maybe linford would say...?(was Narnia books/Lewis quotes-kinda long)

["J. Marie Hall" <fionaeval at yahoo_com>]

hoi, list :)

Peter said:
I *do* know that the original
Narnia books were very much a reflection of C.S.
Lewis's own highly
personal (and somewhat idiosyncratic?) tastes and
beliefs, and I really,
really doubt anyone else can capture their flavour.

and kevin h. said:
One of the main things a Christian would most likely
get wrong is start with
trying to embody the Christ story in allegory and work
out from there.
                     [snip]

He made a fantasy world *first,  then, when the Lion
came onto the scene
and he realized who he was,  went about telling this
*other story.
So it's not so much the story of Christ in this world
retold in Narnia
but another story - the story of Aslan in Narnia which
has echo's of our 
worlds story.

---->the quote you posted from lewis is so
telling--about how the stories just sort of come
forth.  that all he has is an image (maybe one he's
carried for 24 years).  that aslan just pounced onto
the scene without his overt intention.  but such is
the way with art, right?  i don't think we can assert
that he had the "other story" as anymore an overt
intention than the features of a christian allegory. 
just that he was aware it was time to write a story
about it doesn't constitute this intense plan.  it
seems to me that all form part of this process of art,
of a divine touch through him, a mere filter, to make
something beautiful with the stuff of revelation in
it.  all artists, christian or not, have this access
and process.  doesn't linford say something about
using the left-over breath of god in unsung?  i think
it's very much like that for any creative person.

my pastor corrected me very quickly one day when he
was asking questions about my heart towards the
creative things i do.  he wanted to know why i wrote
poetry or wrote anything for that matter.  why i play
music or would want to.  the obvious answer was "to
glorify god."  and he said, "no, not directly."  you
do it b/c you have to.  b/c there is something inside
of you that needs to pass through you.  that it is
more honoring to god to submit to what we were created
for and let him use us as an honest and natural
vehicle for the wonderful things he has left in that
left-over breath.  it's more pure than a try for
evangelism or a little pithy preaching.  i'm not
nearly as clever as he anyway :)

so far that makes more sense.

-j. marie

=====
But now, like a whispering in dark streets,
rumors of God run through your dark blood.
-Rainer Maria Rilke (The Book of Hours; I, 38)

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