The Dawn Treader

Lots of interesting stuff to talk about in this interview.

On the importance of story:

How do you teach children to ask the big questions?

I think by getting them to fall in love with the stories and not be scared of failure. It's terrifying for me to see now what's happened to kids, particularly from kindergarten to third grade, where pretty rigorous instructions on mathematics and all kinds of things are largely supplanting fantasy play and storytelling. These kids are under such tremendous pressure at such young ages!

This resonates with me.  Reality is more than facts.  There is a narrative to life and history that we dare not miss.  When we reduce education to knowledge and facts, we lose imagination and perspective.  We lose sight of the bigger picture.  We lose sight of meaning.

On the power of art and story:

I've never really been captured by art, but it's unbelievable what that painting has sparked in me. It's sort of the tale of the Prodigal Sons, plural. For the first time I really understood that, I looked at the painting, and I could physically see unconditional love. I could somehow understand love, and also understand brokenness in a new way. I've heard so many sermons on that parable; I've read that parable so many times in the last 30 years. But it's unbelievable what this one painting and Nouwen's reflections on it have done for me. I can't think of holier work than planting and nourishing life-long learning in children and adults and getting them to ask the big questions.

Flaherty is right.  Art conveys meaning.  Images convey meaning.  Story conveys meaning.  We need both in life : truth and meaning.

On the Dawn Treader:

The first time I spoke with you, I had just received the first draft of Dawn Treader. Literally as we were speaking it was there on my desk. I hadn’t even opened it up yet. I couldn’t wait to read it, though, because Eustace is one of my favorite characters.

Dawn Treader is moving very well. Michael Apted, who directed Amazing Grace, is directing it. He also directed Coal Miner’s Daughter and a bunch of others. He’s a great director. He’s the president of the Directors Guild.

On the human heart :

In Philippians, Paul says to focus on whatever is true, noble . . . What do you do when you have a story that has moments of ugliness and things that aren't noble? How do you make decisions about that?

Paul didn't shy away from the fact that the human heart is capable of every darkness. To appreciate Paul, and to appreciate the wisdom in that saying, is to appreciate where he had been in his life. Paul would not be as interesting and compelling a character if we didn't understand what got him to that point of wisdom. I think that in order to understand the true and the noble, you have to have glimpses of their counterparts. I think that it's critical for all of us to recognize that nothing is beyond reconciliation and nothing is beyond redemption. So, even if we've gone to those dark places, or those places that are less than noble, or less than praiseworthy, we have that ability to be the creation. I think that's one of the problems, so many people feel that's beyond them. When you talk about things like praiseworthy and noble and good, what about the people who feel like they can't reclaim that or recapture that, because they've experienced so much that's counter to that and so much that's opposite that? I think people need to know that the praiseworthy, the good, and the noble are always within our reach, regardless of where we've been.

Hit it out. of. the. park.

(HT: Mark Roberts)