Luck is Aslan?

While in the Smokies in May, I saw ads for the new Prince Caspian movie. The ads disturbed me, largely because Reepicheep the mouse looked to be solely comic relief. As I was explaining my indignation to the Mister, he wondered exactly what function a talking mouse with an extreme sense of honor would serve in a children's story other than comic relief.

As an attempt to answer this, I re-read all of The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. They remain magical. It's true that Reepicheep is comic, but he is so much more in my imagination. Just as Aslan talks but not in the voice of Liam Neeson and Mrs. Beaver is a busybody but she is not someone to be trifled with, I'm afraid that the movie will take the magic out of Reepicheep just as it did with The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.

In this reading of the Chronicles I noticed how explicitly Aslan (The Great Lion of Narnia: God) denounced luck. Nothing happens by chance. Everything happens because Aslan wills it. In The Horse and His Boy the Hermit tells as much to heroine Aravis, "Daughter, I have now lived a hundred and nine winters in this world and have never met any such thing as Luck," (pg. 143). Later young hero Shasta tells his troubles to an unseen voice who claims that Shasta has not been unfortunate. "Don't you think it was bad luck to meet so many lions?" asks Shasta to which the voice replies, "There was only one lion. . . . I was the lion," (pg. 158). When Shasta looks back the next morning he sees that he passed through precarious mountains in the night while talking to the voice, "I must have come through the pass in the night. What luck that I hit it!-- at least it wasn't luck at all really, it was Him," (pg. 162).

In an another book a human character comments at how lucky she's been and Aslan soundly chastises her. There is no luck in Narnia.

As a reader of fantasy novels, it's easy to see that things are not happening coincidentally and in Narnia, of course, Aslan is behind it all.

Living on earth now, I find it considerably more difficult to make the leap and believe that God is in charge of everything. I find myself agreeing with Charlie Andrews, young preacher in the movie Gandhi. When Gandhi and Charlie pass a tight situation without being beat up, Charlie comments, "That was lucky."
Gandhi replies, "Lucky? I thought you were a man of God?"
Charlie answers, "I am. But not so egotistical as to think He plans His day around my dilemmas."

Image from the Reepicheep blog.

If you are going to read the Chronicles, read them in the order they were published (The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe first). The recent sets which are chronological in Narnian time really make no sense as a reader. Genesis may come first, but if you are approaching the Bible with wonder about Christianity, start with a Gospel.