In Which Peter Believes in Lucy

In many ways the sixth chapter of “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” is a breath of fresh air. Finally the Pevensie siblings have made it all into the wood and Lucy is finally vindicated from any presumption of insanity or falsehood. She really saw the most fantastical things and they really are all true.

The elder siblings find it difficult to believe, but nevertheless, as Peter states, “Why I do believe we’ve got into Lucy’s wood after all.”

Susan, the motherly type of the group, naturally reacts to the physical needs of the group. It’s cold, it’s winter, they need to get those coats on. Peter, the more stalwart morally minded, is concerned that the coats don’t actually belong to them. Susan explains that it isn’t theft since the whole country is in the wardrobe. Physical needs trump rigid moralism.

Here is where the movies and the books diverge, and it’s quite telling. In the most recent film it’s revealed that Edmund knew and was making out Lucy was a liar and then they dole out the coats following an outburst from Peter. And Edmund is given a girl’s style coat. He is effectively shamed and emasculated by his brother for his lying behavior.

As a writer myself, I understand the need for a scene like that. There has to be some animosity in order to give the audience a reasonable motive for his eventual betrayal. Edmund’s gluttony for Turkish delight isn’t enough for modern audiences. The addiction and craving related to so tiny a morsel doesn’t play for us. Never mind that we have all manner of evidence for this everywhere around us. A beverage that can cause us to lose our inhibitions and make terrible life altering mistakes? Ridiculous. A powder or weed or injection that you could love more than your own family or personal well-being? Rubbish of the highest order. An alluring individual who could manipulate you into giving over your life savings, dignity, or honor with just words? Where do they come up with this stuff? That doesn’t happen in the real world.

Mr. Lewis, however, finds Turkish delight and the influence of the White Witch, sorry, Queen of all Narnia to be sufficient reason.

The coats come out in a very interesting way.

“The coats were rather too big for them so that they came down to their heels and looked more like royal robes than coats when they had put them on. But they all felt a good deal warmer and each thought the others looked better in their new get-up and more suitable to the landscape.”

What we know, as we read this book for a second or twenty-second time, is that they, in fact, are royalty. When we operate in the realm of the Spirit and we align ourselves with the True and the Real, what we discover is that we are moving into our Real selves, that which we were meant to become since the beginning, since the foundation of the earth.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Genesis and the creation story. One of my close friends recently asked the question of “Why did God make us to begin with?” I was more than a little shocked that I didn’t have a sufficient answer on hand. I knew the standard pat answers about how God wanted a friend to hang out with, or for His nebulous “glory”. And those may be true. One of the things I have learned is that God never does one thing for one reason, or at least when He moves and acts it affects multiple layers of reality or layers of purposes. But, that being said, one of the things that does appear in the Genesis account, is that we are here to rule. We are like mini-kings, who were meant to rule the earth in the same manner as God would. Vice-regents, perhaps, but we are royalty.

We are given dominion over creation and the choice to be a good king/queen or a terrible king/queen. Nature responds to the virtue of our rule. Interestingly enough, our interpersonal relationships do the same.

I’m digressing, but my point is that the coats looking like robes here is a foreshadow of what is to come; that which is already true. They look like royal robes on them because the children are royalty. Even Edmund. When we move with the Spirit things happen because that is who we are. Even those who dismiss mystics and say we are empty-headed flower children. The royalty element is non-negotiable. The outcome based on the virtue of royalty is evident. Judge by fruit. Ok, enough. Moving on.

I love how Lucy’s reaction in the magical land is to pretend they are arctic explorers. Narnia is totally normalized to her now. It’s real. There is no doubt. They all got in, and her first thing is to essentially say, “Sweet, we can play pretend!”

Peter says his first truly sensible phrase. “This is going to be exciting enough without pretending.”

Mystics move in such a way that we want to delve to the bottom of the well. The truth is that when it comes to God, there is no bottom. We truly could seek for depth after depth and hardly ever stand still a moment and appreciate where and when we are at. I don’t want to believe that I need Peters. I want them to see what I see and go further with me “Provehito in Altum” (further into the deep), but they have a part to play in our growth. There is work to do. We need the moves of the Spirit, we need to hold up a minute and have a practical application of our giftings, and often, as loathe as I am to admit it, we need someone to lead and point. I wouldn’t say we need someone to “hold us back” or “reign us in”. It’s more something to do with needing the occasional grounding. It would be easy for some to run off and travel constantly seeing new sights and cultures and filling up on excitement and never establish connections at home.

The Peters can be amazing though, as the elder Pevensie is here, when he decides that perhaps his little sister knows best in this instance, and lets her lead.

“Where will you take us, Lu?”

You can almost feel her incandescent glow as the eldest, the leader, the protector, the valiant one of the group trusts her enough to let her show the way. He believes; not just in Narnia but also in her.