Reverend Brian McGreevy continues his series, Not as Unwise but as Wise: Reflections from C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man and That Hideous Strength on Living Christianly in a Post-Christian World. This is available as a podcast on iTunes.
Episode 18: Not as Unwise but as Wise: Reflections from C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man and That Hideous StrengthChapter 7 summaryadapted from Rudy RentzelWhen Jane arrives at St. Anne’s after fleeing the man from the N.I.C.E. she had seen in her dreams, she meets with the Dennistons, Ivy Maggs, and Grace Ironwood to describe her most recent dream about the awaking corpse, in which they are deeply interested. Miss Ironwood asks whether Jane is ready to meet the Director, and after her affirmative response, she explains that he might look young but wasn’t, that he traveled where no one else had ever gone, and that he was often in great pain.
When Jane enters the Director’s room, “her world was unmade” as she is overwhelmed by the beauty and holiness of the man and his surroundings. Lying on a sofa in a sort of throne room, he looks like a 20-year-old golden boy, but his full beard and strength made it clear he was much older. One of his feet was bandaged, and “pain came and went in his face.” His voice was seemed like sunlight and gold. While the Director wants Jane to join them, he says that Mark’s role at the N.I.C.E. precludes this. Jane wishes to be a free agent and thinks she should be able to join regardless of Mark. The Director urges Jane to ask Mark to leave the N.I.C.E. and asks whether she wants to save Mark as well as herself. Confessing her unhappiness with Mark, Jane says Mark has lost her love and discusses this failure with the Director.
When Jane left the Director, she felt like four different women: the first simply receptive to what he said; the second deeply resistant; the third – a sort of moral Jane – agreed with the outlook presented by the Director; and the fourth Jane (which trumped the rest) simply in a state of Joy after meeting the Director. When Jane arrived by train in Edgestow, riots have broken out and she is arrested by the N.I.C.E. police and taken to Fairy Hardcastle, who interrogates and tortures her to try to find out where she has been. Jane refuses to talk or say anything about the company at St. Anne’s. By now, Jane felt enough loyalty to the group at St. Anne’s that she did not want to disclose their location. When the rioting crowds burst into the police station, Jane escapes and is picked up by a kindly couple, who, distressed by her appearance, offer to take her home. Jane replies (somewhat to her surprise) that the Manor at St. Anne’s was her home, so they take her there.
KEY PASSAGES FROM CHAPTER 7
“A few minutes later Jane found herself once more in Grace Ironwood’s room. Miss Ironwood and the Dennistons all sat facing her so that she felt as if she were the candidate in a viva voce examination. And when Ivy Maggs brought in the tea she did not go away again but sat down as if she also were one of the examiners. “Now!” said Camilla, her eyes and nostrils widened with a sort of fresh mental hunger — it was too concentrated to he called excitement. Jane glanced round the room. “You need not mind Ivy, young lady,” said Miss Ironwood. “She is one of our company.” –the company: one body
Jane told them about the dream of the corpse (if it was a corpse) in the dark place and how she had met the bearded man that morning in Market Street; and at once she was aware of having created intense interest. “Fancy!” said Ivy Maggs. “So we were right about Bragdon Wood!” said Camilla. “It is really Belbury,” said her husband. “But in that case, where does Alcasan come in?” “Excuse me,” said Miss Ironwood in her level voice, and the others became instantly silent. “We must not discuss the matter here. Mrs. Studdock has not yet joined us.”—membership in the company
“They passed out into the plain, narrow passage and thence up shallow steps into a large entrance hall whence a fine Georgian staircase led to the upper floors. The house, larger than Jane had at first supposed, was warm and very silent, and after so many days spent in fog, the autumn sunlight, falling on soft carpets and on walls, seemed to her bright and golden. On the first floor, but raised above it by six steps, they found a little square place with white pillars where Camilla, quiet and alert, sat waiting for them. There was a door behind her. “He will see her,” she said to Miss Ironwood, getting up. “Is he in much pain this morning?” “It is not continuous. It is one of his good days.” As Miss Ironwood raised her hand to knock on the door, Jane thought to herself, “Be careful. Don’t get let in for anything. All these long passages and low voices will make a fool of you, if you don’t look out. You’ll become another of this man’s female adorers.” Next moment she found herself going in. It was light — it seemed all windows. And it was warm — a fire blazed on the hearth. And blue was the prevailing colour. Before her eyes had taken it in she was annoyed, and in a way ashamed, to see that Miss Ironwood was courtesying.“This is the young lady, Sir,” said Miss Ironwood. Jane looked; and instantly her world was unmade. On a sofa before her, with one foot bandaged as if he had a wound, lay what appeared to be a boy, twenty years old. On one of the long window sills a tame jackdaw was walking up and down. The light of the fire with its weak reflection, and the light of the sun with its stronger reflection, contended on the ceiling. But all the light in the room seemed to run towards the gold hair and the gold beard of the wounded man. Of course he was not a boy — how could she have thought so? The fresh skin on his forehead and cheeks and, above all, on his hands, had suggested the idea. But no boy could have so full a beard. And no boy could be so strong. She had expected to see an invalid. Now it was manifest that the grip of those hands would be inescapable, and imagination suggested that those arms and shoulders could support the whole house. Miss Ironwood at her side struck her as a little old woman, shrivelled and pale — a thing you could have blown away. The sofa was placed on a kind of dais divided from the rest of the room by a step. She had an impression of massed hangings of blue — later, she saw that it was only a screen — behind the man, so that the effect was that of a throne room. She would have called it silly if, instead of seeing it, she had been told of it by another. Through the window she saw no trees nor hills nor shapes of other houses: only the level floor of mist, as if this man and she were perched in a blue tower overlooking the world. Pain came and went in his face: sudden jabs of sickening and burning pain. But as lightning goes through the darkness and the darkness closes up again and shows no trace, so the tranquillity of his countenance swallowed up each shock of torture. How could she have thought him young? Or old either? It came over her, with a sensation of quick fear, that this face was of no age at all. She had disliked bearded faces except for old men with white hair. But that was because she had long since forgotten the Imagined Arthur of her childhood — and the imagined Solomon too. Solomon — for the first time in many years the bright solar blend of king and lover and magician which hangs about that name stole back upon her mind. For the first time in all those years she tasted the word King itself with all linked associations of battle, marriage, priesthood, mercy, and power. At that moment, as her eyes first rested on his face, Jane forgot who she was, and where, and her faint grudge against Grace Ironwood, and her more obscure grudge against Mark, and her childhood and her father’s house. It was, of course, only for a flash. Next moment she was once more the ordinary social Jane, flushed and confused to find that she had been staring rudely (at least she hoped that rudeness would be the main impression produced) at a total stranger. But her world was unmade; she knew that. Anything might happen now. –power of Beauty and Holiness“And the voice also seemed to be like sunlight and gold. Like gold not only as gold is beautiful but as it is heavy: like sunlight not only as it falls gently on English walls in autumn but as it beats down on the jungle or the desert to engender life or destroy it. And now it was addressing her. “You must forgive me for not getting up, Mrs. Studdock,” it said. “My foot is hurt.”—power of Beauty and Holiness
“For the first few minutes after Grace Ironwood had left them alone, Jane hardly took in what the Director was saying. It was not that her attention wandered; on the contrary, her attention was so fixed on him that it defeated itself. Every tone, every look (how could they have supposed she would think him young?), every gesture, was printing itself upon her memory; and it was not until she found that he had ceased speaking and was apparently awaiting an answer, that she realized she had taken in so little of what he had been saying. “I — I beg your pardon,” she said, wishing that she did not keep on turning red like a schoolgirl. “I was saying,” he answered, “that you have already done us the greatest possible service. We knew that one of the most dangerous attacks ever made upon the human race was coming very soon and in this island. We had an idea that Belbury might be connected with it. But we were not certain. We certainly did not know that Belbury was so important. That is why your information is so valuable. But in another way, it presents us with a difficulty. I mean a difficulty as far as you are concerned. We had hoped you would be able to join us — to become one of our army.” “Can I not, Sir?” said Jane. “It is difficult,” said the Director after a pause. “You see, your husband is in Belbury.”—power of the presence of Beauty and Holiness, danger of the N.I.C.E., spiritual warfare
“That is just the question,” said the Director, with a smile. “I am not allowed to be too prudent. I am not allowed to use desperate remedies until desperate diseases are really apparent. Otherwise we become just like our enemies — breaking all the rules whenever we imagine that it might possibly do some vague good to humanity in the remote future.”—ends do not justify the means
“This fourth and supreme Jane was simply in the state of Joy. The other three had no power upon her, for she was in the sphere of Jove, amid light and music and festal pomp, brimmed with life and radiant in health, jocund and clothed in shining garments…Whatever she tried to think of led back to the Director himself and, in him, to joy. She saw from the windows of the train the outlined beams of sunlight pouring over stubble or burnished woods and felt that they were like the notes of a trumpet. Her eyes rested on the rabbits and cows as they flitted by and she embraced them in heart with merry, holiday love. She delighted in the occasional speech of the one wizened old man who shared her compartment and saw, as never before, the beauty of his shrewd and sunny old mind, sweet as a nut and English as a chalk down. She reflected with surprise how long it was since music had played any part in her life, and resolved to listen to many chorales by Bach on the gramophone that evening. Or else — perhaps — she would read a great many Shakespeare sonnets. She rejoiced also in her hunger and thirst and decided that she would make herself buttered toast for tea — a great deal of buttered toast. And she rejoiced also in the consciousness of her own beauty; for she had the sensation — it may have been false in fact, but it had nothing to do with vanity that it was growing and expanding like a magic flower with every minute that passed.—transforming effect of loving the Director (Christ figure)THEMES THAT APPEAR IN CHAPTER 7
–the company: one body
–membership in the company
–power of Beauty and Holiness
–power of the presence of Beauty and Holiness, danger of the N.I.C.E., spiritual warfare
–ends do not justify the means
–power of presence of Beauty and Holiness to change us
–peace and beauty, “givenness” of objective reality v. subjectivism
–presence of Holiness leads to conviction of sin, value of obedience
–equality as a false god
–symbolism of wine and breaking bread
—beauty of obedience
–transforming effect of loving the Director (Christ figure)
–perversity and Evil
–kindness and true Home
Practices of Hope and of Wisdom
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.—Philippians 4:8-9
1.Make regular worship in the beauty of holiness your highest priority. O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. So I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands.(Ps. 63) One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to meditate in His temple. (Ps. 27:4)
2.Prepare your heart before and after worship and allow the Holy Spirit to work transformation in you. Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. (Heb. 10:22) In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train[a] of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said:“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”… And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”(Is. 6:1-5)
3.Reflect during the week on Truth, Beauty, and Goodness you encountered in worship. These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go to the house of God under the protection of the Mighty One with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng.(Ps. 42:4) I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your wonders of old. (Ps. 77:11
4.Proactively choose to surround yourself with and to focus on Beauty. (Phil. 4:8-9)
5.Practice radical kindness. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. (Eph. 4:32) But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. (Lk. 6:32)
The Morning-Watch
–-Henry Vaughan (1621-1695)
O joys! infinite sweetness! with what flow’rs
And shoots of glory my soul breaks and buds!
All the long hours of night, and rest,
Through the still shrouds of sleep, and clouds,
This dew fell on my breast;
Oh, how it bloods
And spirits all my earth! Hark! In what rings
And hymning circulations the quick world
Awakes and sings;
The rising winds
And falling springs,
Birds, beasts, all things
Adore him in their kinds.
Thus all is hurl’d
In sacred hymns and order, the great chime
And symphony of nature. Prayer is
The world in tune,
A spirit voice,
And vocal joys
Whose echo is heav’n’s bliss.
O let me climb
When I lie down! The pious soul by night
Is like a clouded star whose beams, though said
To shed their light under some cloud,
Yet are above,
And shine and move
Beyond that misty shroud.
So in my bed,
That curtain’d grave, though sleep, like ashes, hide
My lamp and life, both shall in thee abide.
