This morning, I was reading a book, "The Horse and His Boy" by C.S. Lewis. To synopsize the portion I am referring to here, Shasta and his riding companion, Aravis, are on a desperate journey to ride to Narnia to warn of an impending attack by the Calormenes. At one point, Aravis is stalked and wounded by an unseen animal, apparently a lion. She is thus unable to continue the expedition and is waylaid with a kindly dwarf to care for her.
Shasta continues on at a mad pace and is alone the next night in an unfamiliar mountain pass, hungry and exhausted. As he thinks of the unfairness of his life until that point, tears roll down his cheeks, and he is suddenly aware of someone or something walking beside him. Shasta is terrified yet strangely comforted. I'll pick up with the story here...
Once more he felt the warm breath of the Thing on his hand and face. "...Tell me your sorrows."
Shasta was a little reassured by the breath: so he told how he had never known his real father or mother and had been brought up sternly by the fisherman. And then he told the story of his escape and how they were chased by lions and forced to swim for their lives; and of all their dangers in Tashbaan and about his night among the tombs and how the beasts howled at him out of the desert. And he told about the heat and the thirst of their desert journey and how they were almost at their goal when another lion chased them and wounded Aravis. And also, how very long it was since he had had anything to eat.
"I do not call you unfortunate," said the Large Voice.
"Don't you think it was bad luck to meet so many lions?" said Shasta.
"There was only one lion," said the Voice.
"What on earth do you mean? I've just told you there were at least two the first night, and-"
"There was only one; but he was swift of foot."
"How do you know?"
"I was the lion." And as Shasta gaped with open mouth and said nothing, the Voice continued. "I was the Lion who forced you to join with Aravis. I was the cat who comforted you among the houses of the dead. I was the lion who drove the jackals from you while you slept. I was the lion who gave the horses the new strength of fear for the last mile so that you should reach King Lune in time. And I was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at midnight, to receive you."
"Then it was you who wounded Aravis?"
"It was I."
"But what for?"
"Child," said the Voice, "I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no one any story but his own."
"Who ARE you?" asked Shasta.
"Myself," said the Voice, very deeply and low so that the earth shook: and again, "Myself," loud and clear and gay: and then the third time, "Myself," whispered so softly you could hardly hear it, and yet it seemed to come from all around you as if the leaves rustled with it.
Shasta was no longer afraid that the Voice belonged to something that would eat him, or that it was the voice of a ghost. A new and different sort of trembling came over him. Yet he felt glad too.
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I don't pretend to know why this great tragedy has befallen the Davises. All I know is that He is good, and He is terrifying, and He is safe -in my life. And, He answers to no one.
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