“One day you will be old enough to start reading fairytales again.”
-C.S. Lewis
Perhaps the most degrading intellectual shift that ever occured was the moment we traded our fiction for textbooks and the like.
For most of human history, we have traded knowledge in a very particular, story-driven way. Stories were understood – not only for historical particulars – but for allegory, symbolism, myth, and the like. Following humankind’s emphasis on a standardized method of inquiry, our manner of preserving knowledge changed. Remembering historical events shifted from reciting a song or poem to reading exact calculations of what occured.
This shift was necessary and good, especially for most of the sciences. But this movement fundamentally redefined what it meant to instruct an individual and how we understand stories in relation to our lives.
I regret forgetting the origin of the following reflection, but the richness of its content seems worth mentioning anyway. I once read something along the following: there exists a remarkable difference between reading the Catechism’s definition of faith and reading the story of the Binding of Issac.
Our Western notion of education (including our theology) has forgotten a great many ways we communicate stories and replaced those outlets with a singular method of instruction. What makes stories so powerful is not only that they are entertaining for their own sake; they also contain universal truths.
Earlier this year, a few friends and I were engaged in a similar conversation. One of us couldn’t see the value in filmmaking, claiming it to be a mindless waste of entertainment. We encouraged him, however, to look beyond the simple narrative structure and pick out what lay beneath the surface. The hero’s journey. The victory of good over evil. Stories of redemption.
When fiction is done well and with good intentions, it is a process of “sub-creating” according to author J.R.R. Tolkien. Sub-creating, or world building, according to Tolkien, is one of our best imitations of God, performing the same actions God did in the Genesis narrative. We are effectively invited to share in the Divine Action and create plausible realms to entertain and teach others.
Such thoughts call to mind one of Tolkien’s great friends, C.S. Lewis. Listen to what Aslan, Lewis’ fictional incarnation of Christ, instructs his readers who have journeyed throughout the lands of Narnia:
“But first, remember, remember, remember the signs. Say them to yourself when you wake in the morning and when you lie down at night, and when you wake in the middle of the night. And whatever strange things may happen to you, let nothing turn your mind from following the signs. And secondly, I give you a warning. Here on the mountain I have spoken to you clearly: I will not often do so down in Narnia. Here on the mountain, the air is clear and your mind is clear; as you drop down into Narnia, the air will thicken. Take great care that it does not confuse your mind. And the signs which you have learned here will not look at all as you expect them to look, when you meet them there. That is why it is so important to know them by heart, and pay no attention to appearances. Remember the signs and believe the signs. Nothing else matters.” – Aslan, The Silver Chair
Reflect on the above. I have read this passage in different ways depending on my circumstance, but as I write this blog, I think of Lewis’ words as such. The ‘signs’ are those universal plot lines of stories. They are elements within a good tale that point us to the Divine. “God-sightings” you might call them. As to his warning of the clarity of the mountain, fiction often spells things out clearly for us. We can easily understand characters’ motives and the plot always seems to make sense (Ha! I knew that was going to happen!) Almost never as such are our lives. Our own minds are too fickle to understand, events seem to happen at random with little meaning stringing them together, and we are far too easily tempted with false promises.
Don’t be too quick to depend on textbooks for knowledge. Any good working definition of the word “underdog” will always be outdone by the Tortoise and the Hare, just as any good definition of love is overshadowed by the figure of Christ.
God of storytelling,
You who instruct our hearts with happenings of ages past, teach us to love your Word, however it is given to us. Bless all artists, authors, poets, and the like – they who mold our souls into beautiful works of art. You who instructed us to ‘be like the little children,’ fill our minds with the desire to learn as though we did when young. Bless us always.
Amen.
Catholicism Rekindled 