¶1Hi, welcome to Premier Unbelievable. I'm Luke Martin and today my guest [music] is Amy Scott Robinson. She is a writer, [music] a storyteller, and a poet. We had a fascinating conversation about Christianity in the arts, metaphor, cultural changes, and she even told us a really [music] moving story. I think you're going to love it.
¶2Enjoy. Amy, welcome to the show. Amy, you are a storyteller [music] and a poet and a writer and you're also a Christian. Do you want to tell us how you combine those two? What you see is there a relationship between Christianity and the arts?
¶3>> Yeah, I think for me they've always been woven together, those things. Um, I'm definitely a child of Narnia. Um I was brought up as I'm a cradle Anglican was brought up in the church and uh I think I was brought up knowing rhythm and knowing just knowing language from a really early age just because of singing hymns and reciting the creed. Uh you know and there and the combination of music and language that's something that really helps things stick in the memory in story as well. So I think a lot of us will know what you mean when you talk about rhythm in music, but I think you're talking about rhythm in language as well.
¶4Do you want to expand upon that? >> Yes. But I mean both probably as well. Um I was just I just mentioned reciting the creed and then I thought well I can still get through the creed so long as I'm chanting it to the exact chant that we used to do in my childhood church and otherwise I would probably trip up halfway through. >> Uh but even that I mean chanting is that goes to the rhythm of language doesn't it?
¶5So if somebody was to say like I don't see the relevance of the arts to the Christian faith. I know people who say that. What would you say to someone who says who objects in that way? >> I would say but they live in the same place. Faith and the arts live in your imagination.
¶6They live in what you can create in your mind. And that's not to say that faith is fake because you're making it up. That's to say that um all that you draw to mind and that affects your heart is is in the seat of imagination. It is exactly also where it's the same muscle that responds to poetry and that explores things with a story. Uh I I think it's all the same bit of you.
¶7>> That's interesting. So a lot of what we do in premier is apologetics. So let's let's flesh out this idea of of you're not making it up. I think when I was a a kid, yeah, I used to think stories, you're making stuff up. What relevance does that have to do with understanding reality, but you I've grown in that.
¶8How how could you reconcile that? I know CS Lewis obviously talked about Christianity as the true myth. >> Yeah, that's right. So CS Lewis saw all myth as pointing towards Christianity as the one true myth that they all came together in the story of the gospel. Um and that's definitely I mean that's that's absolutely something I can uh I can see where he got that from and I I think I believe it myself.
¶9Uh yes because there's a shape of story um that follows the gospel. Uh but I think it goes deeper than that. Um, I think I'm more of a GK Chesterton person when it comes to theories of faith and story. And he wrote uh sort of an essay, it's actually a chapter of his book, Orthodoxy called The Ethics of Elfland. And he talks about the whole way that you deal with truth and what truth really is and our expectations of the world um and how even those are seated more in fairy tale than in reality.
¶10>> Could you tell us a bit more about that? Yeah. So, uh, he says, for example, um, he questions why we believe anything. He questions why we believe the laws of of the world. There's this lovely bit in the essay where he's saying law is not really a word used in fairy tale.
¶11Um, but a scientist will think that it's a law that a chicken comes from an egg. But he says there's there's no more there's no more connection between an egg and a chicken than there is between a bear and a prince. In fact, he says there might be more connection between the bear and the prince because princes can behave in bear-like ways, but you've never seen an egg behave like a chicken. So, he's sort of questioning the whole logic of the world around us. And I think he's encouraging the approach of of just looking at the world with the wonder of a child and saying that we don't know.
¶12Well, let's question the reason for anything happening or let's question nothing because of course in a fairy tale nothing is questioned at all. In a fairy tale if somebody says you know there's this bit in the middle of a story where a fairy tale will often interrupt itself to say of course in this country this is how things were done and then you know that's the logical that leads to the next thing. Of course in this country um whenever the king died he would send his elephant out into the street and the elephant would kneel before somebody and then they would make that person the next king. And so our hero became the king. You know, and you read that in the fairy tale, you don't question it at all.
¶13Fine. That's what happens in the fairy tale. And I think Chesterton is saying to him, the world is like that. He's saying what he learned in the nursery. That's still how he approaches the world.
¶14Why is there a reason for anything? We should see everything with wonder. A chicken comes out of an egg. Eggs are connected somehow to flight. Why should they be?
¶15>> Yeah. Yeah. I'm on board with that. I'm just thinking if somebody's thinking this is this is just going to lead us to sort of superstitious thinking, you know, we need to be we need to be logical. We need to be scientific once we start believing in fairy tales or we're going to end up thinking all sorts of things.
¶16You we got to we got to focus on reality on the on the truth. Yeah, I'm sort of pushing the point a bit, but how how might you push back Fairy tales have their own logic. They do have a logic and it's the same as the logic of God. I I think that's my central theory when it comes to fairy tales that the logic of the kingdom, the law of the kingdom of God is the same as the law that we find in a fairy tale. So there's um this bit of proverbs.
¶17There's this little bit of proverbs in chapter 30 where uh it says there are three things that make the earth tremble and under four things it cannot stand up. And those things are uh a servant who becomes a king, a fool who is filled with food, a woman, an unloved woman when she gets a husband, and a maid servant who displaces her mistress. So you look at those four things and you think, so why in what sense is the earth trembling under those four things? And does the writer of Proverbs mean that if a servant becomes king, he won't know what to do? Uh or if a food is filled with if a fool is filled with food, it's somehow undeserved.
¶18And so, you know, there there's anarchy that society has broken down. Um but then you look at the promises and you know through the Old Testament and then particularly in the New Testament, we have the Magnificat and we have the biatitudes and that's exactly what's happening there. It's this upside downing of things. The the richer sent empty away. The poor are filled with food.
¶19And yet all of those scenarios, those four scenarios, they're just the plots of a million folk tales. Uh the maid servant replacing with the unloved woman getting married. Isn't that just Cinderella and 156 other folk tales? Uh so they have this in common that they don't contain the expectations of the world. They don't contain the logic of the world.
¶20A Christian faith isn't the logic of the world. It's not following the logic of the world. It's following the logic of God's kingdom. And that's different. It looks different.
¶21So, we'll actually be closer to the logic of God's kingdom when we've read a fairy tale than we will when we've read a book of science. >> And I know you're you say you're more of a Chesterton fan than than Lewis. When Lewis talks about this idea of of the true myth, I mean, he I I read recently he said that if he was just to choose his favorite myths, he would he go third place the Greeks, second place the Irish, and first place the Northern myths. Um, so myth, the the Christian myth in itself isn't what what really attracted him, but it's but it's the ideas that he's finding these other myths then brought into historical reality in the person of of Jesus Christ. Do you want to do you want to speak to that idea?
¶22>> Yeah, that's right. He shared the love of the northern myths, the Norse myths with Tolken, didn't he? And they they created worlds together because of it. Uh, and it's really interesting that he's put Greek at the bottom there because I think Greek myth diagnoses the problem and doesn't offer a solution. Um, so I don't know if you've seen Hades Town.
¶23I've seen I've seen Hazy. It's amazing. Um, it's a retelling of the myth of Orpheus and Uritysy. >> Okay. >> Uh, and in that myth Orpheus who uh sings beautifully.
¶24I think he's he's was motherthered by a muse. And so he has something of this divine artistry in him. and can sort of can almost bring things to life, but almost is the important word there. And he falls in love with Uritysy and marries her and Uritysy is bitten by a snake and she dies. So she's taken down into the underworld.
¶25Orpheus follows her down into the underworld um because he is so determined that he can bring her back. And Hades, the the king of the underworld, says, "Um yes, all right, you can you can bring her up, but you mustn't >> turn and look at her. You have to walk up. you can walk up singing and she will follow you, but you have to trust that she's there and you mustn't turn around. Well, of course, he turns around.
¶26There's a moment I mean, I don't want to give spoilers for what is an incredibly good musical, but I've never heard an entire theater sobbing before. It's immensely powerful. The moment at which and you know he's going to do it >> and you sort of why does that affect us so much? It's because it's the truth of humanity. >> It's because we know what the problem is.
¶27And we know we can't solve it. And we tell this myth about how death is final. Um, of course she's lost forever. Of course you can't bring her back. It doesn't matter how magical your singing is.
¶28Uh, and that that's deeply affecting. Um, but the Greek myths stop there. >> That's really interesting. And actually, it's funny you mentioned because Lewis, he also does something else with that myth where he says it's also like the message you're trying to communicate in myths and stories that um you're you're as soon as you turn around and look it in the eye, you lose it. There's something about making the message of the story too explicit.
¶29It's, you know, it's like if you have to explain a a joke too much, you you lose the meaning of it. So, yeah, that's powerful. So the Greek myths don't they don't offer a solution. Yeah. >> Yes.
¶30But they diagnose the human problem. >> Yeah. You know, I mean, there's so much we could we could say about this here. I mean, some people will say, um, I'm on board with this. I've heard people say this this to me.
¶31I'm on board with this, but uh and say for Christians, they'll say, "I'm bored with this, but how do I persuade my pastor to get on board with the idea that the arts have have value?" If you had some skeptical pastors in front of you, how would you make that case? >> I don't I think I'd have to tell them a story, >> right? >> Or two or three or four. I mean, if you don't have that connection, if you're not having that experience when you interact with the arts, um, because that's the place to start, right? To see that that there is a response in us that comes from a similar place or the same place as our response when we hear the gospel.
¶32>> And what if So, I guess there's going to be two options. One is these people just don't have responses to the arts. They hear some poetry and they they does nothing for them. Um or they do have a response but they don't understand how it can relate to the faith that they preach about >> or they don't trust it. They know that that response has come from their imagination.
¶33They know that they have been moved by an outside thing. >> Uh and that's not trustworthy for a logical person. they they want to know that what they're thinking is correct. Uh and they've maybe forgotten how to find truth in anything that they feel. So something that produces feeling becomes untrustworthy.
¶34But then you you've disconnected your feeling from your faith. Darwin said in his later life that you know when he was young he used to enjoy poetry and music. But he said his his brain's become like a machine and he he tries to read some poetry or listen to some music and he can't get any pleasure from it. I mean do you do you come across people in your your work that you you sort of you're they're talking in a very scientific logical way but you feel that it would just benefit their soul to sit down and read a story or listen to music. >> Sometimes I do.
¶35Um, I think my husband is probably one of them actually. He's a very logical person. Every now and then he'll say to me, "Why did that make me cry? Why did that poem? What is it about this?" He wants to know.
¶36Um, he's actually a very faithful person. He's a Christian. He's not having to. But it's that's that response is interesting because it's um Frederick Bner said always pay attention to unbidden tears because that's a sign of the Holy Spirit working. And I I really believe I really think if something makes you cry to stop and say why that's a really good question to be asking.
¶37What is it about this thing that is so close to God's kingdom that it's brought up this longing in me? And that CS Lewis talked about as well that surprised by joy that sense of um of sudden longing homesickness for a home that we've never known. >> Yes. Yes. The desire for something that is more satisfying than the satisfi satisfaction of any other desires.
¶38Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. No, that's and that's an interesting idea in itself. This idea that tears because some people think of religious experiences as, you know, something that a monk has and living in a cave in medieval times or something like that or where or it's something that happens in a room with loads of bright lights and everything.
¶39But but just the idea of of being brought to tears by by uh a piece of art or or whatever else that that itself could be the Holy Spirit working that's a real bringing together of grace and nature. Um and yeah I mean if someone push back and says but you're that's overspiritualizing it. Um we can just give psychological explanations for why people brought to tears. There's no need to bring bring spirituality into how would you respond to that? >> Are we not humans?
¶40Do we not have the facilities for these things for a reason? I just don't see the sense in leaving half of what it is to be a human behind in order to approach these big questions of life and faith. I think you have to bring your whole self to it. >> Art, a lot of people make art. Some people put, I guess, a Christian label onto the art, say this is Christian art.
¶41Do you think about that? How do you navigate that? Do you see what you're doing when you're telling stories as Christian art or or is it just art? >> Yeah, that's a really interesting question for me as a storyteller because I do end up telling stories from other cultures. Um, and sometimes I have to be quite sensitive about that or sometimes I'll look at a story and think, you know, I actually I'm really not going to tell this one.
¶42this is a great story, but I'm going to leave it to one side because it doesn't belong to me as a Christian. And others I look at and I think, well, I'm reading this as a Christian and therefore um it's resonating for me with the kingdom and I want to tell it in that way and I'm going to tell it in that way. I think stories generally storytelling generally uh is always this unique experience where the storyteller is communicating with the audience and together they are creating a story and it's an ancient story but it's new every single time because it depends on that audience that telling that moment the memories the experiences of the people who are listening and of the storyteller all come together to create a new thing so it's not like reading a book performing a story. It's not like having it written down. It's more like if you stand by a river and you look into the river and the water is flowing past, you can say I am standing on the banks of the river cam.
¶43Uh this is the river cam. It's been so for a long time. But as you look into the water, it the actual river, what is the river? The the water going past you is changing all the time. So it it's both this solid ancient thing, a story, and this thing that is new with every moment that you look at it.
¶44If you've put it in a book, it's more like taking a photograph of the river. This is what it looked like at this exact moment at this time. Or, you know, you might have taken chemical samples of the river at this exact moment in time. This is this is what the river camp was and how it looked. So if you have a book like the Grims Fairy Tales, this is how these folktales looked in the year 18 whatever it was when they wrote it when they wrote them down.
¶45Uh, but a story is constantly moving and changing. I've forgotten the original question. >> It was something about whether Christ the Christian label needs to be put on the art. But I I loved your response. >> So, because I'm telling the story as a Christian that it it has to make it Christian art.
¶46I can't help it. That's who I am. I'm bringing all of myself to the story. Uh, even if my audience who are listening to me aren't Christian, that it's still what we're creating together. It is what it is.
¶47And that's what the story is in that moment. And it might not be the next time that somebody tells it. There's another great passage from Lewis's Essie on stories where people ask him about the Narnia books and they say, you know, did you think how am I going to explain the atonement or creation or anything? No, no, no. >> He says, no, I saw a picture of a fool.
¶48>> Yeah. [laughter] And then and then the the image of the lion and I thought that was just wonderful. Do you want to speak to to that? What's he we have a sense of what he's communicating there? But what what's your explanation?
¶49Yeah, that he I mean people write and tell stories in different ways, don't they? I love that he just saw a picture of a for and wondered what it was. It's almost as if he himself wandered into Narnia, met Mr. Tongus, got talking, and the whole world grew around him. Uh, and I would love to be able to do that as an author.
¶50It's really rare for me to be able to do that. Uh, I tend to have a story because it exists and then to take that and discover what it means for me and and change it and retell it. Um, that's my art as a storyteller rather than an author. >> So, you're starting with the the story and then moving to the me meaning. >> Yes.
¶51But I'm not thinking how can I make this story have a Christian meaning or I'm not thinking how can I communicate >> this moral. I don't like putting morals on the ends of stories. >> I prefer people to get what they get from from the story. >> So yes, like CS looks I'm not starting at the end. I'm not starting thinking how can I communicate this >> specific thing to children.
¶52And one of the frustrating parts of my job is that's often what I'm asked to do. >> The school will have me and they'll say, "Well, this is our value for this term or this is our, you know, I we'd like stories that speak to this or we'd like you to retell, you know, this parable, which is even worse. We'd like you to retell this parable of Jesus to mean, you know, to mean this thing, to have this moral." And that I have to say, well, that's not what parables are for a start. >> I can't do that. Yeah, it ties into this idea you you just said about Buckner's idea that brought to tears the Holy Spirit.
¶53I mean in a sense for Lewis as somebody who is communing with God in relationship with God, you know, the Holy Spirit can be at work in his imagination without him settling down explicitly to say this is this is the Christian Christian uh story. And it reminds me of Flannry O' Connor's comment. She's asked, you know, often what's the theme of her story? She's like, "No, no, you can't you can't take the theme out of the story. You've just got to experience it." >> And that's what does the >> Just as you were saying about turning around and looking it full in the face.
¶54You and then you're going to lose it. It's It's more like this a tapestry that has this fine golden thread of truth running through it and you can't, you know, if you pull the thread out to inspect it more closely, the whole thing will just fall apart and you'll you'll lose it all. You have to you have to stand back from it, see the whole piece of art and then the thread will catch the light. >> And if you do that then you understand you're able to understand reality better not through just propositional language but you can you can see what say courage looks like. So I I could say here the courage is blah blah blah but then if you see it in a story sort of you understand what courage can mean and and can can that what about the moral transformation that stories can have have on us the effect that they can have on us as we see these figures and stories we then want to use them as examples for our own lives.
¶55>> Yes, perhaps we do. But again, I think that we more often just see in stories what's already in us. And if if something in a story is too outside of our experience or too far ahead of where we are, it simply won't resonate with us in the same way. I think for a story to be really effective, it's it's going to meet us and speak to us to a particular question of the soul in that moment. >> Uh and I've had stories do that for me suddenly after telling them for many years.
¶56um it's come to >> you just you just like sort of you've been telling it for years but then then you you gr you get insight into what it's trying to communicate. >> That's one way of putting it. But the story isn't trying to communicate anything necessarily. It's that it's that something has happened in me that I recognize now in the story and then the story can take me to that next stage. uh or even just help me to see what it is that that has changed.
¶57>> So just to push that point, I mean so the the story I guess Narnia Lewis doesn't set out to explain the atonement but then once he's written it it I guess it is it is communicating ideas about creation and and atonement or what do you think? I wonder with CS Lewis at what point he realized what the story was going to be and began to to construct it around that. There must have been a point um as he explored. I wonder whether it was whether when he in his imagination met Alan and worked out who that was because after that he must have had to treat Alan with the respect knowing that he's Jesus that there must have been I mean I'd love to sit CS Lewis down here and ask him if that's the case because it seems to me that he couldn't have constructed the entire thing and then sort of thought oh look at that there must have been a point when he realized what was happening what it was what it was becoming and turning into. >> Fascinating.
¶58We're going to take a quick break. We'll be back in a few minutes. We need to take a short break. Make sure you're following us on social media. That's @ unbelievable feonx and premier unbelievable on Instagram, Facebook, and on YouTube if you're watching rather than [music] just listening.
¶59And if you're enjoying this new show, do leave us a rating on Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. We'll be back after a short break. We are launching a brand new course which helps us to consider the evidence and questions [music] around the birth of Jesus. It's called Did It Really Happen? The Birth of Jesus.
¶60Why not sign up for the course or gift it to a friend? [music] Find out more at premierunbelievable.com. So Amy, tell us about how you got into this world, the world of faith and the arts. >> Well, I have been a storyteller forever. I used to sit underneath the dining room table at home when I was little and tell my soft toy stories.
¶61Um, uh, I've probably been a poet for as long as anything because, uh, I still have the first poem that I wrote when I was about five. So, I grew up playing with language and loving to write it down and loving to tell stories. I studied English. Um, I went to Cambridge and I wrote a musical there. I did get a degree as well, but I I wrote a musical there in my second year.
¶62It was called Dance to My Tune. And um it was uh it was sort of an allegory. Uh it it had all these fairy tale these are nursery rhyme characters in it. Uh and it had the governness who was telling the story uh and she became this this kind of Christ figure and she had to die. Um it it was really from Sheldon Vanalin's uh oh dear severe mercy when they have a conversation about the trinity and he says the best way of describing the trinity is to think think of an author who writes themsself into their book and that idea had fascinated me for a bit so I made it into a musical.
¶63My husband tells me it was heretical but you know I had a go and that was good fun. Uh then so I suppose that was really my first foray there. There was uh an organization in Cambridge called the um the Christian musicals society. So I joined that and did a few more and uh and I wrote a Mayweek show as well. Uh and then as I was leaving university I um didn't know what to do with myself and I was about to get married so I panicked.
¶64So I became a primary school teacher and I was an incredibly bad primary school teacher. >> Why were you bad? I'm sure you weren't. I didn't I was so long as I was in front of the children telling a story I was absolutely fine. Couldn't teach any other subjects.
¶65Couldn't keep my paperwork in order. Couldn't keep my class quiet unless I was telling them a story. Uh but I used to tell stories in assemblies. And afterwards the teachers would come up to me and say, "How did you do that? How did you hold their attention?
¶66How did you keep all that in your head?" And I began to realize that perhaps that's a skill that not everybody has. That was something that I was that was that was the thing that came most naturally to me about teaching and everything else was awful. Uh then I went to Spring Harvest and watched Bob Bob Hartman telling a story. Uh and had a moment of epiphany. I just thought I want to be up there doing that.
¶67Didn't know that was a thing before. So I approached him afterwards and said, "How do you get to do what you do?" Uh and he was lovely to me and took me under his wing. Uh and I phoned a friend and said, "I want to get out of teaching and become a professional storyteller. Are you with me?" Uh and he said yes. So we we began this um company called Snail Tales and that ran for about 10 years and we called ourselves storytellers in education and we were very much learning on the job.
¶68At first we were more of a sort of theater company duo. We had lots of props that we carted around in a van. Uh we had puppets. I learned ventriloquism. Um because we were sort of throwing everything at it and um and playing around with it and not knowing what would stick.
¶69And gradually that became much more of a traditional storytelling. We go in without anything. We have no props, no scenery, no background. We tell the story, we ask the audience to join us. Um, so that's that's what I'm what I still do now.
¶70In the middle of all of that, I started doing bits of writing. So I started writing for Scripture Union and they had a thing called Light for the Lectionary uh in those days before it all went online. Uh, and that was kind of all age service plans. So I did that for a bit. uh and then eventually wrote my first book was actually about um using puppets in church because that was a thing that I did and a publisher said can you write this book and I said well yes you probably need me to ask some people to help because I actually inovventism uh and the story the the book that I really want to write would be about storytelling so he said we'll do that one next and that's how I started writing books.
¶71>> Brilliant. And you've written I think over 10. Yes, I think I've written maybe 13 or 14, but most of them are very short. >> The best type of books. >> Um, brilliant.
¶72Well, that that's fascinating. And do you know you earlier you you mentioned this story that you've told how many times? Loads of times throughout your your working life and and that it's it's it just hit you um recently or or or after having told it many times. I want to go back to you might not might putting you on the spot, but how do you feel about telling that story? >> Okay.
¶73Yes, I can do that. Uh, so it's um it's called Little Scarface, and I first learned to tell it because it was told to me as a version of Cinderella. Now, I don't think it is a version of Cinderella, and you'll see why, but that might be why or part of the reason why it suddenly changed for me. But it goes like this. Uh there was a little girl who lived in a village and her mother had died and left her, her two bigger sisters and the father alone.
¶74And the father loved all three daughters equally. Uh but he had to be away from home a lot and when he was away there was nobody to look after them. So the older two Taki and Chapi they had to look after their little sister and they didn't like doing that job and they were cruel to her. As she grew they made her do lots of the work. Uh and even when she was still very little one day uh Chapi pushed her into the fire and when her father came home and asked how she had got these terrible burns all over her body, Chapi said, "Oh, she's so clumsy.
¶75She stumbled. She tripped and fell into the fire. But I rescued her. I got her out. And so Chapi was praised and the little girl was left terribly scarred.
¶76Uh and one day Tark poured a kettle of boiling water over her head. And again when the father came home, he asked how her face had become so terribly scarred. And Tarki said, "Oh, she's so clumsy. She was pouring the tea and the water went everywhere. But I rescued her and I helped her." So Taki got all the praise.
¶77And the little girl by the time she was grown had forgotten her name because her sisters just called her little Scarface or Clumsy Scarface. So when the three girls were grown up and the father had died, Clumsy Scarface did all of the work for her two sisters who lived like daughters of the chief. She went into the village and she collected the water. And she one day as she was doing her chores, she heard the other women around the well talking about Strong Wind the invisible. Strong wind the invisible is coming to town.
¶78Strong wind the invisible is looking for a wife. So Clumsy Scarface was curious. She went a little closer to the other women. She didn't usually show her face or talk to them, but she was curious. She said, "Who is Strong Wind the Invisible?" And they laughed at her.
¶79"Well, he's nothing to do with you, clumsy Scarface. Strong wind the invisible is a great warrior chief with an amazing power. He can make himself invisible. And he is looking for a wife. But he has said that he will not marry anybody who cannot see him." And even now as we speak, there are women lining up at the beach to speak to his sister, Gentle Breeze.
¶80And Gentle Breeze is going to see who is worthy to marry strong wind of the invisible. So little Scarface shrugged and she took the water and she went home. By the time she got home, she found it was true. Chapi and Taki were in a flurry getting themselves ready, putting on their best clothes, arguing over who was going to get to go and marry Strong Wind, the invisible. After all, it could only be one of them.
¶81And they were both absolutely sure that they would be the ones he would choose. And in the end, it was decided that Tark is the oldest one should be allowed to get married first. So Shapi sat down and sulked. Taki took herself off to the beach and there was a line of women. But Tarki elbowed her way to the front and she said to Gentle Breeze, "Here I am.
¶82I am your brother's new wife." Well, Gentle Breeze looked her up and down. And then she said, "Do you see my brother returning from the hunt?" Taki looked across and she squinted at where Gentle Breeze was pointing where the forest came down to meet the sea, but she couldn't see anything. Of course, she wasn't going to let on that she couldn't see anything. So, she said, "Yes, of course. There he is.
¶83He's right there. I can see him clear as day. Can I marry him now?" Gentle Bree said, "With what is he pulling his sled?" Well, Taki couldn't see anything, so she had to think at this point. I usually ask the audience, what's he pulling a sled with? >> Dog.
¶84>> A dog. Right. He's pulling a sled with a dog. There we are. I can see.
¶85Gentle breeze said, "You cannot see my brother. He is not for you." And so Tarki had to go home. And then it was Chaffy's turn. She came out. She saw the line of women.
¶86She elbowed her way to the front. She marched straight up to Gentle Breeze. "Here I am. I am your brother's new wife." So, Gentle Breeze said, "Can you see him returning from the hunt?" And JB squinted and she looked and she couldn't see anything, but she wasn't going to let on that she couldn't see him. Yes, of course I can see him.
¶87There he is, clear as day. I can see him. He looks great. Gentle breeze said, "With what is he pulling?" His sled. And Japey said, >> "Elephant." >> "An elephant.
¶88Brilliant. I've never had an elephant before. Well done. An elephant. He's pulling his sled with an elephant.
¶89Isn't that great and unusual? Gentle breeze said, "Yeah, you can't see my brother. He is not for you." So Chapi had to go home. And then Chapi and Taki made life even worse for little Scarface because they had been scorned. And they blamed it all on her.
¶90They said, "You must have swept the floor so much that it made our eyes red and puffy and ugly, or you didn't wash our clothes properly." and they both gave beatings to go with their blame. And by the end of the day, little Scarface was had just absolutely had enough. She thought to herself, I there's no way that I could marry Strong Wind, the Invisible. Of course, I couldn't. If he doesn't want Chapi or Taki, he doesn't want a scarred person like me.
¶91But perhaps if he's a good warrior and a good chief, he might be able to help my situation. He might just be able to help me because I can't last in this house anymore. And so she waited for her two sisters to be asleep. And she crept out and she went to the beach to see if Gentle Breeze was still there. And she was.
¶92The moon was over the water and the women were drifting away one by one until eventually there was nobody left. So Clumsy Scarface went up to Gentle Breeze and she said, "Excuse me." And Gentle Breeze said, "Oh, hello. Can you see my brother returning from the hunt?" She said, "No, no, no, no, no. It's not that. I I don't I don't need to.
¶93It's just I was wondering if perhaps maybe." And and then her words tailed off. She just had no idea what to say. She said, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for wasting your time." Gentle Breeze said, "No, look. Can you see him returning from the hunt?" So, little Scarface had a look.
¶94But as she looked along the water, her last hope fell away. There was nothing there. She said to Gentle Breeze, "I'm so sorry. I I can't see him. I'm sorry." And she turned to go.
¶95Then Gentle Breeze put a hand on her shoulder and said, "Hang on a moment. Just look again. Do you see him? Clumsy Scarface looked again and she said, "Yes, I can see him. He He's magnificent." So Gentle Breeze said, "With what is he pulling his sled?" And Clumsy Scarface said, "He he's pulling his sled with the Milky Way.
¶96Gentle Bree said, "And with what is his bow strung?" "His bow is strung with a rainbow. He's magnificent." And then strong wind the invisible approached. And as he came over to them, he said, "I have been waiting for a woman who would tell the truth, and here you are." Gentle breeze. Uh clumsy scarface said, "I have nothing to offer you. I don't even know my own name.
¶97And Strong Wind replied. Your name is Honesty. Will you marry me? So Clumsy Scarface said, "Now that I've seen you, I never want to look away." And gentle breeze joined their hands, and the moonlit sand was witness. There you go.
¶98It it strikes me listening to you that we are missing something in our culture that we don't there's just there's not enough of older people telling stories to younger people just before we we start recording I told you about when I was a child and my parents would leave us at a older woman's house on Friday evenings she would tell us stories from the Bible using a little felt board and little little pictures of of men and women she put onto the board and we had to use our imagination cuz these pictures, you know, there's only so much that they said. Uh, but that's that struck, you know, that that embedded those stories in me at a young age. And um was a great act of service from the woman. But of course, for centuries, particularly before we had screens, people were doing this all the time. They were telling stories in the evenings and pubs and ride fires.
¶99We and we still tell stories through film and and and through um to some extent through Netflix series and Jonathan height the psychologist makes the point that at least that's that's a lot better than you know 5second reels on your on your phone but yeah do you think we we're really missing something when we're so addicted to you know whatever's on Instagram and >> we've definitely lost the art of the long form story haven't that which is really sad. Uh I I think that we still tell each other stories. I think humans always have and always will tell each other stories even just about you know what's happened in our day or the you know funny thing that happened to me last Thursday type of stories. Uh we still do those but yes we've lost um we've lost the stories of our families a lot. I think um I always tell my children about the you know things that my grandparents did in the war in the Channel Islands.
¶100They lived in the Channel Islands and so that's you know because that's an important part of our family history. I'm not sure that everybody still does that kind of thing. Um and we've lost our we've lost lots of cultural stories. Yeah. And a lot of time the stories we tell each other are through WhatsApp and such broken broken you know this has happened this has happened rather than rather than telling the full thing.
¶101Yeah. >> I think we've stopped telling even obvious fairy tales to children. I've experienced a bit of that as a as a storyteller that um I used to be able to give them refrains and they would respond that they would already know that if I said little pig, little pig, let me come in, they would all that, you know, most of them, the majority of them would go, "Not by the hairs on my chin." You know, they'd heard the story. Um that's not the case anymore. Uh I'm not sure how that's happened, but I imagine YouTube is the answer.
¶102um just people not telling those stories in those ways anymore. Uh that even if they're familiar with The Three Little Pigs, perhaps they've seen it on the screen and not actually [music] heard the story with the refrain the way that it's used to be told. >> Perhaps parents aren't reading to their kids as much as previously as well. Yeah. Yeah.
¶103Brilliant. So, we're going to take another break. We'll be back in a few minutes. The mind and brain are connected, but the scientific data doesn't enable you to establish the nature of that connection or the relationship. Just because science can't demonstrate that physical processes and mental processes are the same thing, that in and of itself doesn't give you any evidence that that's not the case either.
¶104>> Some people talk about seeing deceased relatives and communicating with them. This idea of floating up out of your body and watching things happen and being able to describe it afterwards that could be formed in your imaginative mind. >> Conscious experience and brain processes are two fundamentally different things. [music] >> I wonder if we're talking about >> You like me to go out for a bit? You guys seem really happy.
¶105So I'm thinking again about this Native American story that that you have worked with and um developed. So why is it that this this story points to the Christian message? But why why why do we find a story presumably that that has been developed without much contact with the explicit Christian message? Why why do we find traces of the Christian message in it? Do you think?
¶106>> Yeah. And in stories all over the world from everywhere from every age from before Christianity from in the Greek myths and so on everywhere. Um, I think that it all has to do with what we're told in Psalm 19 where it says that the heavens declare the glory of God. And in that psalm, you've got at the beginning of the psalm this image of the sun racing across the sky and um and the stars, everything in the heavens declaring God's glory. Uh and then at the end of the psalm, you've got a list of things about God's law.
¶107And so by the time you get to the end of the psalm, you realize that the whole thing is a metaphor and that God's law is um like the sun because it's everywhere and you can't get away from it and it light shines. But within that psalm, there's this idea that the whole of creation is designed to tell God's story to just declare without a voice the glory of God. And so it does. So it does in in the seasons, in the regrowth of the plants, in everything that we've always known since prehistory, the the gospel is tucked away in creation itself. So we shouldn't be at all surprised if humans everywhere always have told stories as they look at the sun, as they look at the stars, as they look at the heavens, as they feel the wind, uh that they've told stories about their surroundings.
¶108We shouldn't be surprised if those stories have a flavor of the gospel in them because creation was designed that way so that we can uh know God by looking at it. >> I love that. I guess someone might push back and say, "Yes, but what about sin?" So the Christian message claims that we are in a in a fallen world. So some I guess you might call I don't know very very people who are very reformed have a very strong doctrine of original sin of total depravity might say that but we can't expect to find sinners coming up with um stories that are going to point us to divine reality. What we need is revelation to come in in the form of the scripture to tell us what's what God is like.
¶109There's bit of a debate amongst theologians about revealed theology versus natural theology. Those who are more bo uh concerned about the sinful state we find ourselves in tend to emphasize more revealed theology rather than natural theology. Uh Lewis obviously finds a middle way. How would you respond to an objection like that? >> I would say and and so we do.
¶110That's what Psalm 19 is doing there in the book. It's explaining what what creation is saying. Uh and how otherwise can we fully understand the setting and the rising of the sun? Um it's interesting because we were talking about Orus and Urity right at the beginning of our conversation and I was saying that the Greek myths diagnose the pro the the problem and that they don't provide a solution. But the sun sets and rises and sets and rises.
¶111So whi which end do we see ourselves? Do we do we see ourselves in in the rising of the sun or do we see that in fact our sun has set and we need it to rise again. Um how do we understand humanity itself? Those questions aren't just answered by what we see in creation. They are also answered by the other kinds of stories that we tell.
¶112>> Yes. So it's a it's a complimentary uh these these stories are fulfilled in in scripture. Yeah. Yeah. Do you know we had what 15 20 years ago we had the new atheist movement and Dawkins and Hitchens and all there really this is sort of a hyperrationalistic scientific approach to the world and it feels like things have changed a bit.
¶113It feels like there's more openness to to the arts to um what might communi be communicated through stories to spirituality. Uh there's I mean there's in some sense there's more openness to pagan religion and even to to the occult at the moment. So I'm just wondering if you've picked that up. I mean, do you think that people would be more attentive to what you have what you and other Christian artists have to say now than than they were 20 years ago? >> Yes, I think they probably would.
¶114There's definitely I think people are really hoping that the ancient things are true or at least that the ancient things might have had something that tells us more about what it is to be a human than what we have now. And it's interesting that that's you know now in the age of AI encroaching everywhere and of the world in which we live being in the palms of our hands being this robotic algorithmfed probably barely human content that we look at. I think people are thinking what if what if they had something what if we had something that's been lost. >> Yeah. Yeah, I like that idea of hoping.
¶115In some sense, people are are are giving themselves permission to explore this world. There was this real cultural pressure in the past saying, you know, whatever you believe, you have to give an argument for. You have to be able to prove through a scientific experiment. But now, as there's been a bit of a breakdown of that worldview, there's now people are are giving themselves permission to explore. And well on that note um I'm just you know you talk you talk about fairy tales um and we have Martin Shaw coming on in a month's time as well.
¶116He'll be speaking to that theme as well. I'm just thinking then these fairy tales there's this openness in wider culture. How how might we think I mean can can we make a more explicit link between the fairy tales that you tell and and and Martin and others tell and the the Christian message itself. >> I think it's interesting because you just mentioned human depravity. I think that's a really important one.
¶117I think we've we've lost the meaning of the word sin. And because of that, the word sin now causes a knee-jerk reaction in entirely the wrong direction. And because of that, it's almost impossible to have a conversation with somebody who who doesn't well, it's almost impossible to have a conversation with anybody about it actually because you'll find you have two different meanings of the word. um an understanding that human nature, imperfect human nature cannot coexist with a holy God. I think it's at the center of Christianity, the gospel makes no sense without it.
¶118And in a world where we've been told um you know, you you're a good person, you're you're enough. so long as you just keep trying, um, then everything will be fine. And, and I I think then we've we've lost the gospel. We've lost the point of the gospel because we're no longer seeing ourselves in that very human sinful way. And one thing that fairy tales almost always do is they have a prohibition.
¶119And GK Chesterton points that out in the ethics of Alflland as well. He says, I think the way he puts it is, you may live with the princess so long as you never show her an onion. The prohibition rarely makes logical sense. Um, but within the logic of the fairy tale, it makes absolute sense. And as soon as you hear the prohibition, you know that the hero is going to do the thing.
¶120And all of them, all of those instances in fairy tales are really interesting to look at because they speak to human nature on a a macro and a micro level. So on the macro level that obviously that resonates with Eden. You've got, you know, Pandora opening the box and all of the evils of the world flying out. It's it's like looking for a reason for evil. But if you think of the story of Blue Beard, this really gruesome story where, and again, this exists in so many cultures.
¶121I'm saying Blue Beard because that's Grim's Fairy Tales and people might know it. This exists all over the place. There's a West African version, there's Jamaican version. Um the blue beard marries the girl and then he goes away and he gives her a bunch of keys and he says you can have anything in my house. Uh you can open any door but don't use this little key and open that particular door um or it will be the worst for you.
¶122So she's in this house and she can she can have anything you know all the all the treasure all the everything. She can have big parties. What does she do? She goes straight to the door and she opens the door and behind the door are his six previous wives that he's slaughtered lying in a pool of blood. Um, she's so shocked that she drops the key and when she picks it up, it's stained with blood, but it's magic a magic key and she can't get the blood stain off.
¶123So, he knows that she's opened the door. But if you think about it, even if he didn't know, um, he would know from the way she looked at him over breakfast the next morning, wouldn't he? She she's done it now. She's she's seen. And and there's that kind of knowledge of good and evil thing there, isn't isn't there?
¶124I mean, obviously, Blue Beard is is is evil. He's not, you know, this is hardly a direct allegory. He's not in the place of God here with his prohibition. But the fact that she has seen everything is suddenly not perfect. A life that could have been fine is not perfect because now she knows she knows the thing.
¶125Um and that's very what she what she knows is is that evil exists and we have to know that evil exists or we can't carry on the story and get the eventual rescue and defeat Blue Beard and get out of there. um otherwise he's going to kill her and then keep killing all of his wives. Um yes, so we always do the prohibited thing. Um and and all of us will always do the prohibited thing. Uh so that's that's human nature and it's interesting because that happens at the beginning of the fairy tale and then you spend the rest of the time trying to get your way out of it and undo the mistake.
¶126Um and then at the end there's always a rescue. So I think in in the fairy tale we will there are two rules. We will always do the bad thing. We will always be rescued and that is the gospel. We will do the prohibited thing.
¶127We can't help it. It's our nature. It's what's expected. It will happen. The door will open.
¶128The blood will be there. Um you know we'll show the princess an onion. Everything will fall apart. Human lives will be lost. Uh but we will always be rescued.
¶129We will be rescued. There is a savior. Um God has sorted out that problem because he knows what we're like. >> And you find when people hear that, they can identify, you know, if if that's what you're talking about when you're talking about sin. You think it's almost universal that people can hear that and see it in themselves?
¶130>> I I hope so. As I say, this the story that we're being told is you're a good person and and you're fine and as long as you know you have this certain level of goodness and you're not privately some kind of monster, then then everything is fine and what you do is justified. Um and and we justify ourselves. The truth of human nature is not that. Um the truth of human nature is sin and death.
¶131And we've already looked into the Greek myths with the death and in the fairy tales there is there is the sin. We will always do the prohibited thing. It is just just a truth. That's interesting. I remember somebody asking a question at a sort of an apologetics event saying, you know, I'm not I don't see myself as I'm not a really bad person.
¶132I'm not a not a Hitler, whatever else. I haven't done awful things, but uh Christianity says that I have to believe that in some sense I'm a sinner. And she was struggling with that question. Um, could you link what you've just said to her to her question, her struggle with faith? >> Yeah, it it's like it's what it's what Paul says.
¶133I do what I don't want to do and what I I'm paraphrasing Paul terribly here. [laughter] Whatever I want to do, I don't do it. Um, he we'll we'll always we will always make the mistake. But even if you can't, even if you look at your life and you think, well, comparatively I'm all right. I haven't done any terribly evil deeds.
¶134Um, the thing to understand is that sin is just another word for human. And humanity cannot coexist with an utterly holy God. It's like a chemical reaction. It's it's not a question of I think I think so many people see God as having the ability to change this situation by changing his mind. Uh and it it it's really important that that just isn't true.
¶135God hasn't created a world where he's decided that humans can't get to him. Um but he could if he wanted just say, "Oh, actually no, it's fine. I I don't mind. Come on in. It when you read when you read stories in the Bible about there's that story where somebody touches the ark and just drops down dead.
¶136Um and people will read that and say, you know, that that's awful. What a horrible judgmental God would strike him down. That's not it's it's more like it's more like putting potassium into water and it goes never going to do anything other than go boom. Um you you cannot have human nature and a holy God together until Jesus makes the way for that to happen. And that's the most important thing about the gospel I think.
¶137>> So much here. So much here. Let's let's talk a bit about metaphor. uh you work on on metaphor and this ties into what we've we've just been saying, but but can you help us out like what is metaphor? How how might we understand it and why is it important when we're thinking about these sort of big questions of life?
¶138>> Yes. So I've written um two books particularly on scriptural metaphor called image of the invisible and images of grace. uh and I scripture is full of metaphors. Metaphor is Greek for to carry across. Um which interestingly in Latin the words trans transfer is exactly the same roots.
¶139Um so a metaphor is something that is carried across into our understanding. something that we cannot possibly understand because it is too big and too outside of our knowledge is carried across into a concrete thing that we can see and understand. So um Jesus's parables about the kingdom of heaven are examples of metaphors. He's giving us a way to understand the kingdom of heaven when he says it is like a woman who takes yeast and puts it into bread. And so there's this one specific that's a specific metaphor about how the kingdom of heaven kind of grows and pervades.
¶140Um, but scripture is full of metaphors. Uh, and my first book, Images of God, uh, was just all the scriptural metaphors for God from the obvious ones you can think of like shepherd and rock and anchor. And then there's mother hen. Um, and then, you know, then there's bread and light and the the I am sayings of Jesus are all metaphors. These are all ways that something we cannot understand gets taken across into our understanding.
¶141Uh but the beautiful thing about that is that Jesus is therefore himself a kind of metaphor not because he is metaphorical but because he is heaven carried across into our understanding becoming flesh. He he is the image of the invisible God. >> Yeah. And I mean some some would even I think people like McGillicris would even go as far as to say that that all language is metaphorical. What is it?
¶142Vickingstein says that when you languages when you dig deep and you hit bedrock and your spade has turned, what you've hit is is metaphor there. What do you think of that? >> Yeah, it is. It is a word. Every word is is a metaphor.
¶143You're trying to express something. I mean, as as a poet, um I know this. You just are trying to make your um your expressions, your words get more and more and more precise, tighter and tighter and tighter until you are closer and closer and closer to the completely indescribable emotion you are trying to describe. >> Yeah. Again, we we've talked too much about Lewis, but Lewis gives this example where he takes one piece of pros and he says, "Okay, let's let's get rid of the metaphorical language, but he just makes the point whatever you replace with it, you know, is going to be is going to be similarly metaphorical." And we we we don't a lot of the time we're not aware of that.
¶144>> Um >> so Psalm [clears throat] 19 has offered us a metaphor. It's with with the sun crossing the sky. That is like God's law because it's it is it is everywhere. Nothing can hide from its heat. You can't hide away from God's law.
¶145It's very obvious. You can see it. Um thus the heavens, the sun is like the law of God. That's a metaphor. Um, but the Bible also offers us lots of metaphors, metaphors for the gospel, metaphors for what Jesus has done.
¶146Um, I think we would call them atonement theories, but they're metaphors. Um, they're images because we will never fully be able to grasp or understand the way the mechanism by which we are saved. But throughout the Bible, we have been shown sacrifice. We've been shown ransom. um we've been shown, you know, exchange and we've been shown the Passover and so more and more as we come to it, we begin to understand what has happened.
¶147Um all of those though are metaphors. Yeah, a really interesting point that maybe some of these theories like penal substitution theory or um ransom theory, unel satisfaction theory that these are theories that help us try to understand but but but you get a better understanding perhaps by drawing on on metaphor itself. You if you tell Lewis's story about Alan and Edmund and and and and and the witch, you're not spelling out exactly how it works, but do you think you're giving people a a better intuitive insight into what's going on at the cross? >> You're giving them a handhold into it. You're you're providing something that they can grasp, literally grasp.
¶148A metaphor is a metaphor takes something abstract and makes it concrete. And so when we grasp with our understanding um it's because we've been given this picture that is that is concrete something that we can see and imagine and uh that then you know by that we can understand. >> And how has this all worked out for you and your your vocation? Are you what are you trying to do? You you obviously you told us about how for years you've been telling stories.
¶149So, so what is it you're trying to do then as you're what are you trying to make sense of as you tell the stories? And you're also we haven't talked as much anywhere near about about poetry. You're also a poet as well. >> Yes. And it's it's all much of a much I suppose with what I'm trying to do.
¶150It's it's it is just about expression and trying to put these ideas out into the world. I suppose um half the time I'm trying to work it out for myself >> and uh and then perhaps only people exactly like me will understand it and grasp it but you know then it's still worth doing if it's only people exactly like me who will suddenly go ah >> but no but I think I think people who aren't like you they need it they need to they need to hear it we need our poets and storytellers to to open up these realms realms of of reality or not realms of reality but these ways of understanding those realms of reality that they're so familiar with from other other ways of understanding like hearing sermons or whatever else. So looking ahead, what what what what's on the horizon for you to use a metaphor? [sighs and gasps] >> I with your working with >> I hope to do more with the poetry. Um certainly want to keep writing poems and begin to get them out into the world because some of my poems are in my books, but I've never produced an actual book of poetry.
¶151So that's a that's a possible next thing. Um but it's all I I go where God puts me. and I tell some stories and I see what happens and uh yes when an idea comes to me then I'll I'll try to get it out into the world as much as I can. >> Wonderful. We we are so glad and grateful that God has put you on this uh table talking to us today because it's been such a a rich conversation.
¶152Um, again, a lot of our a lot of our guests are, I guess, a bit more on the rational side of uh apologetics. Um, so it's been it's been so rich hearing from you. But as as Ian McGill, one of our previous guests, he [music] said, you know, you've got rationality, which is be this sort of narrow understanding of logic whereas reason, he has this picture of reason that the ancients had that includes the arts. And it's only through that holistic approach to reality that we can really grasp it in its fullness. And and [music] what you've offered to us has been so helpful in that regard.
¶153So thank thanks for joining us. >> Thank you. >> And to our viewers and listeners, thank you again and we'll be back in two [music] weeks time. Take care.