C S Lewis and the Body in the Basement (C S Lewis Mysteries Book 1) (24 page)

And that brought us to the back of the bank, which was on a narrow lane. Here, after only a few minutes, our search turned up some results.

Jack’s tapping with his walking stick produced a metallic ring rather than the usual concrete thud. Warnie and I hurried to his side.

‘It’s a metal plate or trap door,’ I whispered, ‘set into the footpath hard against the back wall of the bank.’

‘That’s the old coal chute for sure,’ hissed Warnie. ‘Let me have a closer look.’

But his closer look proved to be deeply disappointing. The door to the old coal chute was bolted closed. Furthermore, the bolts all had layers of rust on them. There was no movement in them at all, and it was clear they had not been unfastened for many years.

‘But there must be another way into the bank cellar,’ Warnie insisted in a whisper, ‘there must be.’

‘You may be right,’ said Jack quietly, ‘but this is not it.’

I stood up to get the cramps out of my thigh muscles and decided I was just about ready to return to the light and the warmth of our pub. In straightening up I bumped against some kind of large metal can, which rocked and rattled and sent a clattering noise echoing down the street and back again. In the hushed night it sounded like a chimneypot crashing through the roof of a glass house.

We all froze where we were, waiting for a light to go on or a window or shutter to open. There was a long silence during which absolutely nothing happened. Eventually we began to breathe a little easier.

‘Perhaps they think it’s a cat jumping around the rubbish bins,’ I whispered hopefully.

‘What is it you bumped into?’ asked Warnie.

‘Actually, it
is
a rubbish bin,’ I replied, ‘and keep your voice down. They won’t think it’s a cat if they can hear a conversation.’

‘Sorry,’ said Warnie, dropping his voice back to a whisper. ‘Is it the bank’s bin?’

‘I think it must be,’ I hissed. ‘There are two bins here, both next to the back door of the bank, so they must both belong to the bank.’

‘That’s gives me an idea,’ said Warnie, a gleeful note in his hushed voice. My heart sank as he continued, ‘In an American detective story I read recently, by that Erle Stanley Gardner chappie, he was saying that good detectives always search through rubbish bins. There can be important clues in rubbish bins. Or trash cans as they call them in America.’

‘All right then, Warnie,’ said Jack good-naturedly, ‘ease the lids off quietly and shine your torch inside.’

I did the easing and Warnie did the shining. The first bin was full of kitchen scraps, and the second was filled with paper—the contents, it seemed to me, of the bank’s waste paper baskets.

‘Anything of interest?’ I asked.

Warnie ignored the kitchen scraps and rummaged around in the bin full of paper.

‘Can’t see anything,’ he grumbled. ‘Mind you, banks never throw out important papers. They either burn them or store them for years and years. Hello—what’s this then?’

From under several layers of paper Warnie fished out an oily rag. It didn’t look very exciting to me. He unwrapped the rag to reveal an oil-covered screwdriver. He studied it closely by the dim light of his torch.

‘Perfectly good screwdriver,’ he said. ‘Nothing wrong with it. Just needs cleaning up a bit, that’s all. Hate seeing things wasted like that.’ He wrapped the screwdriver back into its oily rag and thrust it deep into one of his capacious coat pockets.

‘Now,’ I insisted, ‘let’s get back to a nice warm room at the pub.’

Later that night we were gathered again around the blazing fire in the snug at
The Boar’s Head
.

As Warnie walked in from the bar carrying a tray containing a brandy and soda for each of us, he said, ‘Bit of a blow that, eh? I was just wasting your time. Sorry about that—I thought we might find something that had been overlooked.’

‘My dear chap,’ Jack exclaimed, ‘that was well worthwhile. Viewing the scene and exploring the possibilities is always worthwhile.’

‘Oh, really?’ grunted Warnie, looking quite chuffed. ‘Well, that’s all right then.’ He sipped his brandy and soda and then said, ‘And I know what you two are about to do: start that argument of yours all over again. So if you don’t mind I think I’ll join those jolly chaps in the front bar parlour. Might have a game of darts while I’m at it. I’ll leave you two to argue about the meaning of life in peace.’

‘It’s a discussion, not an argument,’ I started to say, but by then Warnie’s back was disappearing through the doorway.

‘Well now, young Morris—where were we up to?’ asked Jack with relish, clearly savouring the prospect of another battle of wits.

‘Actually, since our last discussion I’ve come to the conclusion that this debate can’t possibly ever get us anywhere.’

Disappointment showed on the face of the happy warrior as he asked me why.

‘What I’ve realised, more clearly and firmly than ever before,’ I replied, ‘is that I’m just not religious. I don’t have a religious bone in my body.’

At these words he brightened up again and with a broad smile said, ‘Is that all? Because I’d have to say that on the whole that’s a good thing.’

‘Now you’ve got me confused. I thought you were trying to persuade me to be religious.’

‘Well, of course, that all depends on what you mean by the word “religion”,’ said Jack with a sly grin, and I knew I was in for one of his famous word games.

‘Go on,’ I said like a chess player tentatively moving his knight into a possibly exposed position.

‘In one sense of the word everyone is religious—even the most chest-beating atheist.’

‘Even Bertrand Russell?’

‘Even Russell.’

This was a bold attack on my flank that I hadn’t expected and didn’t understand.

‘Since what you say seems to be patently absurd, I’m sure you’ll have a good explanation.’

Jack’s smile widened as he said, ‘There is some dispute over the origin of the English word “religion”, but nowadays most philologists suggest that it comes from the Latin
religare
—which you’ll remember means “to bind”. Our word “ligature” comes from a related source word, and, of course, a ligature is a binding. So if, as it seems, “religion” means “that which binds” then everyone is religious, because everyone has something that they are bound to—or something which binds them.’

‘What’s Bertrand Russell’s religion then?’

‘That I couldn’t possibly answer. For a start he belongs to the other university, so I don’t know the man personally. And I haven’t read enough of his writings to know what opinions he feels tied to—feels bound to defend no matter what. Of course, for some people their “religion” (that to which they are bound hand and foot) is their own pleasure, or their career, or some particular task. But feeling bound and committed to something is part of human nature. So in that “binding” sense, everyone has something that could be called their “religion”.’

I leaned forward and said, ‘You’ll notice that I’m squinting here, trying to get a good look at these fine philosophical hairs you’re splitting.’

Jack laughed heartily. ‘And if you’re telling me that etymology is not meaning you’re quite right. So looking at the word “religion” as it’s most commonly used in our world today, it seems to me that God is not religious.’

This was another bold move, as if he was trying to leap across the board and capture my queen. ‘Hold on, that’s a step too far for me. Back up several paces and explain that one.’

‘You’ll understand that since, reluctantly, abandoning my atheistic dogmas and becoming a Christian I’ve been reading my Bible assiduously. And from my reading it seems to me that what God cares about is not religion—if by religion we mean things like membership of this or that body, attendance at services, rituals and routines and the like. It strikes me that much of what we label “religion” these days consists of things the Bible would have called “idolatry”. Again and again God seems to tell his people that an empty show of ritual is not what pleases him. It’s matters of the heart that please him, not belonging to the “religious club” or taking part in this or that service or act of worship or ritual.’

‘Well, if God’s not religious, what is he? What is it he really wants from us?’

‘It seems to me that what God cares about is relationship, not religion. His goal is not that you become religious, but that you have a personal relationship with him. Remember when Jesus was asked to summarise God’s requirements of us he said they could be boiled down to just two commandments. The first was to love God with all our heart and mind and soul and strength, and the second was to love our neighbour as ourselves. Now, what are those two commandments about? Surely both are about relationships. The first says: here’s how to relate to God. And the second says: here’s how to relate to each other.’

‘So if I am sincere in pursuing an appropriate relationship with God, that will put me right—even if I dodge all the hymn singing and organ music and lighting candles and stained-glass windows?’

‘There is, in a sense, only one requirement, young Morris: that you pursue a relationship with God in the way that God requires and the way that God makes possible.’

At that moment Warnie sailed back in through the door carefully balancing a fresh brandy and soda in his hand. He saw our heads together and Jack’s eyes sparkling with battle and said, ‘Ah, you’re still at it, I see. Then it’s another game of darts for me.’ And with those words he disappeared again.

‘But what if,’ I said, ‘I have no interest in pursuing God? What then? It seems to me that I am a strictly secular person. Is there no place for secular folk like me?’

‘The notion of being secular doesn’t bother me at all,’ Jack replied. ‘We are all secular, since the word “secular” just means pertaining to this mundane, everyday world around us. My problem is with your expression “strictly secular”. That sounds as though you have ruled out a whole region of thought—a whole realm of life. We human beings are made to be amphibians.’

‘Amphibians?’

‘We have two modes of existence. Just as those creatures we commonly call amphibian can thrive both on land and in the water, so we are designed to thrive in dual environments—both in the secular and the sacred, both in the material and the spiritual. Once you label yourself as “strictly secular” you are narrowing your life down to half of its potential.’

‘But if I’m only ever aware of the secular, of the material, what then?’

‘Ah, but you see, young Morris, I don’t believe that you are. There are those things that lift your heart, that make your spirit soar, that fill you with hope or with longing. In those moments you catch a glimpse of that realm that is beyond the strictly secular and material.’

‘Such as?’ I asked, not denying his observation because I knew it had a kernel of truth in it.

‘When, after a day’s hard walking, you get to the peak of a high bluff and look out on beautiful countryside, rolling away to a distant horizon, lit up in brilliant red and gold by a setting sun—the stirring in your spirit cannot be explained as the product merely of photons of light striking the retina at the back of your eye and nothing more. Something else is going on. You should investigate what that something is.’

I sipped my brandy and soda in silence for a moment, then said, ‘And if I investigate, what do you imagine I’ll discover?’

‘Any thoroughgoing and honest investigation will turn up the key that opens this particular door. Namely that Jesus founded a universal faith—not a regional religion.’

This seemed to me to be switching the discussion onto an entirely different track, but I didn’t interrupt. I wanted to see where this line of thought was leading.

‘There are parts of the world,’ Jack said, ‘defined both geographically and ethnically, in which cultural systems are based on Hinduism or Buddhism or Confucianism or what have you. But everywhere the message of Jesus arrives it takes root and flourishes and finds appropriate local cultural expression.’

‘And this is because . . . ?’

‘It’s because Christianity doesn’t belong to the East, its birthplace, or to Europe, its current stronghold, but to the world. The “coming down” (and I don’t mean spatially, of course) of God into human history, into time and space, takes Christianity from the realm of spiritual speculation into the realm of facts and events. It takes it into the realm of reality—and of a reality that is eternally true.’

‘Now there I have to challenge you. Truth is more flexible and personal than that. The notion that this or that truth is absolute and eternal is surely nonsensical. There are no such truths.’

‘There are, young Morris, truths that are universal. The six times table was true a thousand years ago and it’s true today. It’s true in England and it’s true in Japan—and if we were on the surface of the moon it would be true there. The message about Jesus is like mathematics—universal, eternal truth.’

‘A truth that explains what exactly?’

‘It explains the other half of existence—the half not covered by words such as “secular” and “material”. The parallel here is modern science, in that Christianity exposes the basic principles the world works on. Not, of course, the material and physical principles; rather the metaphysical, supernatural principles. By way of illustration: the formula for water is H
₂
O in every country, in every culture, in every century. Modern science is a universally true explanation of the material world, as far as it goes. It still has much to discover, and still undoubtedly contains some errors that will one day be corrected. Nonetheless, it serves as a parallel or illustration for the way Christianity is the universal truth about that part of Tom Morris that is more than physical—that part of every human being that is more than physical. It is the necessary explanation, the necessary guide, we all need—and without which we are all lost.’