Now we are seventy

I crossed the round number age of 64 without any fuss despite the Beatles' rendition, because few are familiar with binary. But on having passed my 70th birthday (and Ali is just passed 71) a special brunch was put on for us this morning and accolades were read out. I found the experience quite overwhelming, humbling, that so many folk genuinely cared for, indeed love us.

Early in the morning I had discovered the arrangement in my photo and that was enough to make strong emotions rise in me, bringing to my remembrance:

"Ah!" roared Aslan. "You have conquered me. You have great hearts. Not for the sake of your dignity, Reepicheep, but for the love that is between you and your people, and still more for the kindness your people showed me long ago when you ate away the cords that bound me on the Stone Table (and it was then, though you have long forgotten it, that you began to be Talking Mice), you shall have your tail again.

There are a several resonances with my experience in this passage: one only will I draw attention to here, that it should be possible by our love for each other to conquer Aslan. 

That said, I find it a strange thing that I am now in my 70's. When I was younger I associated this age with decrepit, doddering, forgetful... The last one sticks but I'm still me inside.

Terribly good

In our meeting the other evening we sang the song "King of My Heart" by Bethel Music.  The chorus (which we repeated ad nauseam) goes:

'Cause You are good, You are good, oh oh
You are good, You are good, oh oh
You are good, You are good, oh oh
You are good, You are good, oh oh

reminiscent of Gerald's "Peace will come..." in Adrian Plass' Sacred Diary. It set me thinking... The endless repetition should, I suppose, be excused as a literary device denoting emphasis.  The song argues "You're never gonna to let me down" (also repeated) because "You are good". What, I wondered, goes through people's mind when they sing this? Is it good like chocolate? A gooey sort of goodness that makes me feel... well... good?  I think not.

God, as portrayed in the Bible, is more like "terribly good" or "awfully good" - in each case employing the proper meaning of the adverbs, as in "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. " and "let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him".

The children's introduction to Aslan (in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) illustrates this well:

"Then he isn't safe?" said Lucy.

"Safe?" said Mr Beaver; "don't you hear what Mrs Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."

And later on Mr Beaver tells the children: "He's wild, you know. Not like a tame lion."

You won't find many other Bible references to God being good. Here's one where Jesus quips "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone." According to Strongs, the Greek word used means "good (in any sense)" and the Hebrew word used in the OT means "good in the widest sense". Maybe this is more helpful than at first meets the eye. Whereas we consider "good" as a description of God as in "God is good", I suggest that we have it upside down and that it would be better to say "good is God", i.e. that God is the definition of true goodness. We know a thing to be truly good if it is like God. Which rules out the chocolate argument.

This goodness of which we speak is not a license for our lazy behaviour. Paul sums it up by "What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid."

Aslan

drawn by my granddaughter during a meeting

"Here on the mountain, the air is clear and your mind is clear; as you drop down into Narnia, the air will thicken. Take great care that it does not confuse your mind. And the signs which you have learned here will not look at all as you expect them to look, when you meet them there. That is why it is so important to know them by heart and pay no attention to appearances"

...

"Oh, if only we knew!" said Jill.

"I think we do know," said Puddleglum.

"Do you mean you think everything will come right if we do untie him?" said Scrubb.

"I don't know about that," said Puddleglum. "You see, Aslan didn't tell Pole what would happen. He only told her what to do. That fellow will be the death of us once he's up, I shouldn't wonder. But that doesn't let us off following the sign."

The Silver Chair, C. S. Lewis