Reflections

Return to Narnia

I picked up where I left of in Narnia, in the middle of Voyage of the Dawn Treader. As I read I picked up a few good things but the transformation of Eustace from Dragon back to a boy really hit me. The excerpt here is Eustace telling Edmund of his transformation.

“Well, anyway, I looked up and saw the very last thing I expected: a huge lion coming slowly towards 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. You may think that, being a dragon, I could have knocked any lion out easily enough. 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 straight into my eyes. And I shut my eyes tight. But that wasn’t any good because it told me to follow it.”

“You mean it spoke?”

“I don’t know. Now that you mention it, I don’t think it did. But it told me all the same. 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 into the mountains. And there was always this moonlight over and round the lion wherever we went. So at last we came to the top of a mountain I’d never seen before and on the top of this mountain there was a garden - trees and fruit and everything. In the middle of it there was a well.

“I knew it was a well because you could see the water bubbling up from the bottom of it: but it was a lot bigger than most wells - like a very big, round bath with marble steps going down into it. The water was as clear as anything and 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. Mind you, I don’t know if he said any words out loud or not.

“I was just going to say that I couldn’t undress because I hadn’t any clothes on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast their skins. Oh, of course, thought I, that’s what the lion means. So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and, instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after an illness, or as if I was a banana. In a minute or two I just stepped out of it. I could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty. It was a most lovely feeling. 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 had been before. Oh, that’s all right, said I, it only means I had another smaller suit on underneath the first one, and I’ll have to get out of it too. So 1 scratched and tore again and this underskin peeled off beautifully and out I stepped and left it lying beside the other one and went down to the well for my bathe.

“Well, exactly the same thing happened again. And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.

“Then the lion said - but I don’t know if it spoke - “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 to let him do it.

“The very 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. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know - if you’ve ever picked the scab off a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” said Edmund.

“Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off - just as I thought I’d done it myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt - and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me - I didn’t like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I’d no skin on - and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again. You’d think me simply phoney if I told you how I felt about my own arms. I know they’ve no muscle and are pretty mouldy compared with Caspian’s, but I was so glad to see them.

“After a bit the lion took me out and dressed me -“

“Dressed you. With his paws?”

“Well, I don’t exactly remember that bit. But he did somehow or other: in new clothes - the same I’ve got on now, as a matter of fact. And then suddenly I was back here. Which is what makes me think it must have been a dream.”

I really love this part. Eustace is like us when he first sees Aslan, or in our case God. We have this unreasonable fear of him because we’re afraid of what he sees us as, just as Eustace is afraid of Aslan seeing him as a dragon. We often do like Eustace and close our eyes and try to ignore Him but he speaks to us anyway. Aslan leads Eustace to an isolated place just like God does to us sometimes when he wants all of our attention focused on him without something or someone to influence us otherwise. In the book Aslan leads Eustace to a well, and tells him to undress and at first Eustace tries to come up with an excuse but realizes he is a dragon with scales and starts to scratch them off like a snake shedding skin. The harder he scratched the more that came off and the more skin he was able to scratch off. And when he thought he was done he went to step into the well and saw that he still wasn’t done and continued trying to scratch off layer after layer until Aslan tells him to let him help. One of my favorite part of this scene is when Eustace speaks his thoughts and says, “Oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off?,” and as soon as he looks in the water he realizes it was no good. We are the same way when it comes to God, we try and try to get rid of layers and layers of built up yuck from our past without asking for help, and rely on our own abilities to no avail, but when we let God step in, that’s when the real work happens. The first tear that Aslan makes, Eustace says feels like it went straight to his heart, that it was the worst pain he’d ever felt, but it was bearable because of the pleasure he felt having it peeled off of him. We are like that when we first truly give God control, it hurts at first but when we finally let him start getting rid of junk and yuck it’s bearable because of how good it feels to finally get it off of us. After that Aslan throws Eustace in the well and the pain he had felt before was gone, and then Aslan took Eustace out and dressed him in new clothes just like Jesus does for us when we are baptised.

It’s amazing how much you can find similar between these books and what God has done for us. I’ll keep reading and I hope you do too!

I did not complete Narnia last summer, so I’m going to try to this summer. So look for new posts from Narnia in the coming weeks!

Lust is easy. Love is hard.

(Source: ohayitswinnie, via raintoreachthesun)