how the adventure ended.

"And then--but, mind you, it may have been all a dream...I looked up and saw the very last thing I expected: a huge lion coming slowly toward me. And one queer thing was that there was no moon last night, but there was moonlight where the lion was. So it came nearer and nearer. I was terribly afraid of it. But it wasn't that kind of fear. I wasn't afraid of it eating me, I was just afraid of it--if you can understand. Well, it came close up to me and looked me straight into my eyes. And I shut my eyes tight. But that wasn't any good because it told me to follow it.

"And I knew I'd have to do what it told me, so I got up and followed it. And it led me a long way. And there was always moonlight over and round the lion. At last we came to a well. I thought if I could get in there and bathe, it would ease the pain in my leg. But the lion told me I must undress first.

"So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. So I started to go down into the well for my bathe.

"But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as they were before. So I scratched and tore again."

"Then the lion said 'You will have to let me undress you.' I was afraid of his claws. I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back and let him do it. The first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. Then he caught hold of me and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious.

"And then I saw why. I'd turn into a boy again."

--The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

la joie de vivre.

From the time I could walk and talk, I have been head over heels in love with England. Tea parties, tube maps, Jane Austen marathons, and hoarding Cadbury chocolate constituted much of my childhood.  I’d lay awake at night, aching to see misty moors and pebbly beaches.

After much teasing from my family and questioning looks from friends upon first seeing my union jack plastered room, I’ve often wondered at my seemingly innate longing. Especially after this last summer that I spent in France. La Belle France. I fell in love with France in a way that will affect me for the rest of my life, and its place in my heart is equal with that of England.

Yet, that ache, that joy I felt from loving England my whole life is still there as a part of my identity, even after falling in love with another country.

In Surprised by Joy, Lewis describes his experiences as a child where he ached in a similar way to my longing for England. His longing occurred when was reading Beatrix Potter. He says,

“It troubled me with what I can only describe as the Idea of Autumn. It sounds fantastic to say that one can be enamored of a season, but that is something like what happened; the experience was one of intense desire. And one went back to the book, not to gratify the desire (that was impossible—how can one posses Autumn?) but to reawake it.”

Lewis describes this feeling as joy. Of it he says, “it is that of an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction. I call it Joy, which her eis a technical term that must be sharply distinguished both from Happiness and from Pleasure…it might almost equally well be called a particular kind of unhappiness of grief.”

When reading this, my thoughts automatically turned to England. A lifetime of learning about and dreaming of England has filled me with this Joy, one that cannot be possessed, but provides overwhelming emotion. This is like our Joy in Heaven. The aching we feel is but a taste of what is to come. My longing for England is a reminder of what it is to be alive, of what is beauty.

While in France, one cloudy afternoon, I found myself on a cold, misty beach in Bretagne. I had spent the loveliest day visiting castles and speaking with locals about the American invasion during WWII. It was a day of immense pleasure and satisfaction.  However, when I dipped my toes into the English Channel, when I was physically connected to England for the first time in my life, I was overpowered with joy, with that desire that nothing in this world can satisfy. And from that desire, I could only conclude that I was not made for here.

How beautiful that we can access that heavenly joy through such simple things as thinking on a foreign country.

on poetry.

{i wrote this last week, and forgot to publish it after is saved it as a draft...whoops!}

“In Science we have been reading only the notes to a poem; in Christianity we find the poem itself.” 

--Miracles

i have a mild obsession with poetry, with Keats to be specific. 

Keats' poetry explores the beauty of human existence, of how even as we are awaiting ultimate death, life casts the shadow away from our frail souls. 

One of my favorite poems by him, "Endymion" begins:

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever:

It’s loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

A bower for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.”

--John Keats

 Combined with Lewis’ assertion that Christianity is the poem of existence, Keats’ poem made me think of Christianity in a new way.

 Christianity is a thing of beauty, something that lasts forever, stretching beyond all time.

It’s loveliness increases as we come to realize its beauty and its truth.

Christianity will never pass into nothingness, but is a fact, the very essence of being.

But, it will keep a place of refuge for us, a place of rest from all cares.

Christianity allows us to have sweet dreams, to have full hope.

It gives us health of spirit, freshness untainted by cynicism and bitterness.

With Christianity, we can breathe, for Christianity gives us new life.

I’ve often thought of the absence of poetry in discussing the gospel.

It’s as if I wished for trumpets and stained glass windows and candles and frescos.

Christianity doesn’t need any of those things, although I still think they are very beautiful.

Rather Christianity is the poem itself.