The Best Books

I am an Episcopalian because of the books.  In my humble opinion, we write the best ones.  My adult evolution into Christianity and the Episcopal Church began with C.S. Lewis, pilfered from my father’s shelf.  Dad didn’t share Lewis’s theology, but he admired his philosophy and his way with words.  From Lewis I moved on to Robert Farrar Capon, whose delightfully vivid interpretation of the mystical grace of God in Christ just blew my mind.  In a very real way, I was led into church by my bookshelf.  

It goes even further back, to my childhood favorites, The Chronicles of Narnia, A Wrinkle in Time, and my young adult fascination with Harry Potter.  Those stories awoke a yearning in me, a yearning for mystery, salvation and grace (although I didn’t know those words at the time).  I wept when Aslan sacrificed himself to the White Witch, and my heart leapt when the Stone Table cracked as he came alive again.  I yearned to know the love of the great lion.  It took me years to understand I was yearning for God.  C.S. Lewis, in his autobiography, writes about moments of longing in his childhood, longing for something else, a sweet longing which passes after an instant, leaving him with a longing for the longing.   I learned about that longing through stories.  With Meg in A Wrinkle in Time, I defeated the evil It with the power of love.  With Harry Potter, I mourned for Dumbledore and grieved for the tragic love of Snape.  I rejoiced when Harry defeated Voldemort through his own death.

A few years ago, when I considered myself “definitely Not a Christian”, I had a conversation with a favorite uncle, an Episcopal priest.  I asked him how he came to Christianity in his life.  He told me, “It is our path and our dharma.”  For several years, I didn’t understand, so I explored all sorts of things:  Buddhism, Hinduism, atheism, Unitarianism.  Each was interesting and educational, but none of them thrilled my heart or satisfied my longing.  Finally, I let the books lead me home to the church.  The childhood stories written on my heart, of love triumphing over hate, of conquering through sacrifice, of losing one’s life in order to gain it, pulled me to the Christian story, the “greatest story”, the story on which they were based in the first place.  I found the delicious longing of my childhood in the gospel, the liturgy, and the hymns.  I found the love that I’d yearned for as a child in Christianity.

Now, I have a chance to inscribe those stories on the hearts of my children. Recently, I read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to my four year old daughter.  Right now, she mostly asks me things like, “Is the wolf a girl or a boy?  How old is Lucy?  What color is the witch’s dress?”  She might not understand the grand, sweeping, saga of Aslan’s sacrifice for the traitor, Edmund, but she cheered when they all defeated the witch.  I have a chance to watch her curiosity grow, maybe into longing, longing that can be satisfied with more stories.  I don’t know what her life will bring, but I am arming her with the best weapons, I can find--really, really good books.