Alister McGrath’s fascinating biography, C.S. Lewis: A
Life – Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet, explores the forces that shaped
Lewis’ life and work. McGrath describes
the timeline of events that led to his subject’s conversion. One part of the story that captured my
attention was how on the day he came to recognize the divinity of Christ, Lewis
himself noted being especially captivated by a field of blue flowers.
“Lewis’s heightened attention to
the bluebells may well reflect their symbolic association with this moment of
insight – after all, Lewis tells us that he had long been a self-confessed
‘votary of the Blue Flower.’ The ‘Blue
Flower’ motif in German Romanticism has complex historical roots. It was first stated in Novalis’s posthumously
published fragment of a novel Heinrich
von Ofterdingen (1802), and came to symbolize a longing for the elusive
reconciliation of reason and imagination, the observed world outside the mind
and the subjective world within. The
bright blue European cornflower is often cited as an inspiration for this
symbol. It is easily extended to
bluebells.” (p. 154)
Before his conversion to Christianity, Lewis had struggled
to reconcile the two halves of his mind.
But in finding Christ, his “Blue Flower,” he finally found a way to hold
both reason and imagination together.
In most Christian circles there is serious pressure to hold
to a ‘blue ribbon’ faith – one that lines up sufficiently to accepted creeds
and statements of faith. Now while there
is certainly a place for teaching orthodoxy, what if instead of focusing our
energies on striving after that ‘blue ribbon’, confirming that the faith has
the stamp of approval, we were focused on becoming ‘votaries of the Blue
Flower?” What if our way of discipling
people was truly holistic as we helped others take up an ‘owned’ faith that was
fully alive in both halves of the mind? Could
we begin to think of a truly ‘blue ribbon’ faith as the kind that points
towards the one found in the Blue Flower – one that fully uses reason and
imagination?
Lewis was an avid walker and he spent many afternoons hiking
around the English countryside. Lewis’
faith had legs, too, and he models for us a way of believing that used both
legs. He used both the leg of reason and the leg of imagination to allow him to travel deep into the country of His King. So many followers of Christ, though, are
unable to venture that far from home.
They stumble and hop on their preferred leg of either reason or imagination.
Lewis produced well-reasoned accounts of faith that have
stood the test of time like Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain.
He also gave us more imaginative works, like the Narnia series and The Great
Divorce. Both kinds have shaped the minds of countless people.
So, to use another image, we could think of reason and
imagination like the two blades that form a pair of scissors. If only one side is sharp, the scissors are
rendered powerless. Lacking a healthy
pair of blades the disciple is unable to cut through the cords that keep
him or her in bondage.
When I think about the kind of faith that I want to pass on to
the people around me, my hope is that they’ll find more than just the ‘blue ribbon’
of orthodoxy. I want to give expression
to a faith that engages both sides of the mind and develops capacities for reason
and imagination.
May God help us make fully-formed disciples, fellow devotees
of the ‘Blue Flower.’
Grace and Peace,
Alan
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