I’ll teach you a simple trick to make my face light up these days. Ask me about one of the Inklings, or about anything that they have written or produced. This informal literary discussion group in the orbit of the University of Oxford were in creative fellowship with one another through the 1930’s and 40’s, and this loose tribe included a variety of persons, but most notably C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Owen Barfield, and Charles Williams (one must reckon with Dorothy Sayers who is not technically an Inkling, but part of the same vital universe of thought). Just before the “present circumstances,” I had begun been reading widely among these authors and their friends. It is clear to me that this period and this community represents a high-water mark of the integration of an incisive humanist Christian vision for our time (countering the broadly dehumanizing forces that were growing in strength) alongside a commitment to the highest level of creativity, drama, and whimsy that one could conjure in works of fiction, poetry, fantasy, science fiction, philology, pedagogy, and even crime mysteries. You just can’t go wrong if you go down anyone of the “rabbit-holes” that these visionaries have provided to discover the boundless caverns within.
It is all the more impressive that their work was created in the shadow of the Great War (some of the writers were directly involved) and during the Second World War. I marvel that these great calamities and global conflagrations did not extinguish their hope and their enduring desire to know God and share the Gospel more deeply through their creations. Despite the world becoming an overwhelming horror, they endured and even thrived, in ways that build up my spirit even now. Many of them considered their work and the fantastical worlds that they created (for examples Lewis’ Narnia and Tolkien’s Arda) to be kinds of “sub-creation.” They built these world not to compete with Creation or to escape from it, but to echo the creative work of God, to be like the Creator. And in their creations, the “veil of familiarity” would be lifted, and the reader would be empowered to see the Real World more vividly. And the works do not just provide dry knowledge, but point to delight and joy that can endure the calamities of their worlds and of ours.
Most recently, I have been trying to discover more about the source material of these great writers, another kind of “rabbit-hole.” This has led me backward to George MacDonald’s fairy tales, Coleridge’s poetry, Dante’s Divina Commedia (a most excellent translation by Dorothy Sayers cannot be missed). These were familiar. But one figure in their heritage had completely escaped me until now, a gap in my studies. Many of the Inklings took great inspiration from the work of Boethius (475-525 A.D.).
Boethius was a Christian and Roman aristocrat who was executed by the state after an unfortunate bit of intrigue. He is now seen as an intermediary between the ancient philosophers and the theologians of the Middle Ages. Like the Inklings, he made theological and philosophical ideas dramatic and accessible, and his final work, Consolation of Philosophy, has me transfixed. It is a sequence of dialogue (a bit like the work of Plato) and hymns between him and personified Lady Philosophy, all taking place while he is in exile awaiting judgment. They talk a lot about what it is to be successful in life. And they also engage a lot about what kind of success really lasts. What can “Lady Fortune” take away just as easily as she can give? And should we value those things that are so ephemeral, those that rise and fall on her great Wheel?
One of the convictions that they discover together in their talk and song is that whether Fortune is good or whether it is bad, there is a core of reality that is ultimately Good. There are enduring realities and values which are ours no matter how vexing life may become. You may read about those here. Now they admit that this is an extraordinarily difficult teaching (especially for those who are in deep suffering), but they proclaim it all the same, after much back and forth:
(Lady) Philosophy said: “Every lot is good whether it be harsh or pleasing.” And at this I was afraid and said: “What thou sayest is true: yet I know not who would dare to say so to foolish men, for no fool could believe it.”
One of the more troubled Inklings, Charles Williams, wrote a lively Christmas Play for his friends called “The Death of Good Fortune.” The Play/Poem was written in 1939, but not published until the 60’s, and it builds on the bold conviction of Boethius when it comes to life’s circumstances. It is a sort of mystery play in which Our Lady plays a pivotal role. A man named Good Fortune comes to an almost-fairy land with a King, a Lover, a Magician, a Skeptic. He makes their lives materially better, they practically worship him for it, but then Good Fortune dies and everything goes wrong for them. In their desolation, Mary appears among the people of the land and raises Good Fortune from the dead, giving him a new name: Blessed Luck. She had said she would do this in the prologue:
MARY: I have determined that in this town this very day
this gay popular lord (Good Fortune) shall come to his change
and a strange new vision of himself; for now
my lord my Son has made this clear –
that all luck is good luck. And I,
I struck by seven swords, witness too
that all substance is love, all luck is good.
These words of Our Lady are no more demanding than Lady Philosophy’s. But it is our spiritual task to reckon with them. In the play, some people accept Mary’s words, but some do not. Please read the short play here, it is quite good.
From the outside, I imagine that people may consider us foolish for naming the worst day (the Crucifixion of our Lord) as Good Friday. But we do, bless our hearts! Every year, we are called to strain our spiritual vision and consider how God has transfigured the decidedly unfortunate horror of that day into salvation, blessing, and consolation for untold billions. If a day like that can be so transmuted into gold, what does that say about our bad days, bad months, bad years? What can God do with the true substance of our lives, no matter how the Wheel of Fortune turns?
Here are Mary’s final words from the play, as good as any, address to us:
MARY: Substance moves in you; my lord your Son
loves you; choose your ways. Go with God.
