In which I spill my guts to Clive.
***
Sir, I cannot wait to meet you.
Something tells me that we will be
seated fairly close to one another, at the Banquet Feast.
I can't wait.
I read the Chronicles when I was
very little, and then my life was void of your work for several
years. The next thing I picked up was The Pilgrim's Regress,
as a 12- or 13-year-old. I came across all your talk of the “sweet,
unnameable desire” and was blown away. I suddenly realized that I
wasn't alone. The thing that I had experienced for as long as I
could remember was real. More importantly, it had a meaning; a very
real and very sacred purpose.
Just as Psyche draws us towards the
Grey Mountain with her own aching longing; just as Jewel beckons us
ever on with his cry of “Further up and further in!”, so do you
stand as a beacon of burning desire, to all those who care to stop
and look. Can this desire be perverted in life; filled with
frivolous and unsatisfying things? Of course. But, in the final
analysis, this desire is the very force through which we will be
saved and set free, for it is the desire for Heaven; for Home.
You were no stranger to desire; nor
were you a stranger to true darkness. It runs, in all its forms,
like a fine thread throughout all of your works:
“'I'm on Aslan's side even if
there isn't any Aslan to lead it'...”
“No one ever told me that grief
felt so like fear...”
“And now Psyche must go down into
the deadlands to get beauty in a casket from the Queen of the
Deadlands, from death herself; and bring it back to give it to Ungit
so that Ungit will become beautiful....”
“'It is not for nothing that you
are named Ransom,' said the Voice...”
And yet, you do not present suffering
and pain and heartache with the intention of glorifying or wallowing
in it. You show us its purpose: to beautify, renew, redeem,
sanctify. You never show us the malady of despair without also
revealing the remedy of hope. You remind us that darkness will never
have the last word. You remind us that our Lord is with us, in the
midst of even the deepest night. He soars through the storm like an
albatross and whispers, “Courage, dear heart,” to the Lucy
Pevensie in us all.
You have inspired me as a writer, a
lover, a Christian, a human being. I have no adequate words to
express how you have impacted my life. That will have to wait until
I, with my glorified body, stand before you, with your glorified
body; with our glorified mouths we will converse in the tongues of
Heaven (while drinking glorified tea).
Until then - thank you, thank you,
thank you.
Love,
me
***
I found the above picture of Lewis' handsome face here.
"In which I spill my guts to Clive"
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