Conference yukon::christian_v7

571.0. "The Magicians Nephew" by LARVAE::PRICE_B () Tue Sep 20 1994 09:28

This text is taken from 'The Magicians Nephew' by CS Lewis. If you don't know 
the stories of Narnia - the Lion represents Jesus, the witch represents Satan 
and the rest are just people. The group have been transferred to the dawn of 
time and I find this description of creation really beautiful - I hope you do 
too.

Ben



.......And really it was uncommonly like nothing. There were no stars. It was 
so dark that they couldn't see one another at all and it made no difference 
whether you kept your eyes shut or opened. Under their feet there was a cool, 
flat something which might have been the earth, and was certainly not grass or 
wood. The air was cold and dry and there was no wind.............

In the darkness something was happening at last. A voice had begun to sing. It 
was very far away and Digory found it hard to decide from which direction it was 
coming. Sometimes it seemed to come from all directions at once. Sometimes he 
almost thought it was coming out of the earth beneath them. Its lower notes were 
deep enough to be the voice of the earth herself. There were no words. There was 
hardly even a tune. but it was the most beautiful noise he had ever heard. It 
was so beautiful he could hardly bear it....

Then two wonders happened at the same moment. One was that the voice was 
suddenly joined by other voices; more voices than you could possibly count. They 
were in harmony with it, but far higher up the scale: cold, tingling, silvery 
voices. The second wonder was that the blackness overhead, all at once, was 
blazing with stars. They didn't come out gently one by one, as they do on a 
summer evening. One moment there had been nothing but darkness; next moment a 
thousand, thousand points of light leaped out - single stars, constellations, 
and planets, brighter and bigger than any in our world. There were no clouds. 
The new stars and the new voices began at exactly the same time. If you had seen 
and heard it, as Digory did, you would have felt quite certain that it was the 
starss themselves which were singing, and that it was the first voice, the deep 
one, which had made them appear and made them sing.
'Glory be!' said the cabby. 'I'd ha' been a better man all my life if I'd known 
there were things like this.'
The voice on the earth was now louder and more triumphant; but the voices in the 
sky, after singing loudly with iit for a time, began to get fainter. And now 
something else was happening.
Far away, and down near the horizon, the sky began to turn grey. A light wind, 
very fresh, began to stir. The sky, in that one place, grew slowly and steadily 
paler. You could see shapes of hills standing up dark against it. All the time 
the voice went on singing.
There was soon light enough for them to see one anothers faces. The cabby and 
the two children had open mouths and shining eyes; they were drinking in the 
sound, and they looked as if if reminded them of something............

The eastern sky changed from white to pink and from pink to gold. The voice rose 
and rose, till all the air was shaking with it. And just as it swelled to the 
mightiest and most glorious sound it had yet produced, the sun arose.
Digory had never seen such a sun. The sun above the ruins of Chran had looked 
older thhan ours: this looked younger. You could imagine that it laughed for joy 
as it came up. Annd as its beams shot across the land the travellers could see 
for the first time what sort of a place they were in. It was a valley through 
which a broad, swift river wound its way, flowing eastward towards the sun. 
Southward there were mountains, northward there were lower hills. But it was a 
valley of mere earth, rock and water; there was not a tree, not a bush, not a 
blade of grass to be seen. The earth was of many colours: they were fresh, hot 
and vivid. They made you feel excited; until you saw the singer himself. and 
then you forgot everything else........

I love that story of creation.  Can you type in the rest of it?  I love the
part where they begin to realize that the Lion's singing is causing the
creation.  They hear the Lion sing a series of notes, and then a row of trees
appears.

I'll try to remember to bring in the book, maybe I'll type it in myself.

Paul

    Paul
    
    If I get a chance I'll type it in - although the chances are quite
    remote.
    
    Ben