The Churchyard Cat

I am not a grave visitor. It’s not something I feel compelled to do in order to remember the dead. I know others regularly visit graves of loved ones to lay fresh flowers, clean headstones, trim grass, pull weeds and remember but personally, I find it more upsetting than helpful. So far in life, it’s not something I choose to do.

I do like church graveyards though. I like the still, peaceful atmosphere. I like the dark, shady yew trees and rambling ivy. The narrow grassy paths between rows of headstones. Benches set in quiet corners. I like reading the names and dates on the headstones, the Scripture verses, quotes, or lines of poetry that people have chosen. I like wondering about those people, who they were and what happened to them. 

I wandered the graveyard of Holy Trinity church in Headington, Oxford on holiday in England recently. It was a deliberate wandering, as it’s the churchyard in which C.S.Lewis is buried. The church is tucked away down a narrow residential street that I don’t suppose you would easily happen upon, unless you had set out intentionally to find it as I had.

It must once have been a more rural area but houses squeeze right up to the gate now and it seems like the church is in a strange place even though it was there first, rather than the houses. I’ve since browsed the church website where it says they have described themselves as ‘The Village Church in the City.’ It does have an incongruous feel to it but as soon as you walk through the gate, churchyard quietness takes over and the imagination doesn’t have to stretch too far to picture yourself surrounded by English countryside.

I had a look at the information board just inside the gate, which points out where to find the few memorials many visitors will have come to see. It’s not hard to find the Lewis grave, it’s not a big cemetery. Past the small, stone church, off to the left, and in the second row under a tree, lies the large, flat, memorial slab with the engraved names of Clive Staples Lewis and his older brother Warren Hamilton Lewis.

It was a totally unexpected and strangely emotional experience. Why should I cry for someone I never met or knew? Why would this be anything more than curiosity about a person whose books I have read since childhood?

I’m not the only person to do it. On the gravestone were several single flowers and quite a few pine cones set carefully around the names and dates. At the bottom right hand corner were two handwritten notes, the sodden paper ripped, and the ink smudged. It was those personal notes that really moved me I think. ‘

‘Dear Jack,’ began one note, ‘Thank you for Narnia. I can’t wait to meet you in Aslan’s country. Your friend _’

The other was addressed to ‘Mr Lewis’, ‘Thanks for your contributions to academia’. The torn paper meant that most of the rest of the text was missing apart from the words 'goodness' and 'beauty'.

People have been so strongly moved that they need to express themselves in response to Lewis, even though he cannot hear them or read their notes. 

In reading his books, people feel connected to him because it’s not just about the books, it’s about the person you are connecting to via the book. The person on the other side of the pages who lets you get to know him as he writes, who chooses or even at times is compelled to open himself up and allow himself to be known through his own words.

It made me think that if a human being can do that, if one person can touch the life of another, regardless of place or time through the pages of a book then what can God do? What does he do through his book? We are able to open the pages of the Bible and personally get to know the author, to be connected to him, to know him.

And it doesn’t matter how many editions or translations are published. It doesn’t matter which one we personally prefer because the author speaks Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, King James English, modern English, any language you can think of in the history and future of the world. This writer cannot be confined to a single era, a single language, a single leather bound cover with gilt page edging and red gospel text.

What do we do in response? Are we so moved by this author that we want to express ourselves in some way, to let him know how much gratitude we feel for what he has done? Do we want to tell him that we are his friend and that we look forward to meeting him face to face one day?

What a travesty that instead of having our minds and souls opened up to the wonders of meeting the ultimate author, we close ourselves off from such friendship, that instead of our own lives being so affected and profoundly changed by the experience of this meeting, we use his book to hurt others, to dehumanise, and criticise. Instead of being the intersection of relationship and expression of love, the Bible becomes almost weaponised.

I read the books of C.S.Lewis and those of other beloved authors because they open doors of my imagination, they speak truth with openness and honesty, they encourage me to question, to wonder, to think and ultimately I believe they move me closer towards God and those are surely the best kind of writers. They learned their craft from the Master of words.

As I passed the notice board again on my way out, a ginger and white cat padded towards me. I bent down to stroke him and say hello. I thought of ‘The Horse and His Boy’, when Shasta spends a night amongst the desert tombs with only a cat for company and Aslan tells him at a later meeting, ‘I was the cat who comforted you among the houses of the dead.’ I smiled to myself and to the cat winding itself round my legs, there amongst the tombs of Oxford.

Jack Lewis isn’t here but Aslan is.