When I was a student at Gordon College many years ago, each year a faculty member was selected by the students to give a special address to the student body. I forget exactly which faculty member it was, but I still recall vividly, twenty years later, one of those addresses. The professor spoke from a text in what has become one of my favorite books, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, one of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia Chronicles books. I just finished reading Dawn Treader for about the tenth time, this time, most delightfully, to my two boys.
The passage my college professor spoke from involves Reepicheep the mouse. Reepicheep is following a dream to sail all the way to Aslan’s Country (the Dawn Treader is a boat; if you don’t know who Aslan is, start with The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe ;-)).
At one point, the Dawn Treader comes across a “blackness” over the sea. All the brave sailors and royalty of Narnia are afraid to sail towards it. When Reepicheep speaks up in favor of exploring, the captain of the Dawn Treader asks “what manner of use it would it be plowing through that blackness?” To which Reepicheep replies:
“Use, Captain? If by use you mean filling our bellies or our purses, I confess it will be no use at all. So far as I know we did not set sail to look for things useful but to seek honor and adventure. And here is as great an adventure as ever I heard of, and hear, if we turn back, no little impeachment of all our honors.”
How do you think of your future, my profesor asked. Is your goal to fill your bellies and purses, or is it to seek “honor and adventure,” to live richly in pursuit of Aslan’s Country — the Kingdom of God?
Later in the story, the Dawn Treader has come near the end of the world. It’s unclear whether the crew will be able to continue further. Once again, the crew becomes afraid of what lies ahead. There is talk of turning back. Reepicheep again rises to the occasion:
My own plans are made. While I can, I sail east in the Dawn Treader. When she fails me, I paddle east in my coracle. When she sinks, I shall swim east with my four paws. And when I can swim no longer, if I have not reached Aslan’s country, or shot over the edge of the world in some vast cataract, I shall sink with my nose to the sunrise….
One of my heroes is that college professor who gave me the gift of this story. Another is Reepicheep. God give me the grace to keep going until Aslan’s Country!