Gavin McLellan / Stranger in a strange land

“To sleep under the stars, and drink nothing but well water and to live chiefly on nuts and wild fruit, was a strange experience for Caspian after his bed with silken sheets in a tapestried chamber at the castle, with meals laid out on gold and silver dishes in the anteroom, with attendants ready at his call.  But he had never enjoyed himself more. Never had sleep been more refreshing nor food tasted more savoury, and he began already to harden and his face wore a kinglier look.”

‘Prince Caspian’, C S Lewis, 1951

Seeing the Prince Caspian movie again last Saturday with my kids reminded me to find these words. The description of finding himself taking refuge in the simpler, hardier world of the forest after being expelled from his familiar comfortable world, resonates with the solo experience on this project.  We all recently had a catch up together to check in, and all of us spoke of a point of departure.  We’ve left some old self behind and now find a newly hardening self forming.

But its confusing. Its troubling.  It’s not yet refreshing or enjoyable as Caspian found in the deep forest exile.  Although there are foretastes of it.  It feels that I am more open and tolerant of nature yet maybe more intolerant of those who dont.  I feel that my sense of time has shifted a little. Took me a while to grasp this notion of ‘being present, be aware.’ Yet what a gift of time it bestows. Things that would have troubled me a lot more in recent times have less power over me.  So my sense of time and pace has expanded, and maybe actually my ’sleep is more refreshing’ after all.

Simplicity beckons.  So much more attractive than ever before.  The Apostle Paul wrote to a young Timothy of having ‘just food and clothing’ and being content with that.  I am not yet anywhere near that.  Not ready to be the sojourner, itinerant, unsettled, living by my wits, in extreme faith and wing and prayer. No do I think that is what’s needed.  But some kind of transcendance is.  An elevation from excess want, finding satisfaction in ‘well water…nuts and fruit,’  There’s quite a few things I cant be bothered buying anymore. Not feeling the pinch in the recession because the wants reduce themselves to needs.

Being hardier isnt that hard at all.  Just do without..that CD, that IKEA item, garment, thing, and things for things!  Find other comforts, discover, look around, walk, cycle.  Feels corny but as Mother Theresa said, ‘live simply so that others may simply live.’

A kinglier look is harder.  Its about our dominion and responsibilities.  Finding a way to discharge them fairly, with no entanglement with injustice, no taint of compromise, seems a way off.  We kings and queens of the new strange world are hemmed in by structures that we try to resist Canute like.  Caspian overcame it through new alliances,  a new community, but before that a period of living in the exile of the stranger.

To sleep under the forest....