The Last Battle - some thoughts and a serious question

I have just finished reading the Chronicles of Narnia last night.

Took me from Chinese New Year's Eve (Jan 28) till yesterday to finish all 7 books, amidst my heavy work scheules and intensive MBA class in the last 9 days. Took a bit long...

The last book, with name “The Last Battle”, is talking about the end of the world, and what becomes of our world in the renewed world after the end of time.

I couldn’t tell you what the story line is, lest you lost the fun of reading it yourself, but this much I could tell you. I have this warm feeling, like a whirlpool of pleasantly warm water, surging in the inside of me.

I felt so happy, and in fact relieved, that the end of this world we know is really a beginning of new and much better world, and that this new world will never cease. What’s more, in this new world, you will never feel sad, or afraid, or anything of that sort. I know we are supposed to know this through the Revelations, but reading about it in a story book is very different, believe me.

What are especially relevant to me are that you might be able to swim (which I never dared), and you could see with perfect eyesight such that however near or however far you could still see as clearly (I am short-sighted, my eyes degenerated prematurely, and I have many relapses of macular edema).

I daresay I long to be in this new world a lot.

But am I fit for this new world?

Well I think I share the same feeling of Puzzle the donkey, the same one who was deceived into pretending to be Aslan, the saviour. I will definitely feel ashamed in the face of my Saviour, but I have the faint hope (well, I know I should feel more sure, but this is just my character) that I will be accepted by Him regardless of my own perception of myself. He certainly looks at things differently.

Think about the young Calormene nobleman Emeth. (By the way the Calormenes are a people living south of Narnia. They have no fear of the true God, and are generally mean and evil.) He had in his whole life believed in a different “god”, which is a demon in fact, yet his deeds were noble and righteous all along. Then he found out after the end of the world that Aslan was the real God, and thought that he would be doomed.

Yet to the contrary, Aslan received him as a loved one, because he said that:
"Not because he (Tash) and I (Aslan) are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the service which thou hast done to him. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service whick is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash (the evil one) and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted.”

How easy it is then to understand the Bible saying, “You called me Lord, Lord and you still don’t know me” in a parable told by Jesus!

But I must admit that by putting it this way, C S Lewis had posed a theological difficulty. Does it mean that one can NOT acknowledge the true God as God, but by way of one’s good deeds that one will still find favour in the Saviour’s eyes on the Judgment Day? Then does it mean that no one needs to be a Christian, or own up as a Christian in this mortal life?

I certainly do not believe so! One has to acknowledge that God is God when one knows that there is this God and heard about His deeds. I am not 100% sure about those who have never heard of God, but definitely not so otherwise.

What do you think?

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - the movie

Well, indeed I have seen the movie. I saw it when I was only one third into the book of the same title, but finished the first one which talked about how the land of Narnia came about.

Personally, I do think that the movie is already quite a good manifestation of the original story.

Of course, you cannot expect the movie to carry all the details of the book, but then the approach of storytelling of the book and the movie are too different to compare.

On the one hand, you have a narrator telling you the story, filling in the necessary background and addressing you like a child. On the other, you have a movie and no narrator, where you must try to make sense out of the sounds and sights presented to you.

The experience differ quite substantially if you view it at that angle.

But frankly speaking, I like both.

The books are easy to read, told like a father to his dear child, and give you quite clear directions in looking at life within and without the books. They are pleasant to read, short, and written in very good and easy English. The storylines are clear, yet with subtle hints to Christianity if you read between the lines.

At this, the movie lacks the ingenuity in which the morales behind are subtly weaving all through, but substitutes that with the visualization of perhaps a too different world to understand if you only read it. (At least for us who are not native speakers of the language it might be a bit hard to understand.)

So, all in all, I would recommend perhaps you see the movie first, in order not the spoil the fun of the adventures, but read the book, and its 6 other siblings, to get the full picture.

If you want to read it, perhaps I could lend the set to you when I am finished? I am now one third into the sixth book.

Narnia - Christianity made easy

As usual, what I read at a particular time is normally tied to what is the then popular story.
So, here I am, finished the first 5 books of The Chronicles of Narnia, and feeling great about the time I have spent so far.

As most of us know, The Chronicles of Narnia is written by the C.S. Lewis who is also a famous Christian author of such spiritual books as Mere Christianity. So, there are a lot of Christian themes into the Chronicles, such as creation, salvation, and walking with Christ in one's daily life.

So far, I found that the books are written in such a way that these themes could be easily understood even by young children who are starting to be able to read story books on their own.

If you want Christianity explained in extremely easy terms, here you are...

我就是挑，怎樣？

很多人都說我太挑，所以沒有對象。
以前我都是說不是我的問題，但，最近我的想法變了。
我認了，我就是挑。
那又怎樣了？不能夠嗎？
挑，其實不就是有堅持嗎？
為甚麽其他的堅持就值得大肆褒揚，我的小小堅持，而且只影響我自己的堅持，就要遭別人非議？
我爲甚麽要為別人而活？我自己覺得可以就好了。