Puddleglum

My daughters and I just finished reading through The Silver Chair, the fourth installment of C.S. Lewis' celebrated Chronicles of Narnia.  This is the second time we have read through the series as a family, and the eighth or ninth time I have read through the series as an individual.  There are still paragraphs that cause me to blink back my tears and force me to steady my voice because of their beauty and truth.

As a child, I was introduced in a very real way to the love and power of God as I entered the land of Narnia in my imagination and met its lion-king, Aslan.  I was profoundly impacted by the truths I read and a seed of faith was planted in me at an early age through the Chronicles.  Now, I get to watch my own children with their wide-eyed wonder as chapter by chapter we explore Narnia.  I get to see the same seed of faith taking root in them, and I pray that by knowing the fictional character of Aslan in their imagination, they might better know the true person of Christ in reality.

One of my daughter's favorite Narnian characters is the hilariously pessimistic Marsh-Wiggle (a lanky froggish creature of Lewis' invention) named Puddleglum that we meet in The Silver Chair.  Although he takes an overly serious view of life, Puddleglum is often the clearest voice of reason and faith to his traveling companions, and it is he that ultimately saves their party from one of its gravest dangers.  When they become trapped in a dismal underground kingdom ruled by a diabolical witch, the Narnians are nearly convinced by the witch's clever arguments.  With logic that mirrors that of many cynics and critics of Christianity, she proposes that the dark claustrophobic cavern they are now in is the only true reality-- that everything else is simply wishful thinking.  There is no sun, no wind, no Aslan ruling over Narnia-- all of these things are merely the products of their childish imaginations.  It is Puddleglum who finally breaks the spell by saying, "If what you are saying is right, then we are just four babies playing games.  But isn't is strange that four babies can make up a play world that licks your real world hollow.  So I am going to stick by my play world.  I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it.  I'm going to live like a Narnian even if there isn't such a place as Narnia."

Amen, Puddleglum.  Me too.