{"id":175372,"date":"2014-12-25T15:43:50","date_gmt":"2014-12-25T15:43:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2014\/12\/25\/you-should-post-your-susan-pensive-meta-if-its\/"},"modified":"2014-12-25T15:43:50","modified_gmt":"2014-12-25T15:43:50","slug":"you-should-post-your-susan-pensive-meta-if-its","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2014\/12\/25\/you-should-post-your-susan-pensive-meta-if-its\/","title":{"rendered":"You should post your Susan Pensive meta (if it’s not to much of a hassle). Even if it doesn’t get a lot of attention someone (probably quite a few someones) will see it and get something out of it (I know I would). And if not that then you would at least have your thoughts documented somewhere (which is the point of a blog is it not). Anyways I’m sure there’s quite a number of people who would love to read your thoughts on Susan (esp from a religious perspective!)"},"content":{"rendered":"

dearbluetravelers<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Ahhhhh okay I will. I\u2019ve been keeping it in a Google doc, and\u2026 wow it got long. Apologies for messy words or scattered thoughts; here it is.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

Alright, I love Susan. And I love the Chronicles of Narnia. But you have to understand where C.S. Lewis is coming from. He wrote the Chronicles of Narnia as a metaphor for Christianity, for trusting in God and learning to follow Him and trusting in His rules.<\/p>\n

What does any of this have to do with Susan, you ask? Isn\u2019t he condemning womanhood, female beauty, being an adult in the world and growing up and moving away from \u201cchildish things?\u201d After all, Aslan says to find him in their own world. I\u2019m going to argue that none of this is truly what C.S. Lewis is saying. Please keep in mind that it has been a few years since I read the full series, so exact references might slip past or be misremembered- I\u2019ll depend on the Narnia Wiki<\/a> and the New American Standard Bible<\/a> for reference.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s look at the metaphor of Christianity more closely. Aslan, the unblemished sacrifice, lion and lamb, lays down his life for the sinner who knew what was right and turned against him anyways. Four rulers, for the four Gospels of the bible. The longing to be in Heaven, in union with God (Aslan).<\/p>\n

So these three children and Susan, they leave Heaven as adults and revert to children in \u201cthe real world.\u201d And for awhile, all four of them commiserate the lose of Narnia. And when they next visit, Peter and Susan are told they won\u2019t return.<\/p>\n

And Susan gives up on Narnia. She appears to decide that all of what happened in Narnia is only there, stops trying to find Aslan in the \u201creal world,\u201d and becomes a woman of the world. In this, the handful of Narnian humans seem to condemn her.<\/p>\n

Alternately, Peter, Susan, and Edmund grow into childhood. They remember Aslan, and they talk about him and find others who know Aslan, and communicate and exchange views and theories about Narnia and the creation of the world of Narnia itself. The world that was sullied by the temptation of the White Witch, and if you remember, it\u2019s Christmas that the children miss when they learn of her eternal winter. The birth of Christ that would bring the spring.<\/p>\n

The adults who are children, seventeen year old Lucy and her older and more mature brothers, the Professor and Polly and Jill, all adult and old enough to wear makeup and dresses and suits and call on lovers. these children stay true to Narnia. They remember it, they search for Aslan in their world and find it in each other and the good of others. And then they die and go to Narnia, but it\u2019s so much better than they ever experienced before, and everyone who died in their adventures are there, and they can see their parents on the shores of England- because it turns out Narnia was never actually as far away from them in their home as they thought it was.<\/p>\n

And you think that Susan wasn\u2019t there because she was a grown up feminine woman. Susan who grows up and strives to be adult, beautiful, female and desired. None of which is condemned by Aslan. However, Susan in that form could not enter the Narnia-Heaven the others came to at the end of The Last Battle. Why? Most obviously, because Susan wasn\u2019t on the train.<\/p>\n

A grown up woman of 21, you say she was? A grown up woman, whose parents couldn\u2019t put on a train and send off with her siblings. Eustace, Peter, Lucy, Edmund, Jill, the Professor, and Polly were the ones killed in the crash- the five hit by the train, and the Professor and Polly actually riding it. They were going to meet. They were going to discuss Narnia.<\/p>\n

They were childish. These seven adults, gathering to discuss a childish thing, something they were supposed to have left behind. But if you refer to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 18 verses 1-6, you get this exchange between Jesus and the disciples:<\/p>\n

\n

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and said, \u201cWho then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?\u201d 2\u00a0And He called a child to Himself and set him before them, 3\u00a0and said, \u201cTruly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. 4\u00a0Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5\u00a0And whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me; 6\u00a0but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Jesus asks His disciples to love as freely and as deeply as little children do, something which many people struggle with. If you have ever been loved by a small child, you know exactly the kind of love this is. What was it the Pevensie siblings, Polly, the Professor himself were? Childish? Susan went out into the world and left Narnia behind; she stopped searching for Aslan in her world at all, because she decided he didn\u2019t exist. And there was her second mistake.<\/p>\n

In St. Paul\u2019s letter to the Romans (in the book of the Bible aptly named \u201cRomans\u201d), chapter 12, verse 2, he states: \u201cAnd do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is a verse that is tossed around a lot and confuses a lot of people. Being in the world is unavoidable: this is the world, and we all share it, everyone who has lived and everyone who will live. However, not being \u201cconformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind\u201d is a bit harder. This verse is often bandied about as \u201cbe in the world, but not of it\u201d and seems, again, to condemn the world we live in. However, that\u2019s not quite what it means.<\/p>\n

Humanity is physical, we live on Earth and we are born and live and die. This is being in the world. But not being \u201cof\u201d the world means that one should not live for it, with only earthly things as a goal. There\u2019s life after death, so the church says, and we should prepare for it through our life on earth.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot to say on this topic, and I\u2019ve filled three pages of a Google document already; I promise you that I could fill more. But in all honesty Susan didn\u2019t go to Narnia-heaven because she wasn\u2019t dead. Maybe at that time in her life her unbelief saved her; maybe the fact that she wasn\u2019t on the train to discuss something she didn\u2019t believe was Aslan\u2019s way of giving her more time to realize that Narnia was still a real and important aspect of her life. Or maybe she grows bitter and old after the deaths of so many loved ones, and never revisits Narnia.<\/p>\n

We can\u2019t know; her story was left as it was intentionally. But that\u2019s my take on Susan and her faith, on the nylons and lipstick and beaus and how none of that, ultimately, was the reason for her siblings\u2019 biting words or the seeming condemnation that is her unfinished story.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

dearbluetravelers: Ahhhhh okay I will. I\u2019ve been keeping it in a Google doc, and\u2026 wow it got long. Apologies for messy words or scattered thoughts; here it is. . . Alright, I love Susan. And I love the Chronicles of Narnia. But you have to understand where C.S. Lewis is coming from. He wrote the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “You should post your Susan Pensive meta (if it’s not to much of a hassle). Even if it doesn’t get a lot of attention someone (probably quite a few someones) will see it and get something out of it (I know I would). And if not that then you would at least have your thoughts documented somewhere (which is the point of a blog is it not). Anyways I’m sure there’s quite a number of people who would love to read your thoughts on Susan (esp from a religious perspective!)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[8658,10929,4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175372"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175372\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}