Great questions, Digs, and one I’ve actually thought about a bit since you quoted that very moving and significant section of MN at the moot. If I may be so bold as to piggyback off it (and please pardon the long quote):
…[Digory] thought of his Mother, and he thought of the great hopes he had had, and how they were all dying away, and a lump came in his throat and tears in his eyes, and he blurted out:
“But please, please – won’t you – can’t you give me something that will cure Mother?” Up till then he had been looking at the Lion’s great front feet and the huge claws on them; now, in his despair, he looked up at its face. What he saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life. For the tawny face was bent down near his own and (wonder of wonders) great shining tears stood in the Lion’s eyes. They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory’s own that for a moment he felt as if the Lion must really be sorrier about his Mother than he was himself.
“My son, my son,” said Aslan. “I know. Grief is great. Only you and I in this land know that yet. Let us be good to one another. But I have to think of hundreds of years in the life of Narnia. The Witch whom you have brought into this world will come back to Narnia again. But it need not be yet….”
Aslan goes on to instruct Digory that the boy must retrieve the seed for the Tree of Protection.
This passage is so rich in imagery and meaning, as we discussed after your very moving recitation. Digory is at first focused on Aslan’s feet – those claws, which seem to represent justice and potential punishment. But then he looks up to see tears in the Lion’s eyes, showing understanding and mercy. And later Digory experiences these again, and grace, when Aslan allows him to bring the healing apple home to his mother.
As was also discussed, however, Aslan has a bigger plan – he sees the bigger picture – he must concern himself with not only Digory’s needs but also those of the many Narnians affected by the presence of the Witch. This comes first. And Digory catches a glimpse of this bigger picture, and learns of his place in it. He grows in obeying Aslan’s command, even as the Witch tries to tempt him to do otherwise and smuggle a healing apple back to his mother.
How does all this relate to me? Among the conversations I enjoyed at the Moot was one in which Dr Ransom asked about my coming to faith. For various reasons I never actually got to finish the story – but I was reminded once again of the importance of medical trials in my own life and growth (and in the lives of others in my family). For this reason the Digory character, with his suffering mother, is one I’ve long related to. And I’m one of those people that find it harder to see a loved one going through pain and sorrow than to experience it myself.
God has used severe medical trials in my family – among these my younger brother years ago, as well as my aging parents’ experiences in more recent times – to spur me on to greater dependency and trust in Him. He’s in charge, and I’m not.
But in hindsight this was clearest to me a number of years ago, when my brother nearly died of ongoing complications from an earlier illness. His situation seemed to change hourly, and he was halfway across the country. All I could do – all any of us could do – was to hold him before our Father in prayer and trust that His sovereign will was best. Some of us did fly out there to help his wife with their two young children, and I was able to help out a bit after he came home from the hospital.
It was during this time we all grew so much, and learned even more of God’s provision through His people – especially as we heard stories of people from their church, and even strangers (parents of children the kids went to school with) bringing over food or offering to help in other ways. Coworkers offered their sick time when my brother’s ran out.
And I was reminded of the short nature of the span of days we’re all given, and that each is by the Father’s good grace, when my brother’s family and I visited the Field of Dreams movie site in Iowa the following summer. If I may quote from something I wrote at the time, in which I speculated on why people still visited the movie site so long after the movie was made:
But this place proved to be a special one to me as well, for different reasons. And perhaps it was not the place itself, but what I saw there. For as I sat on the bleachers in the Iowa sun, my 4-year old niece cuddled next to me, I watched my brother - who had been literally on his deathbed two short months before - trot the basepaths with his young son. To everyone else, it was an ordinary sight, to be sure. But I was so moved to see it, for it was a reminder that he had been granted a new lease on life by our gracious Father - as we all are with each new breath we take.
). On Sunday night, we watched the film "Shadowlands," a film that focusses on the life of C.S. Lewis and his relation to his wife, Joy Gresham. The central theme of this movie, was the suffering endurred by both characters, and I was wonderring what it would be like to look at the suffering endured by the characters of Narnia.
