Courage, cher cœur

Courage, cher cœur 

Well.
This is what it looks like right before you fall. 
Stumblin’ around, you been guessing your direction, next step, you can't see at all.  Mac Miller, Circles  
                    
They had come to the edge of moonless and starless night. 
How long this voyage into the darkness lasted, nobody knew. We’re going round and round in circles. 
We shall never get out, never get out!’ 

 -C.S. Lewis, Chronicles of Narnia 

  Mac Miller’s posthumous album Circles, has to be the album of 2020 because it is so good in a year that is just so bad. Mercy. If I can’t convince you to put Miller on heavy rotation, you may catch the same what-are-we going-to-do-and-how-are-we-going-to-handle-this by reading a little C.S. Lewis. In Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the third and, I think, best installment of the seven-part Narnia series, we find a ragtag ship’s crew trying desperately to flee the fog and darkness surrounding the island where dreams come true. With no way out nor no way through, Lewis details despair turning into contagious panic as a crippling anxiety permeates all the ship’s passengers. They are going nowhere but crazy. 

 Have you read the Narnia stories? They make for some engaging summer reading. I commend them highly to you, especially the Dawn Treader, written in ‘50 and published in ‘52. I came late to these stories, finally devouring them at the end of my first semester in seminary when I was supposed to be cramming for finals. Extremely popular, the books are not, however, universally loved. J.R.R. Tolkien, Lewis’ friend and fellow writer, thought they were sloppy, and disjointed. I’ve heard some Christians complain about the tales being too fanciful and magical--not enough theology. In fairness, Lewis didn’t set out to write a Christian fable. He was sheltering children in his home during the London bombings in World War II and spun stories to distract his young, frightened audience. Out of these evenings, the world of Narnia was born. Later he would dream of lions for nights on end, eventually giving in to this popular image for Christ who came bounding in as a Lion named Aslan, and a beautiful story of God-with-us is told.  It’s instructive to remember that Lewis didn’t start out with a plan; he was responding to an immediate crisis. As the story unfolded, though, he had the courage to follow the promptings of the Spirit in his thoughts and dreams.  Narnia became a place of talking animals, dragons, wizards and dufflepuds all while playing out the story of our life with God and salvation in Jesus Christ. Magical and sloppy? Who’s to say? But theology that is too tidy and never flirts with being fanciful is probably not worth reading.

 When all appears lost on the Dawn Treader, brave Lucy prays to Aslan begging him to appear. Soon, almost imperceptibly, she hears a voice whisper, “Courage, dear heart.” At that point, the darkness turns to gray then soon to light. Was that why Lucy was to have courage, change was coming?  Or did our Dear Heart’s courage help her see the light that was never far from her at all?  The seat of courage is not in our strength or intellect, its center is somewhere else. You see it best in French as the word courage has the word heart-  cœur- in it. Without heart, there is no courage. There are problems we cannot always think through, chains that no measure of strength can break—without first, heart, courage. 

 These words to Lucy must be some of the most quoted and beloved phrases from all seven of the Narnia books. I offer them up one more time to the blogosphere because as much as we can quote them, read them or write about them, it is in hearing them that all the difference is made.

 Wherever you are today, especially if you are stuck and frightened:  Courage, dear heart.  Courage.