From the day we arrive on the planet
And blinking, step into the sun
There's more to be seen than can ever be seen
More to do than can ever be done

Some say eat or be eaten
Some say live and let live
But all are agreed as they join the stampede
You should never take more than you give

In the circle of life
It's the wheel of fortune
It's the leap of faith
It's the band of hope
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the circle, the circle of life

Some of us fall by the wayside
And some of us soar to the stars
And some of us sail through our troubles
And some have to live with the scars

There's far too much to take in here
More to find than can ever be found
But the sun rolling high through the sapphire sky
Keeps great and small on the endless round

I have always loved this song.  I have been most touched by the beauty of the melody and instrumentation.  But somehow the words have subtly haunted me, whispering a message deeper than my understanding.  Today the truth of its message started to sink in.

Is this mortal earth the first place this circle of life and death has ever appeared?  The thing that struck me is that in the song this circle is described as a leap of faith.  For the Christian the leap of faith is a leap to God.  But it is not of our initiation: it is a leap back to God, for he was the one who first leaped to us in Christ.  Why did He do that?  Because He has been leaping within Himself from eternity past—the everlasting romp of the Trinity.  CS Lewis says that when Christ was crucified he “did that in the wild weather of his outlying provinces which he had done at home in glory and gladness”.  The circle of love that involves dying to self—eternally giving oneself to others—is not new to God.  It is what He is at His core, what He has been doing from eternity past.  The Incarnation is a vivid picture before our dull senses of just that. 

 “From the highest to the lowest, self exists to be abdicated (leaped out of) and, by that abdication, becomes the more truly self, to be thereupon yet the more abdicated, and so forever.  This is not a heavenly law which we can escape by remaining earthly, nor a earthly law which we can escape by being saved.  What is outside the system of self-giving is not earth, nor nature, nor ‘ordinary life’, but simply and solely Hell.”                                                                                                                                           _{-CS Lewis}

 The whole of reality is a cosmic dance, a dance similar to the one pictured in CS Lewis’s Prince Caspian.  This leaping out of one’s self, or shall we say death to self, is the essence of this dance of life, the substance of the great circle of life.  Our deepest destiny is death.  The eternal circle of life is a Phoenix rising from its own ashes.  It is this blessed death that we long for.  Our eternal life is our everlasting participation in this leaping dance that is the circle of life.