I’ve become a schoolmarm. Teaching at a university-model
classical Christian school has changed my life – or, at least, the way I
conduct my life on a daily basis. Lesson plans, gradebooks, and showing up
three days a week to a workplace are all new to me.
One of the great blessings that has come out of this is
teaching a curriculum called “Omnibus,” which is a combination of theology and
world literature. I’ve been reading Gilgamesh, The Code of Hammurabi, and other
classics. One has had a profound effect on me: Till We Have Faces by C. S.
Lewis.
What? You’ve never heard of it? Lewis regarded this, his final
novel, as his masterpiece. It is a retelling of the story of Cupid and Psyche
from the point of view of Psyche’s older and unattractive sister, Orual. It is
a story of redemption, framed in a pagan myth.
It doesn’t mention Jesus, and all the gods are mysterious
and incomprehensible. And yet it is the essence of gospel.
I think of the book of Esther, which tells of God rescuing a
nation without mentioning God at all.
Can this be, fellow writers? Can we write of God without
saying His name? Is it good? Is it necessary?
