If after watching "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" (which released in US theaters this weekend), you find yourself or your kids feeling drawn to Aslan with alarming emotion, don't assume it's just the result of some cinematic spell. Aslan had that effect even back when he was knowable only through words on a page.

A concerned mother once wrote C. S. Lewis on behalf of her son, Laurence, who, having read The Chronicles of Narnia, became concerned that he loved Aslan more than Jesus. In his response, Lewis offered this relief:

Laurence can't really love Aslan more than Jesus, even if he feels that's what he is doing. For the things he loves Aslan for doing or saying are simply the things Jesus really did and said. So that when Laurence thinks he is loving Aslan, he is really loving Jesus: and perhaps loving Him more than he ever did before.

And he gave this recommendation for a prayer:

If I were Laurence I'd just say in my prayers something like this: "Dear God, if the things I've been thinking and feeling about those books are things You don't like and are bad for me, please take away those feelings and thoughts. But if they are not bad, then please stop me from worrying about them. . . . And if Mr. Lewis has worried any other children by his books or done them any harm, then please forgive him and help him never to do it again." (quotes from C. S. Lewis: Letters to Children, pp. 52-53)

What do you think of Lewis' counsel?