In John chapter 10, Jesus describes Himself as the Good Shepherd. The Lord knows those sheep who are His; He calls them each by name, and they respond to the melody of His voice. It was He who called His people out of Egypt through many trials, wonders, signs, and war, and great deeds of terror, and it is He who will lead us safely home.

PROV’IDENCE, noun [Latin providentia]

1.) In theology, the care and superintendence which God exercises over his creatures. He that acknowledges a creation and denies a providence involves himself in a palpable contradiction; for the same power which caused a thing to exist is necessary to continue its existence.

“Know that the LORD, He is God! It is He who made us, and we are His; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture.”
—Psalm 100:3

My wife and I have been on vacation with her family this week—what a joy it is to get away for some much needed rest! I thank the Lord that He has weaved the need for refreshment into the very fabric of His creation. The older I get—which, as folks keep reminding me, is not very old quite yet—the more I feel drawn to the longings of Bilbo Baggins in The Fellowship of the Ring: “I want to see mountains again, Gandalf—mountains; and then find somewhere where I can rest. In peace and quiet, without a lot of relatives prying around, and string of confounded visitors hanging on the bell.”

Just before we left for our week away, I was out for coffee with a dear friend of mine who, not for the first time, highly recommended that I read through C.S. Lewis’ The Space Trilogy. There are allegedly many long-time C.S. Lewis readers out in the world like myself who, admittedly, have not read this series. And so, without any further delay I got my hands on the thickly-bound, 3-in-1 copy of the trilogy and swiftly began consuming the first novel, Out of the Silent Planet.

To describe The Space Trilogy as Narnia for adults, or merely as Narnia in space, would be a disservice to Lewis’ work. An argument can be made that The Space Trilogy is the novel form of The Screwtape Letters, Lewis’ famous work on angels and demons—but that too seems to fall short of just how other this series of novels is when stood against his body of work as a whole.

Without treading too deeply into spoiler territory, there is a scene early on in the first novel that struck me. Ransom, the protagonist, has just landed on the mysterious red planet of Malacandra. In no time at all, Ransom encounters one of the planet’s native species, a 7-foot tall cat-like creature that is described as something like a feline mixed with a ferret or beaver, though that’s hardly important at the moment. What is important is Ransom’s reaction to this creature; a reaction that becomes characteristic of much of his journey on Malacandra throughout the book. Upon meeting this creature and discovering that it not only is benevolent but also has the ability to communicate, Ransom reflects upon their first contact in this way: “[it was] as though Paradise had never been lost and earliest dreams were true, the charm of speech and reason. Nothing could be more disgusting than the one impression; nothing more delightful than the other. It all depended on the point of view.”

Now, this may well be one of my wilder connections, but allow me time to develop this thread—I think there’s something important here.

As a student of literature, I’ve grown accustomed to reading texts through the lens of theme and symbolism. Indeed, it’s a rather useful way to understand a wide variety of texts and build meaningful connections between them. If I had to ascribe a primary theme to Out of the Silent Planet, I could scarcely do better than Ransom’s words from just a moment ago: It all depends on the point of view. So much of Ransom’s fantastic adventure on Malacandra follows his discovery of some new landscape or creature or entire species of creature, his subsequent response of either fear, dread, or disgust, only to grow in his understanding such that his affections go from disgust to delight. Through incremental developments in his revelation of the planet and those who inhabit it, Ransom routinely discovers that not everything is as it first seems in this strange world; that there is a deeper, older beauty churning beneath the surface—“Nothing could be more disgusting than the one impression; nothing more delightful than the other.” Indeed, Ransom’s journey across the novel is really just one of perspective.

The books of Numbers and Deuteronomy have occupied the rest of my reading time while on vacation. While at first glance the Old Testament and C.S. Lewis’ The Space Trilogy have nothing in common, the similarities soon become clear once you look beyond the surface. Again, it all depends on the point of view.

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