Narnian Tears

I'm cleaning up superfluous blogs from my past and so am about to delete the "Little Dozen Press" blog. There are a couple of posts I want to keep, though, so I'm moving them here.

This was one was originally published in December 2005, just after The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe hit theatres.

First off, let it be known that I never cry at the movies. (That "never" is, of course, not meant to be taken literally. I shall now proceed to tell you about a movie I cried at.)

I've seen Narnia twice now, and both times I've cried. The first time I sniffled and blinked back tears; the second time I let tears stream down my face, and I just wiped them away now and again. No, I did not cry when they killed Aslan. I did not cry at the various reunitings among the siblings. I did not cry when everyone else cried.

I cried during the opening scenes. The bombings in London. Farewell at the station. Riding the train through unfamiliar places. The reality of World War II and all that it meant for so many hit me hard, and I couldn't hold back the tears.

Something else hit me, from a writer's standpoint: we write stories like Narnia because we've lived stories like the World Wars. In the previous post, I said that we're drawn to conflict in stories because conflict in real life is so significant; because it makes us who we are. In much the same way, we read and write stories like The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe because they help us understand life. They help us come to grips with Hitler and the Holocaust. They help us understand crucifixion. And if they can't give us peace and total understanding, they have the power to give us something just as important--

Hope.