On the Common 141

Lucy or Edmund?

Hi everyone,

I hope you’re settling into Advent this year. I will not be with you next week or the week after, as I’ll be shut down here for the next couple of weeks.

I might pop in with a poem before the big day. I pray you all have a very Merry Christmas.

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The Part Where There’s an Essay: The Reality of Edmund

Last winter I was invited to submit to a collection of essays for the Square Halo Conference attendees. The theme was “A Return to Narnia,” exploring how a reading of The Chronicles of Narnia might strike you differently than it did when you were a child. Since many people find themselves revisiting the wardrobe this time of year, I wanted to share it with you.

“Aslan,” said Lucy, “you’re bigger.”

“That is because you are older, little one,” answered he.

“Not because you are?”

“I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”

C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian

I first encountered Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy in elementary school. I fell in love with the creaky old country house, the abandoned dusty rooms, and the magical wardrobe. At the time, I found kinship in the adventurous crowd of kids, ramming around in the rain inside a drafty country home, desperate for something to do. The house reminded me of my paternal grandparents’ home in the farm country of upstate New York. That house had once been a small hotel. It was drafty and cold. I slept in room number four at the top of the stairs.

At the time of my childhood, Lucy seemed like someone I’d like to be friends with. She was earnest, brave, and truthful. She loved doing, going, and experiencing. She couldn’t sit around. Susan seemed unrelatable to me: she was elegant and polite—so unlike me, who was clumsy and insecure. I wanted to run around the attics with Lucy, wearing knee socks and Mary Janes, opening doors and finding things out. She was someone I could follow into adventure.

And what younger sibling didn’t feel the pinprick of bitterness alongside Lucy when her older siblings didn’t believe her about her tea with Mr. Tumnus? The injustice of it all was familiar. My heart broke for her when she was dismissed and mocked. When Edmund has a chance to redeem her, he turns a deaf ear and exposes her to scorn. Later, my heart soared as she was proven right, and Peter, her brother-hero, confessed that he should have listened to her.

Photo by Stefano Bucciarelli on Unsplash

Imagine my surprise when years later, on a return to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe as an adult, I found it to be a story about Edmund. Edmund the terrible—the traitor. We spend chapters alongside him, filling up on hot chocolate and Turkish delight while he commits his villainy. Who could have guessed that this was not a story about Lucy?!

And yet, in my return, I found myself there as well: in Edmund, and not so much in Lucy. In greater self-awareness, I understood that I, too, had the capability to betray and fall short of the mark. Time and again, I would mix up service to others with service to self; I would pursue my agenda and forget others. It would take a surprisingly small amount of sweets to cave in my will toward evil.

In my return to Narnia in adulthood, Lucy was the ideal, but Edmund was my reality.

In my travels on the internet recently, I was searching for something about Edmund Pevensie. I noticed that the first selection of a “question people ask” Google is “Why is Edmund such a nasty brother?” I hope that this question is asked by people who haven’t yet “returned” to Narnia—perhaps they still have a childlike understanding of Edmund (and of themselves). Or maybe they just saw a bad movie portrayal of Edmund. Or maybe they haven’t read far enough yet.

Lewis tells us that the first time Edmund feels sorry for anyone but himself is when he sees the tiny dinner party turned to stone by the White Witch. Standing in the mud, he ponders the fate of the little animals, once joyfully feasting and full of life, now mute statues, frozen in time. Edmund finally feels a bit of empathy for another. It’s not sadness for his own betrayal of his siblings, but it’s a start. It’s not a coincidence that this is also the chapter when the snow is melting; the spell is breaking, and Aslan is nearer.

As the story of Narnia progresses and Edmund lives out the years beyond Aslan’s sacrifice on his behalf, he is named Edmund the Just. Perhaps Aslan understands that Edmund, of all the children, grasps justice better than anyone. Edmund would understand that justice is required, but it is best tempered by mercy. As we are told in James 2, “mercy triumphs over judgment.” We understand that in his later years, Edmund was “a graver and quieter man than Peter, and great in council and judgment.”

In subsequent stories, when it’s required, he is the first to believe Lucy, not the last. He is kind and understanding to Eustace as his cousin recovers from his dragonish exploits. Most poignantly, when the monarchs are prompted to execute Rabadash in The Horse and His Boy, it is King Edmund who first makes a case for mercy, saying “... even a traitor may mend. I have known one that did.”

So it would seem that for me, a return to Narnia meant not only that Aslan was bigger, but that I myself was smaller—more than that, that I was “right-sized.” More than when I was ready to tumble along behind Lucy, I had a sense that I was as frail, and as prone to wander, as Edmund. Edmund is the story of Romans 3:26, where God is shown to “be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” A traitor made new, Edmund rightly perceives the Just and Justifier, the One Who makes the wrong into right whenever He comes in sight.

Originally published by Cultivating Oaks Press, 2024. Republished here with permission.

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For the Anglophiles

We have Christmastown here outside of Charlotte; apparently, Essex has a “Christmas Street.”

Jodie Halford/BBC

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Reads & Listens of the Week

I told you about Jon McLaughlin’s instrumental albums earlier this fall; now he has a Christmas one. What a delight. This is almost always on in our home first thing in the morning.

Every year The Good Book Company allows its employees to talk about their favorite books of the year. I am here recommending Leif Enger, which will surprise none of you, I am sure.

Andrew Roycroft

is my latest “official” recommendation here on the ol’ Substack. This post on imposter syndrome would be a great place to start.

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I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. – Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol