By the Rev’d Hilary Willett
Season: The Fourth Sunday of Eastertide
Readings: Acts 9:36-43 | Revelation 7:9-17 | John 10:22-30
So, I really love the book “The Silver Chair.” It’s a wee bit dated these days, but it still occupies a special place. In many ways, it’s very similar to the other books in the series: it’s an adventure story for children, with fairly clear-cut heroes and villains, set in the magical world of Narnia. But, the reason I like this book so much is because of Puddleglum.
Puddleglum is pretty much exactly what you’d expect from someone with this name. A bit depressive, dreary, and long-winded, this character is a creature called a “Marsh-wiggle”.[1] By his own account, he is rather upbeat in comparison to other marsh-wiggles,[2] but the other characters consider him a bit of a “wet blanket”.[3]
Now, at this point in the story, I should just give a small spoiler warning, as I’m going to give away a bit of the plot now.
In this story, two human children and Puddleglum are sent by Aslan beneath the earth to rescue the Narnian Prince Rilian.[4] Much of the tone of this story went over my head as a kid, but, in many ways, the adventure is a kind of descent into hell to rescue a doomed soul and restore them to the land of the living. However, on their adventure, they encounter the “Lady of the Green Kirtle.”[5]
Later, it is discovered that this Lady is a witch ruling an underground kingdom.[6] This kingdom is where Rilian is being held captive, under an enchantment that has made him forget who he is.[7] When the adventuring party attempts to rescue Rilian, the witch tries to enchant everyone into forgetting their previous lives.[8] She does so by throwing magic dust on a fire, which emits a fragrance that lulls them into a stupor. Then, while strumming on a mandolin, she tells them that there is only her world of earthen caves and lamps and darkness, no Narnia, no sun, no Aslan.[9] Eventually, they all start to fall under her spell, all except Puddleglum. Puddleglum is desperately trying to hold on to who he is, staggers over to the fire, and puts it out with his foot.[10] The resulting smell of burnt marsh-wiggle (which is apparently not very nice) breaks the enchantment, and Puddleglum delivers an excellent speech to the witch.
“One word, Ma’am,” [Puddleglum] said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. “One word. All you’ve been saying is quite right, I shouldn’t wonder. I’m a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won’t deny any of what you said. But there’s one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things – trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that’s a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four babies playing a game can make a playworld which licks your real world hollow. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play-world. I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we’re leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for [Narnia]. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that’s a small loss if the world’s as dull a place as you say.”[11]
Puddleglum, the children, and Rilian do manage to escape the underworld and find Narnia again.[12] But for me, that isn’t the climax of this story, the climax is this speech. And it seems to be a speech that has moved children and theologians alike, in its simple description of what it means to have faith and hope in a distracting and darkening world.
Perhaps this is all there is. Perhaps, deep down, people are untrustworthy and selfish. Perhaps we are all going to ruin. Perhaps, the saintly people among us, like Tabitha in our readings, die too soon, and that is the end of the story (Acts 9:37). Anything else is wishful thinking. Perhaps the church will fade. Perhaps this world will pass away, and we will never see angels riding the clouds singing “Salvation belongs to our God” (Rev 7:10).
Or, maybe, this Eastertide, we remember to live like what Jesus said was true.
“I will give [you] eternal life… no one will snatch you from my hand” (John 10:28). Sometimes, with the fragrance of fear and corruption around us, it can be hard to remember who we are. We can be lulled into a kind of stupor, where we lose our grip on the eternal and only see reality through a lens that has been crafted by this world. I think sometimes we think that rose-tinted glasses are the only deceptive lenses that we can view the world through, but there are others. Despair, God-like control, the view that people are less important than the bottom line… That’s a pretty deceptive lens. And when we live like these lenses are true, we reflect the world around us instead of speaking hope and life into it.
So, what if we lived as if what Jesus said is true? What if we spent our lives, like Puddleglum, as citizens of a miraculous world that we cannot currently see, but is more real than reality as we know it—a world where we hope in people, work for change, where God brings life out of death and carries us into eternity. The fragrance around us is not all there is. Let us believe instead in a more real God, and live accordingly.
Bibliography
Lewis, C. S. The Silver Chair. London: HarperCollins, 2001.
[1] C. S. Lewis, The Silver Chair (London: HarperCollins, 2001), 78.
[2] Lewis, 88.
[3] Lewis, 98–99.
[4] Lewis, 34–35.
[5] Lewis, 100–103.
[6] Lewis, 166–80.
[7] Lewis, 181–89.
[8] Lewis, 190–204.
[9] Lewis, 192–200.
[10] Lewis, 200.
[11] Lewis, 201–2.
[12] Lewis, 238.