#cite_note-5