On Susan Pevensie

Die-hard fans of The Chronicles of Narnia, like myself, don’t talk much about Susan Pevensie.  For those who have not read all the books enough time to have at least three committed to memory, she is one of the four children in C.S. Lewis’s first novel about Narnia, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  Four children slip through a wardrobe into the enchanted world of Narnia, where, with the help of the lion Aslan, they break the kingdom free of from the world of the evil White Witch. 

During the course of the story, Susan and her sister Lucy witness the Christ-like execution of Aslan and his subsequent resurrection, a bit of heavy-handed symbolism that makes it clear just Who the Lion is.  Susan, along with her siblings, then grows up in Narnia, as co-ruler of the realm with the other three, until one day the four adult siblings fall back through the wardrobe and return to England as children.   Lewis brings them back to Narnia in his second novel in the series, Prince Caspian, at which point they return the rightful ruler of Narnia to his throne.  At the end of this novel, Susan and her older brother Peter are told by Aslan that they are too old to return to Narnia and must seek to live in their own world.

The end of this novel marks Susan’s last appearance in the series, although the High King Peter returns with his two younger siblings in The Last Battle, literally at the end of the world.  When the Narnian king notices the lack of one of the four legendary rulers of Narnia, her sister tells him that she stopped thinking of Narnia and focused on “nylons and lipstick.”

Susan irritates Narnia fans, because we can’t get Narnia out of our heads, yet she had the poor grace to forget Narnia and Aslan and the entire life she had there.  However, Susan makes Christian Narnia fans downright uncomfortable if we think about her too long.  We like to look at the Gospels and say things like, “Could you imagine being there?  Could you imagine standing at the foot of the Cross, watching the world go dark, feeling the earth shake beneath you?  Could you imagine being at the empty tomb, meeting the angel in the garden, feeling the wounds of the risen Christ?”  And we think, “If I had been there, like Mary Magdalene, I would never doubt!”  As much as we gently chide doubting Thomas, we can’t help but envy the surety of placing our hands in his side. 

In ministry, we seek to lead others to a profound experience of Christ, a real encounter with the living God; as Christians, we seek such a moment ourselves.  Although we realize that most of us don’t live the Christian life in the perpetual ecstasy of mystical experience, we also know that having such an experience shores up our faith.  It helps us know the God of Scripture as the living God who has entered fully into our world and our lives.  It gives us drink for the dry times when God does not feel as accessible to us. 

And there’s the rub; there’s the reason we don’t think about and don’t talk about Susan.  We like to think that if we’ve had that moment of profound encounter, then we cannot slip away again.  It will anchor us so firmly in the Truth that we cannot slip.  But then here’s Susan—or rather, Susan’s not here, at the end of Narnia, at the entrance into the Paradise of Aslan’s Country, at the ultimate moment of any of their lives.  She is thinking of nylons and lipstick and has no recollection of Narnia.

Susan is thinking of nylons and lipstick and has no recollection of Narnia—where she stood at the foot of the Cross, where she was crowned Queen, where she lived an entire life from childhood to adulthood before returning to England.  At this point, it is entirely possible that Susan has spent as much time in Narnia as in her own world, and yet she can forget Narnia for things as trivial as nylons and lipstick.  And if Susan can forget Narnia, what does that mean for us?

No matter how much faith we have in our Narnia moments, they are not guarantors of our perseverance in faith.  We have within ourselves the capacity to forget the profound in the midst of mundane, to forget our moments of experiential knowledge of God in the midst of nylons and lipstick, grocery shopping and stop lights, football games and French fries.  The ordinary, the commonplace present a danger to us, not from evil in themselves, but in the dryness that can surround them and make us forget Narnia.

Church leaders who run retreats and conferences and mission trips witness this all the time, wondering how to draw people from isolated experiences of God to regular participation in the pews.  Great saints knew that a moment of deep conversion could be lost.  St. Augustine feared for his salvation, not because he did not trust God, but because he knew that he was capable of leaving God.  And we who have read Narnia could do a bit more contemplation on Susan, shoring up our spiritual lives against the drain of the everyday.