Till We Have Faces...
We say so easily that it would be nice to have a little more self-knowledge. To understand who we truly are and why we do what we do, why we say what we say. But are we really prepared to know the whole truth of ourselves?
In C.S. Lewis’ Till We Have Faces, one of my favorite books ever--which everyone who love to read knows such a thing cannot be said lightly--, the main character and sister of Psyche, Orual, writes a whole book accusing the gods, whom she decries bitterly saying they refuse to answer her. Then she is summoned to make her complaint before a heavenly court, but as she speaks it, her words change until the whole truth of what she meant beneath the words in her book come out of her mouth.
“At last the judge spoke.
‘Are you answered?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said I.
The complaint was the answer. To have heard myself making it was to be answered. Lightly men talk of saying what they mean. Often when he was teaching me to write in Greek the Fox would say, ‘Child, to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that’s the whole art and joy of words.’ A glib saying. When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years, which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you’ll not talk about joy of words. I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?
...[after having seen Psyche’s Bridegroom at last, the god of the mountain]
I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice? Only words, words; to be let out to battle against other words...”
Until all the facades are ripped
away, all the lies have been destroyed,
and all the deceit of our lives is brought to light,
we do not have faces.
“Faces” are formed by truth alone,
and it is impossible to see the truth in anything or anyone
until we ourselves have faces.
...
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(This book is incredible. A mix of Greek myth being retold, philosophical thought, an outwardly strong and fierce but interiorly broken and lonely Queen bent on vengeance, a girl who seems crazy because her love is unworldly in how pure and unwavering it remains--who has, you could say, one foot in heaven and one on earth, betrayal, heartbreak, plot-twists. It’s got it all. I kinda spoiled the end...sorry. But it is still worth reading a million times over. I love this book. Just saying. You should read it.)