10/1/10
Dwain David Tissell: This Generation Of Narnian Overlappers
Dwain David Tissell: This Generation Of Narnian Overlappers: "“It isn’t Narnia, you know,” sobbed Lucy. “It’s you. We shan’t meet you there. And how can we live, never meeting you?” “But you shal..."
9/30/10
THIS GENERATION OF NARNIAN OVERLAPPERS
“It isn’t Narnia, you know,” sobbed Lucy. “It’s you. We shan’t meet you there. And how can we live, never meeting you?”
“But you shall meet me, dear one,” said Aslan.
“Are—are you there too, Sir?” said Edmund.
“I am,” said Aslan. “But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.”
I’ve been thinking lately about the final scene and these parting words of C.S. Lewis’s The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. My musing is not due only to the fact that the movie is about to be released. It has more to do with the image of our world that this exchange portrays. It is a picture I have come to believe the current generation “gets” more readily than those of us who have gone before.
I am talking about the group of people just emerging on the scene – just now taking the first steps toward leadership in the world, and in the faith. Sometimes they are referred to as the Millennials because they overlap two millenniums. And that is appropriate, I suppose, because it the ability to see the overlap of two worlds which, I think, Lewis is digging for at the end of Dawn Treader. I’m pretty sure that Millennials have this gift in larger measure than we have seen in a long time and that is what gives me such great optimism for the future of our faith communities.
Seeing that we are living in “overlap” time is crucial to living authentic Christian faith today. Jesus has brought the kingdom of God to bear on this sorry fallen world. Although we have not yet seen the end game, he is daily accomplishing victories of over the shadow-world cast by the enemy. Those triumphs reach right down into our own individual lives and the battles in which we struggle.
Aslan tells the youngest two Pevensie children that he brought them to Narnia so that they could know him better in the world they came from. There are clues all through the Chronicles that they really felt most at home in Narnia, but Lewis’s point through Aslan’s mouth is well taken. This world is our home, for now. That’s why the overlap is sometimes difficult to navigate. There really are two overlapping worlds in existence at this moment.
The emerging generation seems to be more predisposed to accept this truth. Yet, we would all do well to lock that image into the foundation of our own worldviews. The main reason is in the nature of possibility and its influence on faith. What we believe to be real shapes our attitudes and how we respond to crises, joys, and living.
The Narnia Chronicles, I realize, were written for children but Lewis was clear that he was really writing a true myth that could apply to all people, young and old. These stories get us to drop our guard much as the Bible’s stories do if we’re not too pre-jaded to rule them out from the beginning.
Though youthful exuberance often makes it easier to embrace idealistic hopes and dreams, maybe we should pause before dishing this hope off as we mature. Could it be that the idea of two overlapping kingdoms, each effecting our everyday lives, is not such a stretch? Maybe recognizing that some things can only be seen with the eyes of the heart and imagination (also gifted to us by our Creator) is not just meant to be a quality of youth. It just might be that our mistake is one of mental assent that warehouses our supernatural beliefs in boxes marked “ideas that once inspired us.” When we chock up the possibility of God’s kingdom being real and present every day as just another Christian belief, no wonder our lives become so disenchanted.
If the Scriptures are to believed Aslan was speaking reality. Jesus Christ certainly thought so. In his “farewell for now” conversations with his followers there was one topic that apparently kept coming up. After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. Acts 1:3 – underline mine
Jesus seems to have pretty clearly believed he was leaving us in a supernatural, but half-charged world. The momentum was now on his side as opposed to evil, so why did he feel the need to make the “kingdom of God” point over and over again over those forty days? Why not talk about how cool it was being resurrected? Why not discuss and put to rest once and for all exactly what happened in that tomb on that Sunday morning? It seems he felt that it was critical that we know about the overlap.
He knew that life would make us blurry on this point. He knew our experience in the shadows would make us forget what we had learned in the light, and we would struggle with many questions, such as -- If that is true, why doesn’t it seem to be true more often? And I don’t just mean when things are tough. Sometimes it is harder to believe there is a God when life is going great, because who really feels they need him when they are on cruise control? If God is up to something, then why does the world seem so disenchanted, with wonder sucking philosophies, loud talking medias, relationship killing wars, joy extinguishing pains, naturalistic worldviews, and just plain more fun things to do than traipsing around trying to find HIM? If God really is up to something, then it only makes sense that you and I should be able to find him in normal everyday life.
As with most of New Testament scholarship of the last 2000 years, Dr. N.T. Wright calls the era we are living in the “apostolic age. In commenting on the worldview we see in the book of Acts he says,
All of that is part of the mystery of living at the overlap between the present age, with its griefs and sorrows and decay and death, and the age to come, with its new life and energy and restorative power. I don’t think it has anything much to do with the devotion or holiness of those involved. In the apostolic age they seem simply to have accepted that God can do whatever he pleases and that, when people pray and trust him, he will often do much more than we dare to imagine…
The depth to which we know and believe the reality of Jesus’ victory in the spiritual realms will determine how much of his winning presence we see in this one. The degree to which we are successful at living Spirit-filled Christ-like lives today, tomorrow and the next day is not the result of our own skill, will, or even commitment. It is more a matter of how deep our belief runs in the victory of God in both in heaven and earth. After all he also taught us to pray, “Your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.” So Jesus in those forty days must have been proclaiming that in some measure his prayer had been answered. Do you know to what measure?
I’ve had conversations too that have been spurring me on to think of these things. One such conversation was with a person in their twenties after a Sunday service who is facing some genuinely terrible things. In the course of telling me about it he said with characteristic belief in the dual reality of our world, “I’m just praying that I’ll see God in this mess before it’s over.”
At that point I wished I could have brought in the Lion to say, “But you shall meet me dear one.”
“But you shall meet me, dear one,” said Aslan.
“Are—are you there too, Sir?” said Edmund.
“I am,” said Aslan. “But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.”
I’ve been thinking lately about the final scene and these parting words of C.S. Lewis’s The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. My musing is not due only to the fact that the movie is about to be released. It has more to do with the image of our world that this exchange portrays. It is a picture I have come to believe the current generation “gets” more readily than those of us who have gone before.
I am talking about the group of people just emerging on the scene – just now taking the first steps toward leadership in the world, and in the faith. Sometimes they are referred to as the Millennials because they overlap two millenniums. And that is appropriate, I suppose, because it the ability to see the overlap of two worlds which, I think, Lewis is digging for at the end of Dawn Treader. I’m pretty sure that Millennials have this gift in larger measure than we have seen in a long time and that is what gives me such great optimism for the future of our faith communities.
Seeing that we are living in “overlap” time is crucial to living authentic Christian faith today. Jesus has brought the kingdom of God to bear on this sorry fallen world. Although we have not yet seen the end game, he is daily accomplishing victories of over the shadow-world cast by the enemy. Those triumphs reach right down into our own individual lives and the battles in which we struggle.
Aslan tells the youngest two Pevensie children that he brought them to Narnia so that they could know him better in the world they came from. There are clues all through the Chronicles that they really felt most at home in Narnia, but Lewis’s point through Aslan’s mouth is well taken. This world is our home, for now. That’s why the overlap is sometimes difficult to navigate. There really are two overlapping worlds in existence at this moment.
The emerging generation seems to be more predisposed to accept this truth. Yet, we would all do well to lock that image into the foundation of our own worldviews. The main reason is in the nature of possibility and its influence on faith. What we believe to be real shapes our attitudes and how we respond to crises, joys, and living.
The Narnia Chronicles, I realize, were written for children but Lewis was clear that he was really writing a true myth that could apply to all people, young and old. These stories get us to drop our guard much as the Bible’s stories do if we’re not too pre-jaded to rule them out from the beginning.
Though youthful exuberance often makes it easier to embrace idealistic hopes and dreams, maybe we should pause before dishing this hope off as we mature. Could it be that the idea of two overlapping kingdoms, each effecting our everyday lives, is not such a stretch? Maybe recognizing that some things can only be seen with the eyes of the heart and imagination (also gifted to us by our Creator) is not just meant to be a quality of youth. It just might be that our mistake is one of mental assent that warehouses our supernatural beliefs in boxes marked “ideas that once inspired us.” When we chock up the possibility of God’s kingdom being real and present every day as just another Christian belief, no wonder our lives become so disenchanted.
If the Scriptures are to believed Aslan was speaking reality. Jesus Christ certainly thought so. In his “farewell for now” conversations with his followers there was one topic that apparently kept coming up. After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. Acts 1:3 – underline mine
Jesus seems to have pretty clearly believed he was leaving us in a supernatural, but half-charged world. The momentum was now on his side as opposed to evil, so why did he feel the need to make the “kingdom of God” point over and over again over those forty days? Why not talk about how cool it was being resurrected? Why not discuss and put to rest once and for all exactly what happened in that tomb on that Sunday morning? It seems he felt that it was critical that we know about the overlap.
He knew that life would make us blurry on this point. He knew our experience in the shadows would make us forget what we had learned in the light, and we would struggle with many questions, such as -- If that is true, why doesn’t it seem to be true more often? And I don’t just mean when things are tough. Sometimes it is harder to believe there is a God when life is going great, because who really feels they need him when they are on cruise control? If God is up to something, then why does the world seem so disenchanted, with wonder sucking philosophies, loud talking medias, relationship killing wars, joy extinguishing pains, naturalistic worldviews, and just plain more fun things to do than traipsing around trying to find HIM? If God really is up to something, then it only makes sense that you and I should be able to find him in normal everyday life.
As with most of New Testament scholarship of the last 2000 years, Dr. N.T. Wright calls the era we are living in the “apostolic age. In commenting on the worldview we see in the book of Acts he says,
All of that is part of the mystery of living at the overlap between the present age, with its griefs and sorrows and decay and death, and the age to come, with its new life and energy and restorative power. I don’t think it has anything much to do with the devotion or holiness of those involved. In the apostolic age they seem simply to have accepted that God can do whatever he pleases and that, when people pray and trust him, he will often do much more than we dare to imagine…
The depth to which we know and believe the reality of Jesus’ victory in the spiritual realms will determine how much of his winning presence we see in this one. The degree to which we are successful at living Spirit-filled Christ-like lives today, tomorrow and the next day is not the result of our own skill, will, or even commitment. It is more a matter of how deep our belief runs in the victory of God in both in heaven and earth. After all he also taught us to pray, “Your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.” So Jesus in those forty days must have been proclaiming that in some measure his prayer had been answered. Do you know to what measure?
I’ve had conversations too that have been spurring me on to think of these things. One such conversation was with a person in their twenties after a Sunday service who is facing some genuinely terrible things. In the course of telling me about it he said with characteristic belief in the dual reality of our world, “I’m just praying that I’ll see God in this mess before it’s over.”
At that point I wished I could have brought in the Lion to say, “But you shall meet me dear one.”
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