I suppose it could be worse. God could have said, “Chocolate numbs your heart and steals your affections. And not just you. Everyone. I want you to tell them that.”
Then I might have said, “Actually, I think someone else is already doing chocolate. But I’ll take TV and movies if that’s ok.”
He might have agreed, and then I would have felt like I was getting off easy. Well, easier.
But he didn't. He left chocolate alone and went straight for the second best loved substance on the planet. Stories.
Perhaps I first figured out that stories had power when I got a record player for Christmas when I was a kid. I remember lying on the carpet in a halo of sunshine listening to “Black Beauty” and “The Emperor’s Nightingale” and feeling ... I don’t know. Mesmerized. I didn’t really understand the power it had over me, but I didn’t need to understand it to feel it.
Was “Black Beauty” numbing my heart? It wasn’t a movie, but it might as well have been. My ears saw the whole thing, beautiful images of friendship and heroism. Does God have something against friendship and heroism?
I don’t think so.
But I’ve been thinking lately about that scene in the book, Perelandra (by C.S. Lewis) where the devil-man, Weston, tries to teach the Eve of that world to make up stories about living on the fixed land where God has forbidden her to live. When she refuses to make a story about that, the devil-man begins to tell her other stories that don't appear to have any connecting link, stories of extreme beauty and pathos that seem harmless in themselves. But as the stories go on and on, there emerges the single idea of a heroine who throws off the unreasonable restraints of her authority figure to do something that he has forbidden her to do yet needs to have done. The devil’s storytelling goes on for days, and though there is much in the stories that Eve does not understand, over time her face begins to register a subtle shift of expression. Where once it radiated a unselfconscious sanctity and stillness, it now begins to take on “the fatal touch of invited grandeur, of enjoyed pathos - the assumption, however slight, of a role.” And Ransom who is watching it happen and trying to thwart the efforts of the devil-man realizes, “This can’t go on.”
I can’t help but wonder if God is in the same boat. Perhaps he is listening to our stories and watching our faces and thinking, “This can’t go on.”
Then I might have said, “Actually, I think someone else is already doing chocolate. But I’ll take TV and movies if that’s ok.”
He might have agreed, and then I would have felt like I was getting off easy. Well, easier.
But he didn't. He left chocolate alone and went straight for the second best loved substance on the planet. Stories.
Perhaps I first figured out that stories had power when I got a record player for Christmas when I was a kid. I remember lying on the carpet in a halo of sunshine listening to “Black Beauty” and “The Emperor’s Nightingale” and feeling ... I don’t know. Mesmerized. I didn’t really understand the power it had over me, but I didn’t need to understand it to feel it.
Was “Black Beauty” numbing my heart? It wasn’t a movie, but it might as well have been. My ears saw the whole thing, beautiful images of friendship and heroism. Does God have something against friendship and heroism?
I don’t think so.
But I’ve been thinking lately about that scene in the book, Perelandra (by C.S. Lewis) where the devil-man, Weston, tries to teach the Eve of that world to make up stories about living on the fixed land where God has forbidden her to live. When she refuses to make a story about that, the devil-man begins to tell her other stories that don't appear to have any connecting link, stories of extreme beauty and pathos that seem harmless in themselves. But as the stories go on and on, there emerges the single idea of a heroine who throws off the unreasonable restraints of her authority figure to do something that he has forbidden her to do yet needs to have done. The devil’s storytelling goes on for days, and though there is much in the stories that Eve does not understand, over time her face begins to register a subtle shift of expression. Where once it radiated a unselfconscious sanctity and stillness, it now begins to take on “the fatal touch of invited grandeur, of enjoyed pathos - the assumption, however slight, of a role.” And Ransom who is watching it happen and trying to thwart the efforts of the devil-man realizes, “This can’t go on.”
I can’t help but wonder if God is in the same boat. Perhaps he is listening to our stories and watching our faces and thinking, “This can’t go on.”
I don’t know. I just wonder.
"I don't know, I just wonder...".
ReplyDeleteDoes God really need us to or ask us to abstain from things for the betterment of our relationship... Or is that something we feel that we need to do for the betterment of our relationship?
Maybe it is easier for us to restrict ourselves, if we believe that it is
God asking it of us.
Maybe God asks not for His necessity, but for ours. Mmmmmmmmm...
Just wondering too.
Good wondering, Rube!
Delete