The Place of the Lion: Chapters 14 - end
The text for this week’s reading begins with a focus on Damaris. Williams undertakes to show the step by step process by which she comes to spiritual maturity. The first step is to become aware of others as individuals with needs of their own, rather than as objects that interfered with her work. She begins to see her father, and then others, in a different light, and she goes out to look for Quentin in order to help him. She is beginning to be motivated by love of others.
Quentin is pursued by a bestial figure, but as Damaris shields him, a lamb appears and takes the place, we are told, of the lion. The unbridled strength that is the cause of buildings falling and Quentin overcome by fright is checked by gentle loving action. The lamb frolics for joy. The bestial creature, which represents Foster, who had tried along with Berringer to summon and control the archetypal strength of the universe for his own purposes, perishes.
In Chapter 15 Williams gives superb and stirring expression to the heart of his vision. Back in his rooms searching for Quentin, Anthony muses on the nature of friendship–its mutual give and take–and sees “those exchanges” as “being of the nature of final and eternal being.” Such mutual interdependences account for the mystery and wonder of the universe: its strength (the lion), its subtle relationships (the serpent), its beauty (the butterflies), all held in delicate balance (the eagle) and exhibited in simple acts of friendship, which is an expression of love (the lamb). The lion has its highest expression when united with the lamb. Simple everyday charitable relationships foreshadow the nature of heavenly life in eternity. It is “the Way of Exchange.”
When this pattern is violated and life appropriated to self-advantage–the opposite of love–the result is thunder and distortions (e.g., the pterodactyl). But when all is in proper balance, the lion is lying with the lamb.
Damaris’s conversion now complete, the final chapter shows her and Anthony together. She asks, “What is our necessity?” and he responds: “It’s just to be . . . . the simpler one is the nearer one is to loving. If the pattern’s arranged in me, what can I do but let myself be the pattern? I can see to it that I don’t hate, but after that Love must do his own business.” Thus Williams beautifully expresses the proper attitude towards life. This attitude was foreshadowed on page, when Anthony was willing simply to let the bus “catch us up.” The book concludes with Anthony exercising the proper loving relation towards creation.
Note: This concludes our work with Williams. We will take a three week break and then begin considering C. S. Lewis’s thinking in a collection of his essays entitled The Weight of Glory. I will post a schedule in a couple weeks,
If you know anyone who may be interested in reading and thinking about these essays along with us, please invite them.
Comments
The Eagle: where is Williams drawing this from? I am not familiar with it.
Vatican/Vaticanus: the god whose job it is to preside over the new-born child's first cry. This echoes a theme I have seen in George MacDonald, of pastoral figures as mid-wifes helping with various type of "new-birth" transitions - one of which is from this life into the next. I want to ponder this in church history, did "The Church" deliberately chose this name to describe its real work?
Balance: Lion/Lamb; between friends in complimentary friendship; between the organization of friendship and the random/chaotic of untamed forces; the two trees in the glade; the seemingly unquenchable power of the house on fire and the willing weakness of Richardson.
"the necessity": William's way of describing the things which you know you must do "by faith". I recognize it and I think this way of naming it will help me know it better.
Joy: Richardson, the "negationist", is seeking God through a path of denial (interesting that his last name is always used, the "not-quite-named"?). He is uncomfortable with Anthony's whole-hearted embrace of the material. I love that he checks his own tendency to push Anthony toward his way of seeing things, and that Anthony accepts the clear differences in Richardson's path, allowing him to find his own "necessity" even though it looks so different from his own. This is freedom. It produces Joy. God is AWESOME.
Thanks Prof. Hein! This has been so fruitful. Looking forward to The Weight of Glory.
- I am not a philosopher, but I am a believer. Williams book asked the question: Where are we going? And wherever we are going, are we going to be with God, or apart from God?
- The doctrine of Election seems to be going on, and its not by works but by Him who calls (Romans 9:11-12).
- It is impossible to group the mysterious wonder of the doctrine of election without feeling the tension within the realm of human understanding.
- In the end there is chaos as God leaves us to ourselves.
It seems to me that all of these are at play with the main characters, and its interesting to note the change in each one's character as they divide into two camps - God or self. Divine wisdom is far better than self wisdom and selfish toil.
Thanks for allowing this book to be read again - each time more opens up - especially how selfish and self centered human beings can become within their own little world.
Williams's vision emphasizes that the first and ongoing evidence of the new birth is loving concern for others. He, like all the Inklings, is careful to avoid any direct reference to God or Christ in their writings, as that immediately raises objections in some reader's minds, but the working of God is everywhere implied. But denying the self is essential to the following of Christ and obeying his precepts.
I am myself very much impressed with Williams's thinking on how the loving exchange which marks the essence of friendship is at the very heart of reality and has as its archetype the loving relationship among the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To enter fully into that love is the essence of heavenly glory. It is the ultimate destiny of all children of God.
It is marked by complete self-abnegation and humility (the lamb) and the omnipotence that holds all things in coherence (the lion). The utterly complete union of the two is bliss.
You mention MacDonald. He emphasizes that people are placed in this life to learn how to love--which is indicated by the first and second commandments: to love God and love others.