The Return of Strange Platypus(es)
I was sitting in my office the other day in a rather downcast mood. With all the reading I had been doing lately, I’d amassed quite a list of duties that all seemed to jostle and push about for first place in my attentions. It ran something like this:
Read the Bible more
Pray more
Make sure to stay as active as possible in Church
Keep up on current world politics to be a good citizen
Follow current American political scene and develop positions on key issues
Continue research into global slavery and consumer products
Make more time for spiritual disciplines such as silence and fasting
Give Kreeft’s Catholic arguments in “Ecumenical Jihad” a fair hearing
Increase exercise and modify diet to deal with stomach trouble
Keep up on “hard” reading to stay sharp
Of course the list could have gone on longer, and my main feeling after I’d set it down was embarrassment at how short it was. Surely, I had no right to feel in the least perplexed or overwhelmed. After all, these things were just part of life in the modern world. “To whom much I given, much more will be demanded.” Somehow, this seemed only to increase my sense of guilt, and I was on the point of adding more to my list when the sudden smell of tobacco filled the room. I checked the window; it was closed. I was on the point of checking the others in the house when a stentorian voice boomed behind me: “I say, we’re right behind you, old boy.” I turned around and wondered if the new meds the doctor had put me on had strong side effects. Leaning against the far wall was a rather disheveled looking man of about middle age with black hair and a bald head. In my blue chair was another, rather leaner than the first, with hair that was sandy-blond.
Me: What the crap?
Lewis: There’s no need for vulgarity.
Tolkien: You know, Jack, I don’t think he believes in us. Rather unfair, don’t you think, considering we’re practically his patron saints.
Lewis: let’s keep this ecumenical, Ronald.
Tolkien: Have it your way, Jack.
Me: Ok. Ok. Am I dead?
Lewis: Most certainly not; though not alive as we are. Still, that can’t be helped.
Tolkien: At least not yet, at any rate.
Me: So, if I’m not dead, what are you two doing here?
Lewis: Excellent question. Let me turn it around. What are you doing here?
Me: Um, typing.
Lewis: No, no, that won’t do at all.
Me: Am I imagining this?
Lewis: Perhaps.
Me: So none of this is real.
Lewis: Why do you think that something occurring in the imagination isn’t real?
Me: That sounds like J.K. Rowling.
Tolkien: I can’t abide those books.
Lewis: They’re tolerably good.
Tolkien: That won’t do Jack. You know as well as I that they don’t follow the proper cannons of sub-creation.
Lewis: To be fair, I don’t think you always followed them yourself.
Tolkien: Really?
Lewis: That bit about the talking eagles?
Tolkien: Who says giant eagles can’t talk?
Me: Wow. As cool as this is, can we get back to the question of why you two are here?
Lewis: Quite, quite. It seems you have a problem of organization.
Me: Tell me about it.
Lewis: I can’t, it’s your problem.
Me: That was funny. Seriously, though, how am I supposed to get all these things done?
Lewis: Take your list, get out a calendar and a day planner and begin organizing. Is that really your question?
Me: Well, no. I know I’ve been working on all this stuff already, but it’s leaving me utterly exhausted.
Lewis: It sounds as though you’ve forgotten what our Lord said to Martha.
Me: Yeah, but it’s pretty hard to be Mary and get everything done.
Lewis: That’s because you’ve got it all the wrong way. You might say that you are putting the cart before the horse. There is no evidence is scripture that Mary’s contemplation of our Lord kept her from the active life. On the contrary, it seems to have given her the proper object for her efforts and from that object, Christ, flowed the energy to follow Him.
Me: Energy?
Lewis: Yes. Our Lord calls himself the vine and calls us his branches. You know enough gardening to know what happens when a branch is cut off.
Me: It withers.
Lewis: Correct. And why?
Me: Because it’s cut off from the water and nutrients brought up by the roots. So I need to read my Bible and pray more?
Lewis: No! That’s precisely the wrong way to look at it. You need to connect yourself to Christ. The sacred scriptures and prayer are a means to that end, not the end in itself. As is church attendance and even the receiving of the Blessed Sacrament. We don’t receive it to find favor with God, we receive it because there Christ vere latitat. They are means of getting the Christ life into us; brining us to Christ.
Me: So once I connect with Christ, then I’ll have energy to do the rest?
Lewis: We aren’t promised help with our own to-do lists, but grace to do what God commands: to take up our cross and follow him! Remember, that the Lord has prepared good works for us to do; we are not to go looking for our own. He is our captain, and we are to obey him. An officer obeys his superior, he doesn’t go to him with a checklist of things he’s done and then expect his superior to sign off on them. Remember your Milton!
Me: “He also serves who but stands and waits.”
Lewis: Good. Provided that when the orders come, he jumps to them.
Me: That’s great, but how do I do that.
Tolkien: You’re forgetting that he’s a Yank, Jack. Inaction doesn’t sit well with them. By the by, do I get a turn with him at some point, or are you still playing Socrates?
Lewis: How beastly of me! Jump right in, old man.
Tolkien: Finish your say first.
Lewis: Right then. Let’s take your prayer life. Have you remembered Christ there?
Me: Um, I ask for things in Jesus name?
Lewis: Be careful with that name. No, what I mean is, are you allowing Christ to supply you with the energy and guidance for that act?
Me: What do you mean?
Lewis: When you pray, you pray by means of Christ’s mediation. He is the one who makes your prayers acceptable to the Father. I think that’s what you American Evangelicals really mean when you tack “in Jesus’ name” on to all the ends of your prayers. Second, Christ is there in the room with you, helping you to know how to pray by means of the Holy Spirit. Are you being open to his guidance? Are you allowing him to teach you to pray?
Me: Isn’t that in one of your books.
Lewis: Why yes, forgive me for quoting myself, it’s a beastly habit.
Tolkien: I’d like to interject here if I may?
Lewis: Go right ahead.
Tolkien: Thank you. While we’re on the topic of what you two called “connecting with Christ,” I have to ask you about the Eucharist.
Me: Well, I’m not a Catholic.
Tolkien: No one’s perfect.
Me: Well what would you say if I was a Catholic?
Tolkien: If you were, I would say to you that it is the most efficient means of grace given us. Don’t ever neglect it. In fact, the more you struggle, the more often you ought to receive it; every day if possible. Remember what our Lord said, that his body is real food and his blood real drink. If you eat poorly, then you will get fat in the stomach. If you eat proper food, then you will be healthy. The more we rely only on the food that God has given us, the more strength we will find to do the tasks set before us.
Me: I’m sure there’s someway I can Evangelicalize that…
Tolkien: Please don’t.
Me: Sorry. What you said reminds me a lot of the lembas in “Lord of the Rings.”
Tolkien: Heavens, not another allegorist! I have enough to do with Jack here.
Lewis: I don’t know, Tollers, your “Leaf by Niggle” was quite a pretty allegory.
Tolkien: So perhaps I don’t object to allegory wholly, I just believe it ought to be kept in its place. Before you interrupt me, Lewis, let me answer this fellow’s question. In answer to your question, yes, that is one applicable meaning of the lembas. That said, my question to you is, are you making use of all the means of grace available?
Lewis: Remember that Ronald had a family as well as an academic career. He knows far more about dealing with busyness than I.
Me: But I thought you had an adopted family?
Lewis: For a time, but you must remember that I could always stay in my rooms at the college if I needed to get work done. Which brings me to another point: what would your perfect day look like?
Me: Get up at about ten; shower and eat breakfast. Then work through till lunch. After lunch, devotions, then work again until eight or nine, and rest and relaxation with my wife or a few friends until around twelve. Bed at one or two?
Lewis: You sleep in far too late, but other than that, it has only one problem.
Me: It’s selfish, I know.
Lewis: Better watch out, Tollers, he’s read our works!
Tolkien: I know. I can see quite a few on the shelf over there. Dear me, these illustrations are ghastly.
Me: Don’t look at the DVD rack.
Tolkien: Aach! Those infernal movies. They might as well have let Disney get at it!
Lewis: They actually did a fair job with mine.
Tolkien: That wasn’t too hard.
Me: Could we get back to the point?
Tolkien: Sorry. Get on with it Jack, make your point.
Lewis: Yes, yes. So you know that it would be selfish. Have you ever considered, then, what God might be trying to do with all these interruptions, all these duties?
Me: Make me less selfish?
Lewis: In a word, yes, though you might amend selfish in this case to “self-focused.” Only by drawing us out of our shells, can Christ begin to fashion us into his likeness. Sometimes he woos us out by his beauty, other times he forces us out with a few kicks. Pain, after all, is God’s megaphone for speaking to a deaf world.
Tolkien: It’s a sort of purgatory if you like. We must all be taught through discipline to be less ourselves so that we can become more the selves that God intends us to be.
Me: But what abut my list?
Tolkien: Come on, Jack, I think you’ve beat his head around enough for one day.
Lewis: Think back about what we’ve said here, and I think it will answer your question.
At this point, Tolkien blew out a rather spectacular smoke ring and both men disappeared.
Read the Bible more
Pray more
Make sure to stay as active as possible in Church
Keep up on current world politics to be a good citizen
Follow current American political scene and develop positions on key issues
Continue research into global slavery and consumer products
Make more time for spiritual disciplines such as silence and fasting
Give Kreeft’s Catholic arguments in “Ecumenical Jihad” a fair hearing
Increase exercise and modify diet to deal with stomach trouble
Keep up on “hard” reading to stay sharp
Of course the list could have gone on longer, and my main feeling after I’d set it down was embarrassment at how short it was. Surely, I had no right to feel in the least perplexed or overwhelmed. After all, these things were just part of life in the modern world. “To whom much I given, much more will be demanded.” Somehow, this seemed only to increase my sense of guilt, and I was on the point of adding more to my list when the sudden smell of tobacco filled the room. I checked the window; it was closed. I was on the point of checking the others in the house when a stentorian voice boomed behind me: “I say, we’re right behind you, old boy.” I turned around and wondered if the new meds the doctor had put me on had strong side effects. Leaning against the far wall was a rather disheveled looking man of about middle age with black hair and a bald head. In my blue chair was another, rather leaner than the first, with hair that was sandy-blond.
Me: What the crap?
Lewis: There’s no need for vulgarity.
Tolkien: You know, Jack, I don’t think he believes in us. Rather unfair, don’t you think, considering we’re practically his patron saints.
Lewis: let’s keep this ecumenical, Ronald.
Tolkien: Have it your way, Jack.
Me: Ok. Ok. Am I dead?
Lewis: Most certainly not; though not alive as we are. Still, that can’t be helped.
Tolkien: At least not yet, at any rate.
Me: So, if I’m not dead, what are you two doing here?
Lewis: Excellent question. Let me turn it around. What are you doing here?
Me: Um, typing.
Lewis: No, no, that won’t do at all.
Me: Am I imagining this?
Lewis: Perhaps.
Me: So none of this is real.
Lewis: Why do you think that something occurring in the imagination isn’t real?
Me: That sounds like J.K. Rowling.
Tolkien: I can’t abide those books.
Lewis: They’re tolerably good.
Tolkien: That won’t do Jack. You know as well as I that they don’t follow the proper cannons of sub-creation.
Lewis: To be fair, I don’t think you always followed them yourself.
Tolkien: Really?
Lewis: That bit about the talking eagles?
Tolkien: Who says giant eagles can’t talk?
Me: Wow. As cool as this is, can we get back to the question of why you two are here?
Lewis: Quite, quite. It seems you have a problem of organization.
Me: Tell me about it.
Lewis: I can’t, it’s your problem.
Me: That was funny. Seriously, though, how am I supposed to get all these things done?
Lewis: Take your list, get out a calendar and a day planner and begin organizing. Is that really your question?
Me: Well, no. I know I’ve been working on all this stuff already, but it’s leaving me utterly exhausted.
Lewis: It sounds as though you’ve forgotten what our Lord said to Martha.
Me: Yeah, but it’s pretty hard to be Mary and get everything done.
Lewis: That’s because you’ve got it all the wrong way. You might say that you are putting the cart before the horse. There is no evidence is scripture that Mary’s contemplation of our Lord kept her from the active life. On the contrary, it seems to have given her the proper object for her efforts and from that object, Christ, flowed the energy to follow Him.
Me: Energy?
Lewis: Yes. Our Lord calls himself the vine and calls us his branches. You know enough gardening to know what happens when a branch is cut off.
Me: It withers.
Lewis: Correct. And why?
Me: Because it’s cut off from the water and nutrients brought up by the roots. So I need to read my Bible and pray more?
Lewis: No! That’s precisely the wrong way to look at it. You need to connect yourself to Christ. The sacred scriptures and prayer are a means to that end, not the end in itself. As is church attendance and even the receiving of the Blessed Sacrament. We don’t receive it to find favor with God, we receive it because there Christ vere latitat. They are means of getting the Christ life into us; brining us to Christ.
Me: So once I connect with Christ, then I’ll have energy to do the rest?
Lewis: We aren’t promised help with our own to-do lists, but grace to do what God commands: to take up our cross and follow him! Remember, that the Lord has prepared good works for us to do; we are not to go looking for our own. He is our captain, and we are to obey him. An officer obeys his superior, he doesn’t go to him with a checklist of things he’s done and then expect his superior to sign off on them. Remember your Milton!
Me: “He also serves who but stands and waits.”
Lewis: Good. Provided that when the orders come, he jumps to them.
Me: That’s great, but how do I do that.
Tolkien: You’re forgetting that he’s a Yank, Jack. Inaction doesn’t sit well with them. By the by, do I get a turn with him at some point, or are you still playing Socrates?
Lewis: How beastly of me! Jump right in, old man.
Tolkien: Finish your say first.
Lewis: Right then. Let’s take your prayer life. Have you remembered Christ there?
Me: Um, I ask for things in Jesus name?
Lewis: Be careful with that name. No, what I mean is, are you allowing Christ to supply you with the energy and guidance for that act?
Me: What do you mean?
Lewis: When you pray, you pray by means of Christ’s mediation. He is the one who makes your prayers acceptable to the Father. I think that’s what you American Evangelicals really mean when you tack “in Jesus’ name” on to all the ends of your prayers. Second, Christ is there in the room with you, helping you to know how to pray by means of the Holy Spirit. Are you being open to his guidance? Are you allowing him to teach you to pray?
Me: Isn’t that in one of your books.
Lewis: Why yes, forgive me for quoting myself, it’s a beastly habit.
Tolkien: I’d like to interject here if I may?
Lewis: Go right ahead.
Tolkien: Thank you. While we’re on the topic of what you two called “connecting with Christ,” I have to ask you about the Eucharist.
Me: Well, I’m not a Catholic.
Tolkien: No one’s perfect.
Me: Well what would you say if I was a Catholic?
Tolkien: If you were, I would say to you that it is the most efficient means of grace given us. Don’t ever neglect it. In fact, the more you struggle, the more often you ought to receive it; every day if possible. Remember what our Lord said, that his body is real food and his blood real drink. If you eat poorly, then you will get fat in the stomach. If you eat proper food, then you will be healthy. The more we rely only on the food that God has given us, the more strength we will find to do the tasks set before us.
Me: I’m sure there’s someway I can Evangelicalize that…
Tolkien: Please don’t.
Me: Sorry. What you said reminds me a lot of the lembas in “Lord of the Rings.”
Tolkien: Heavens, not another allegorist! I have enough to do with Jack here.
Lewis: I don’t know, Tollers, your “Leaf by Niggle” was quite a pretty allegory.
Tolkien: So perhaps I don’t object to allegory wholly, I just believe it ought to be kept in its place. Before you interrupt me, Lewis, let me answer this fellow’s question. In answer to your question, yes, that is one applicable meaning of the lembas. That said, my question to you is, are you making use of all the means of grace available?
Lewis: Remember that Ronald had a family as well as an academic career. He knows far more about dealing with busyness than I.
Me: But I thought you had an adopted family?
Lewis: For a time, but you must remember that I could always stay in my rooms at the college if I needed to get work done. Which brings me to another point: what would your perfect day look like?
Me: Get up at about ten; shower and eat breakfast. Then work through till lunch. After lunch, devotions, then work again until eight or nine, and rest and relaxation with my wife or a few friends until around twelve. Bed at one or two?
Lewis: You sleep in far too late, but other than that, it has only one problem.
Me: It’s selfish, I know.
Lewis: Better watch out, Tollers, he’s read our works!
Tolkien: I know. I can see quite a few on the shelf over there. Dear me, these illustrations are ghastly.
Me: Don’t look at the DVD rack.
Tolkien: Aach! Those infernal movies. They might as well have let Disney get at it!
Lewis: They actually did a fair job with mine.
Tolkien: That wasn’t too hard.
Me: Could we get back to the point?
Tolkien: Sorry. Get on with it Jack, make your point.
Lewis: Yes, yes. So you know that it would be selfish. Have you ever considered, then, what God might be trying to do with all these interruptions, all these duties?
Me: Make me less selfish?
Lewis: In a word, yes, though you might amend selfish in this case to “self-focused.” Only by drawing us out of our shells, can Christ begin to fashion us into his likeness. Sometimes he woos us out by his beauty, other times he forces us out with a few kicks. Pain, after all, is God’s megaphone for speaking to a deaf world.
Tolkien: It’s a sort of purgatory if you like. We must all be taught through discipline to be less ourselves so that we can become more the selves that God intends us to be.
Me: But what abut my list?
Tolkien: Come on, Jack, I think you’ve beat his head around enough for one day.
Lewis: Think back about what we’ve said here, and I think it will answer your question.
At this point, Tolkien blew out a rather spectacular smoke ring and both men disappeared.
Comments
I think we all struggle with this. The comment about us Yanks not knowing how not to be doing something was spot on.