Narnia #2: Shasta

     Shasta's character in the Horse and His Boy reminded me of a specific line from one of Lewis' other works, The Weight of Glory. "It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." 
     Shasta spends most of his life as a slave in a foreign land. He agrees to go on the journey to find freedom because he is about to be sold to a man who he believes will be unkind to him. He spends much of the book living on the run. He runs from the lions, he runs from slavery, and he runs from the land he believed was his home. He spends the time not looking forward to the joy of freedom but thinking a "why me?" I wondered if he hadn't been sold by his previous owner would he even have left or wanted more. He is a prince, who will one day be king, living as a slave in a foreign land. Not just living but living contently. I wonder how often many of us do the same?

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