I read this chapter with great interest and will attempt to bring together some very disparate thoughts in one post and be coherent about it.
1. Elder care - Been there, done that. No need to comment on it. Funniest moment with my grandfather in the Altzheimer's ward was the other lady who happily disrobed and was waiting on him. The saddest moment with my grandfather in the Altzheimer's unit was that the staff were so busy laughing about it upstairs in the regular unit, that Grandmother heard the whole thing. Granddad was never present in the room, by the way.
2. I've moved from a very liberal part of the country (New York) where it is normal to see women involved in church services to a part of the country (Texas) where this is heretical. You will never go back into that particular box once you've been on the other side. Instead, your mission starts happening in other spaces because there are people who need you and the Lion's Paw knows how to put two and two together.
3. I once had this same conversation about suffering on earth with a preacher (who by the way told me this was his favorite rabbit hole to go through. Thwack!) There are perhaps an element or two that we talked about that isn't here - one is that God allows sin/suffering because he knows he can save us from it. The other is that he uses ones who have not seen, but yet believe to rebuke the ones who have seen and revolted.
So I said that to say this - Eustace may not identify with a religious denomination or sect, but that may not necessarily make him atheist and I have an incredibly difficult time to see him as a fallen friend of Narnia. He has seen Aslan, he understands both his cousin's and his own redemption and he follows his will in Narnia and in England, even if he doesn't have knowledge of the Bible or of other religious texts of the Church of England.
no subject
1. Elder care - Been there, done that. No need to comment on it. Funniest moment with my grandfather in the Altzheimer's ward was the other lady who happily disrobed and was waiting on him. The saddest moment with my grandfather in the Altzheimer's unit was that the staff were so busy laughing about it upstairs in the regular unit, that Grandmother heard the whole thing. Granddad was never present in the room, by the way.
2. I've moved from a very liberal part of the country (New York) where it is normal to see women involved in church services to a part of the country (Texas) where this is heretical. You will never go back into that particular box once you've been on the other side. Instead, your mission starts happening in other spaces because there are people who need you and the Lion's Paw knows how to put two and two together.
3. I once had this same conversation about suffering on earth with a preacher (who by the way told me this was his favorite rabbit hole to go through. Thwack!) There are perhaps an element or two that we talked about that isn't here - one is that God allows sin/suffering because he knows he can save us from it. The other is that he uses ones who have not seen, but yet believe to rebuke the ones who have seen and revolted.
So I said that to say this - Eustace may not identify with a religious denomination or sect, but that may not necessarily make him atheist and I have an incredibly difficult time to see him as a fallen friend of Narnia. He has seen Aslan, he understands both his cousin's and his own redemption and he follows his will in Narnia and in England, even if he doesn't have knowledge of the Bible or of other religious texts of the Church of England.
doctor dolly