Throw yourself into the wave

"He gave me no assurance. No Fixed Lands. Always one must throw oneself into the wave." -King Tor of Perelandra

C.S. Lewis, in Perelandra, sets forth the notion that Venus (called Perelandra) has human life on it, a new proverbial Eden, pre-fall. The two (green-skinned) humans are given the same opportunity of Adam and Eve, but with a new challenge. You see, Perelandra is a watery planet, with islands that float on top of the waves. A still photograph of the islands would reveal landscapes similar to our own, however this landscape is constantly in flux, in motion, such that any point of land could at one moment be the top of a hill and the next the pit of a valley. Their "forbidden fruit", as it were, was an island that had roots beneath the water, a fixed land. Stability, a place to make a home in and return to, to own and control and find consistency. They were not allowed to sleep overnight on the fixed land.

The story is fascinating, and as this is no book report, I will leave it to you to enjoy the story of your own decision, but I was enamored with the outlook of King Tor, of always throwing yourself into whatever position you happen to find yourself. Whatever God sends your way, to take it on full force.

In "Surprised by Joy", Lewis (I am currently reading a lot of Lewis in hopes of finishing my goal of completing his collected bibliography) says, "Shut your mouth; open your eyes and ears. Take in what is there and give no thought to what might have been there or what is somewhere else."

Later he tells how a friend had shown him how to appreciate equally beauty and sorrow, to, in effect, take fully whatever came. "I learned from him that we should attempt a total surrender to whatever atmosphere was offering itself at the moment; in a squalid town to seek out those very places where its squalor rose to grimness and almost grandeur, on a dismal day to find the most dismal and dripping wood, on a windy day to seek the windiest ridge. There was no Betjemmanic irony about it; only a serious, yet gleeful, determination to rub one's nose in the very quiddity of each thing, to rejoice in its being (so magnificently) what it was."

How often do I get dissatisfied with how things are (and even consider that noble!) and not simply ignore the present joys but refuse them. The inhabitants of Perelandra considered (whether by habit or because they knew nothing else) each piece of fruit the best piece of fruit simply becuase it was the only one being eaten at the present. It could not be compared to fruit from yesterday nor to what fruit that might have been.

I think this is, for me, one of the ways that I would like to 'start living'. To live in such communion that I have no need of assurance or a fixed land, but need only the present and eternal Joy.

To throw myself into each wave.