“The great thing is to be always reading but not to get bored – treat it not like work, more as a vice!
Your book bill ought to be your biggest extravagance!” (C.S. Lewis)
The classic “Dawn Treader” book cover, just as it appeared stuffed inside a toy truck one Christmas morning in the late 1980’s. Best present ever!
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My sister and I were never grounded growing up – not because we weren’t disobedient, or because we manipulated our parents out of coming punishment, but rather because Mom and Dad knew exactly where and when to sound the alarm that we needed to straighten up, and right quickly: They took away the morning newspaper, and with it the freedom of imagination our minds craved. Oh, what craven punishment; what brutally effective parenting!* (*I am only joking, although this actually was effective parenting. We changed our behaviour, didn’t we Sara?)
As we raise our two year-old daughter, I am acutely aware as we enter into the stage of regular discipline and shaping just how deeply I personally want Mia to fall in love with books more than almost any other thing in her life. Reading changed me, and has shaped my life profoundly, unlocking doors of secret knowledge, wonderful worlds of imagination and whimsy, and a deep sense of self-reflection that I am proud of to this day. A 2014 study published in the scientific journal Brain Connectivity found the following:
“Becoming engrossed in a novel enhances connectivity in the brain and improves brain function. Interestingly, reading fiction was found to improve the reader’s ability to put themselves in another person’s shoes and flex the imagination in a way that is similar to the visualisation of muscle memory in sports.”
(Psychology Today, “Reading Fiction Improves Brain Connectivity and Function,” originally posted January 4th, 2014).
However, when I look back at my reading habits as an adult, I am somewhat embarrassed at how infrequently my imagination is engaged in this manner, whether it be because of the “seriousness” of the thick spiritual formation tomes I am reading, or the scramble to quickly master a new discipline (Hello, leadership theory!) for a course I am teaching, or most acutely, the all-too addictive glow of my iPhone before my eyes, begging to distract me further. Even when I have engaged in sustained reading, it has often been for a graduate seminary class, PhD studies, or some ‘noble’ purpose. Frittering away the long summer hours in a hammock, reading a novel from cover to cover, rarely happens in my life anymore.
It wasn’t until I began reading children’s stories to my daughter over the past two years that I remembered the power, and the pull, that reading has on me. The imagination that the turning of a brightly coloured page brings to a child, and to the child’s father as well, is simply unmatched.
And thus, I wish to welcome you to a new, shared learning initiative I am beginning, mostly for my own imagination’s sake, but which I am inviting you to journey with me into as well: Welcome to ‘The EKerk Book Club!’ The premise is simple, but with the power to shift the adult heart, mind, and soul proundly: What if we reclaimed the act of reading – for pleasure and imagination – again, allowing the Spirit to awaken something deeply within once again?
Our first novel will be one of my favourites as a child, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis, Book 3 in The Chronicles of Narnia series. I remembered recently that I took a class in seminary by one of the foremost C.S. Lewis scholars worldwide, Dr. Jerry Root, and that I had written a short book review on this novel for his course. Here is an excerpt of what I wrote:
“The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is book 3 of the 7-volume Chronicles of Narnia, and tells
the story of the journey of King Caspian, Edmund, Lucy, their irritable cousin Eustace, Reepicheep the courageous mouse, and a host of other magical creatures through the uncharted seas west of Cair Paravel, as they journeyed to the End of the World in search of 7 lost Lords of Narnia. As Edmund and Lucy return with their cousin Eustace to Narnia for a third time in Lewis’ Chronicles, they join Caspian, who has been ruling over peace-filled Narnia for quite some time in his charting across unknown waters, islands, and peoples on the edge of the world. They are trying to reach the End of the World in hopes of recovering lost friends, and possibly even catching a glimpse of Aslan’s country ‘beyond all things.’ Visiting such lands as The Lone Islands and the Islands of the Voices with the infamous Dufflepods, the adventures of this merry crew of adventurers is deeply profound in its spiritual metaphor.
Primary among the metaphors is the miraculous, slow redemption that takes place in Eustace’s heart and life, as he becomes a dragon on one of the islands. A dreadful boy, he is unable to tear his dragon skin off and to become a boy again out of his own power, leading to one of the most powerful scenes of redemption and transformation in the whole Narnian Chronicles, as Aslan the gentle, yet fierce lion ‘undresses him.’ Yet, the most powerful concept taken from this amazing story is the fact that Eustace’s transformation was final, yet gradual in nature at the same time. I found great hope in these words: ‘It would be nice, and fairly nearly true, to say that ‘from that time forth Eustace was a different boy.’ To be strictly accurate, he began to be a different boy. He had relapses. There were still many days when he could be very tiresome. But most of those I shall not notice. The cure had begun.’” (Lewis, p. 93). (Originally written in 2008).
Doesn’t this short excerpt make you want to dig out a dog-eared copy from your child’s bookshelf, and fling the door of your mind wide open to the gentle, fierce lion Aslan once again?
Please join me in doing so. We will take the entire month of May 2016 to read through this short work, which once you begin, you will fly through in a few short hours. At the end of May 2016, I will post a reflection of Lewis’ work on our blog and Facebook page, inviting you to dialogue with me in the myriad ways that only reading can begin within us. I’m excited for this new adventure!
The first page awaits you...
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