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cs lewis, Facebook, freedom, Nature, new year resolutions, paradox, religion, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
There seems to me to be a paradox to life that I cannot quite fully grasp, though I am beginning to hear whispers of it the more I stop and listen.
There is, as we know, a Deep Magic (to quote from C.S. Lewis in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe) written into the fabric of the human condition that pushes us to fulfill our needs of belonging, survival, contentment, comfort, and pleasure. This Deep Magic is written into the story of the schoolhouse (get a degree to go to college to get a job to make money to buy stuff), media advertisements (buy our products or use our services in order to feel happy, content, and satisfied), the marketplace (work hard, get ahead, meet your needs, satisfy your wants), politics (elect me, and I promise to make life better for you), and even the church (come and tithe, and in return, we will offer you the promise of peace, prosperity, and purpose).
And yet, it is this Deep Magic that so often enslaves us to our own sense of angst, purposelessness, apathy, stress, addiction, and general physiological malaise. I am convinced this is so because we forget that there is a Deeper Magic (to continue to borrow from Lewis) also written into the human experience whose truth is right before us, though we either ignore it because we fear it is too painful, or deny it because we believe we do not need to heed it.
This Deeper Magic acknowledges that, in order to gain life, one must lose it; that there is something written into the fabric of the human condition (even into all creation) that claims that the more one holds onto one’s self, the less self one has to hold onto, but that the more one intentionally dies to one’s self, the more of that self one finds.
This is the great paradox that seems to claim both the natural world and the human experience.
We see this in the natural world all around us. Take both the acorn and the caterpillar as but two examples.
Let’s observe, for a moment, the caterpillar in his caterpillar day. We watch him eat his caterpillar breakfast, do his caterpillar yoga, study for his caterpillar exams, sit at his caterpillar desk, surf his caterpillar Facebook, watch his caterpillar tv. All day he strives, making plans, setting goals, working hard, climbing social and professional ladders, putting money away in his caterpillar Roth IRA, hoping one day to make it big so that he can move his family into the gated caterpillar neighborhood across town.
The same applies for the lowly acorn. She has worked hard to get where she is, one of the youngest acorn vice-presidents in her company’s history. She drives the right acorn car, attends the right acorn social events, sits on the board of the right acorn charities, even volunteers to read to underprivileged acorns at the local acorn school. She has a retirement account, savings account, two mutual funds, and an acorn stock portfolio managed by her acorn brother-in-law. She even sings in the acorn choir at church.
In short, both the caterpillar and the acorn spend every day working hard to make nice, comfortable lives for themselves.
But that is just the rub! Caterpillars were not meant to be caterpillars and acorns were not meant to be acorns!
Caterpillars were meant to move beyond limbs and branches and grass to soar with the wind beneath carefully sculpted wings more beautiful than any stained-glass window, and acorns were meant to rise from the earth, soaring skyward as giant oak trees with limbs sturdy and strong, a thing mighty and majestic to behold.
But neither happens without a death. A long, slow, perhaps painful death to what once was with all of its dreams, ambitions, plans, goals, savings, friendships, comfort, accomplishments and accumulations.
In other words, it is after the acorn and the caterpillar give their lives away (one in the chrysalis and one in the dirt) that they find themselves most fully and are most fully known.
What is true in the natural world seems to hold true for the human experience as well. Those I find to be “most human” are those who, at every turn, think not of themselves (their own gain, ambition, profit, largesse, etc.) but rather are, again and again, emptying themselves for others. The wisest, most humane, most noble men and women I know are giving themselves away every day in ways that are sacrificial, literally “making holy” (sacra=holy/fice=to make) their lives as they do so.
It is paradoxical because it calls us to sacrifice that which we hold most dear, own deep sense of self in all of its guises (self: righteousness, loathing, centeredness, respect) and become vulnerable to a process that is painful, lonely, slow, laborious and costly.
It is to live from the inside out, to resist the dominant cultural sirens, to live from a place of service rather than power, to pursue deeper longings and avoid immediate desires, to seek meaning rather than money, to make a life beyond making a living.
In the end, caterpillars were not meant to slug along through life, and acorns were not meant to just be squirrel food.
The paradox of the Deeper Magic offers us the life we know we were meant to live.
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Didn’t say C.S. Lewis also say that if we were meant for something that seems beyond the scope of this world, then it must be beyond it? I think it went something like that…
I loved this post. It reminds me of something St. Bernard of Clairvaux said. It went something like this: “Our ultimate end [telos] is in consummation, not in consumption.” Those two words seem eerily similar. They also present a paradoxical truth, one that certainly applies to Lewis’ concept of Deeper Magic. Psalms invites us to “taste and see that the Lord is good”. He is the ultimate nourishment and by partaking in Him, we increase our intimacy with Him. Increased intimacy will eventually lead to consummation, where we completely lose ourselves in Him and find our telos in doing so. It would seem that consumption and consummation work together in this instance, rather than oppose each other, as they often do.
I love having your voice in this conversation!! I love the idea that our telos is consummation rather than consumption. This rings so antithetical to the current moral climate which states that the only purpose of man is for consumption, and the more the better. If you ever felt like adding a more tangible voice to this dialogue, feel free to offer a guest post for my consideration. I believe you have much to say that would be of benefit to us all.
Thank you for the compliment. It means a lot to me. I’m honored that you would consider me for a guest post. But, how would I go about doing it if I ever had a topic I might want to write about?
Email me and I will send you the details.
scottamartin2001@yahoo.com
Thanks, Wisdom, for a well spoken piece. This theme has been continually running by me the past couple of months. A natural shift is occurring…
I agree! May acorns become oak trees!
I really feel this has struck a chord with me. I have been turning these ideas around in my head for quite a while, but you are able to put them perfectly into words. C.S. Lewis was an amazing thinker, who went beyond the trite and obvious. I will have to think some more about the “Deeper Magic” and how I can at least start trying to find it in my life. Thank you so much for this wonderful post.
There is much more to be said on this topic, but C.S. Lewis again said it well in Mere Christianity when he said that God’s purpose was to turn tin men into flesh. This is what Aristotle talks about when he discusses the telos (or purpose) of man is virtue. The problem is that the work of virtue or becoming flesh is a life’s work bent on intention and will. Keep up the good fight!