Banana Bread and the Space Trilogy

This week has seen both one monumentous occasion and one wonderfully humbling revelation in my life. First, the monumentous occasion:

The picture you see is of me taking my first ever loaf of banana bread (or anything, come to think of it) out of the oven. It was absolutely delicious. I feel like this act symbolizes a fundamental shift in my life. Gone are the days of Matt the Barbarian. In this simple act, I have crossed the threshold into the hallowed halls of domestication. Though the physical substance only existed in the above presented state for a little over 30 minutes before it was consumed by my housemates, it has left an eternal impression on my psyche. And yes, that is an apron tied around my waist. I was caught up in the moment.

And now, for my wonderfully humbling revelation:

In my Lewis tutorial this week, I finished off his Space Trilogy with a reading of That Hideous Strength. I had read the first two for last week, so I got a really good picture of the flow of the three books into one complete story. Though I had read the trilogy before, it had been since 8th or 9th grade, so I was way over due.

From my reading of the Trilogy this time around, my revelation was this: God is so much bigger than us! How utterly beyond man’s comprehension is our Creator and His plan. This is a thread that runs through all three books in the series, but these thoughts came as I finished That Hideous Strength. In the book, Lewis ties in some interesting Arthurian legend to the mythology he creates in the first two books, introducing the character of Merlin in order to defeat the powers of evil embodied in the NICE Corporation. In the book Lewis uses Merlin as a type of channel for angelic powers to enter the scene, making the point that Merlin is the only person who could be used for this because his mind is “opened to be so invaded…one who by his own will once opened it.” His dabbling in the black arts is precisely why God can use him as the tool to save humanity.

But approaching this from a conservative Christian mindset sends up warning flags. Man isn’t supposed to mess with magic or witchcraft or any of that stuff. What kind of message is it sending when the world is saved because Merlin messed around with a forbidden subject? God can’t contradict Himself like that, right?

BUUZZZ, wrong. God’s bigger than that. God’s bigger than the box we often try to put Him in. Throughout our history, He’s used liars, murders, prostitutes and adulterers (and those are just a few of the stellar characters in the lineage of Christ) to carry out His plan. He used Balaam, a sorcerer hired by a foreign king who was hoping to curse Israel to rather bless them and then say “I can only say what the LORD tells me.” And in That Hideous Strength, I think this is the message Lewis is sending: We might think we have God figured out, but we have no idea. His ways are not our ways. And when it comes down to it, it doesn’t matter if we understand why He does things. It doesn’t matter if we can’t fit it into our systematic view of who God is. He is GOD. He’s way bigger than we can fathom and the only solid ground we can stand on when talking about Him is to admit that, by definition, what He does is right because all that exists belongs to Him.

Phew, I’ll step off the soap box now. I’m sure I’ve butchered the subject trying to retell it, but that’s what I was reminded of this week as I read some of good old Jack. I hope I haven’t become an apostate in my time away ;0). Let me know what you guys think. Have a wonderful week!