January has long been a big month for me.
On this day, in January of 1988, I was laying flat on my back on the couch, deep in the midst of my first major back attack. I was frustrated, trying to keep up with my first seminary class in preaching, which I was unable to attend. Reading was difficult. I couldn’t hold any of my sizable texts above my head.
A wise neighbor came to my rescue with a kid’s paperback set of The Chronicles of Narnia. I had never read them before. (Time out for gasping!)
Puddleglum became my favorite. He’s had a tendency to appear, in pivotal moments of my life, with one particular speech to make. And, yes, he appeared today, as I listened to Joe Biden become the 46th President of the United States of America, and make his inaugural address.
Biden’s speech was exactly right for this moment in time and I have no doubt that there will be reruns on CNN for days. C.S. Lewis, perhaps not so much. I feel led to help!
In the volume entitled The Silver Chair, Puddleglum, who, for the uninitiated, is a Marsh Wiggle, the Prince, and the two children are being held by the Witch, who is busy explaining why their journey to Narnia is juvenile and futile. Puddleglum isn’t having it. Let’s listen in…
“One word, Ma’am,” he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. “One word. All you’ve been saying is quite right, I shouldn’t wonder. I’m a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won’t deny any of what you said. But there’s one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things — trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that’s a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play world. I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we’re leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that’s small loss if the world’s as dull a place as you say.”
C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair, book 4 in the Chronicles of Narnia
In this moment, as I share with you a story of moving forward, on the road to Narnia, even in the moments when we’re not sure how to get there, I feel, for the first time I can recall, that my vote mattered.
Here’s what I’m learning.
First, we’ll never know when our votes will make this much difference and so we need to vote. Every time. With eyes on the future.
And, Georgia friends, YES, WE DID!
Now the real work starts for President Biden and Vice President Harris and for all of us. But first, in my world, time to hang out with dear friends at the opening of a Musea art show tonight.
I’m bustin’ out the feather boa! My #MysticLegend painting is included.
That’s big fun, of course, but it’s something much bigger as well. We, all of us who have become part of the Intentional Creativity® movement, are helping to create a bigger, more conscious, more inclusive world with the images which come to life through us.
And that, like voting, is Good Trouble!
ps… The photo today is lunch. Homemade pork broth and left over greens from New Year’s, saved just for today, because a little luck is a good thing, too!
pps… The Inaugural Poet, Amanda Gorman, totally, utterly rocked! Find a copy…