I thought of just adding this post to the end of the 2456317 club thread, but since that is getting long-ish by now, I decided to start a new thread.
Sometimes it is fun to look for connections even if those connections are tenuous or non-existent simply because it leads to interesting thoughts and unexpected "aha"s. And I'm sure what I'm about to propose is along the "tenuous" or "non-existent" category of connections. Nevertheless...
I was reading the second and third chapters of The Revelation where John writes the letters to the seven churches. As I read the last two letters where we hear about what seems like the best of the bunch (Philodelphia) immediately followed by what seems like the worst of the bunch (Laodicea), something nudged me. The "extreme ends of the scale coming at the end" just felt familiar to me. And then it struck me what that "connection" was, that I was sensing. In the originally published order of CoN we see that the penultimate book (MN) is about the creation or beginning of Narnia, and the last book (LB) is about the end of Narnia. And especially the "lukewarm" quality of Loadicea compared with the "lukewarmness" of the Narnians in The Last Battle that brought down Narnia seemed significant.
This connection caused me to go back and re-read the seven letters from The Revelation in order, and to consider each of them in light of the originally published order of the CoN. Thus, LWW corresponds to the letter to Ephasus, and PC corresponding to the letter to Smyrna, and so on. It was a very interesting experience. Certainly some connections seemed "forced", but such "shoehorning" can sometimes lead to new insights.
Anyway, I had fun with it and recommend giving it a try. I also feel like there are other examples of "lists" or collections of things where the next-to-the-last and the last items are "extreme ends", but I can't think of them off the top of my head -- it just "feels" familiar for some reason. Any examples you can think of?
--Stanley
