Jan. 28, 2024, column in the Amarillo Globe-News:
'Surprised by Oxford' film highlights our longing for joy
I suspected, but wasn’t sure,
that the movie, “Surprised by Oxford,” had something to do with C.S. Lewis,
given that one of the Oxford and Cambridge professor’s well-known books is
“Surprised by Joy.”
I was right, but Lewis isn’t the focal point of this true story. It’s about Carolyn (“Caro”) Drake, now a professor, speaker and writer named Carolyn Weber, who enrolled at Oxford University as a young woman skeptical about Christianity and left with master’s and doctoral degrees and a strong faith in Christ.
If you watch it on Amazon Prime
or elsewhere, don’t be deterred by some pretty philosophical conversations early on – for
example, use of such words as “teleological.” Part of the reason for
discussions about the meaning of life is to illustrate the high-brow
environment at the 900-year-old university where Caro is trying to fit in. Some
of the academic discourse also provides a counterpoint to the beliefs that
Caro’s new friend, Kent, talks about.
Caro initially trusts nothing
that she can’t see or prove. Then she slowly becomes receptive to Kent’s
low-key reasoning for the existence of God – at the same time she warms up to him
romantically.
Caro is Canadian,
while Kent is American. His last name is Weber, which might be a clue to their
future. Not mentioned in the movie is that he is a son of Stu Weber, a
well-known pastor and author of the 1993 bestseller, “Tender Warrior.”
What isn’t surprising about the
movie is the beautiful setting that shows Oxford’s “dreaming spires,” Hogwarts-style
dining hall and elegant St. Mary’s Church. The splendid environment, with
students bicycling past ancient stone walls, accentuates the faculty and
student conversations about the nature of pleasure and joy.
Humans’ longing for joy is a key
concept in C.S. Lewis’ writing, especially in “Surprised by Joy,” which
describes his own reluctant acceptance of God, and finally, Christ. In the
film, Caro is introduced to that book and realizes how her yearning for
happiness after a broken-home childhood might be fruitless without commitment
to the ultimate joy.
She sees what Kent already sees,
which is that the beauty we appreciate in nature, music or anywhere in this
world is temporary, leaving us yearning to return to past joyful experiences or
to enjoy pleasures that seem out of reach.
Lewis wrote in “Mere
Christianity,” “The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or
first think of some foreign country, or first take up some subject that excites
us, are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning, can really satisfy.
“I am not now
speaking of what would be ordinarily called unsuccessful marriages, or
holidays, or learned careers. I am speaking of the best possible ones. There
was something we grasped at, in that first moment of longing, which just fades
away in the reality.”
Caro begins to
agree with Lewis that the scent of a fragrant flower or the sound of an
inspiring song are just lesser versions of the world that God promises us in
eternity. Lewis wrote that such delights are “a copy, or echo, or mirage” of something
much better in heaven.
Throughout our
lives, we have desires that we sometimes satisfy, but the satisfaction doesn’t
always last. Or we reach a feeling of joy that isn’t quite as good as we had
imagined. We often feel an unexplainable uneasiness.
According to
Lewis, “Creatures are not born
with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger:
well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is
such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as
sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can
satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. …
Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse
it, to suggest the real thing.”
Caro accepts that logic,
and although the movie isn’t clear about how she fully accepts Christ, you know
she does. She sees what Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:17-18:
“For our light
and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs
them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since
what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
* * *
Mike
Haynes
taught journalism at Amarillo College
from 1991 to 2016 and has written for the Faith section since 1997. He can be
reached at haynescolumn@gmail.com.
Go to www.haynescolumn.blogspot.com for other recent columns.
