Saturday, August 6, 2016

All I Ever Needed to Learn I Learned in Narnia

I wonder if it isn’t time to go back to Narnia.  I wonder if we are in one of those moments in our history when it would do us well to climb back into that wardrobe of furs and push our way through to the portal and reenter Aslan’s land.  Not to escape.  Not to lose ourselves in some fantasy.  Not to retreat from the cruel world.  But to discover again who we are and what it means to be real.

Things are real in Narnia.  They’re real at the level at which we want them most to be real.  In Narnia promises matter.  In Narnia telling the truth matters.  In Narnia how honest you are with yourself matters.  In Narnia there are consequences to how you treat someone, anyone.  In Narnia the structure of the story, the frame of each character, the very nature of existence, is held together by the mortar of these basic things. 

In Narnia we learn that really, really good candy is not worth it if it means selling your soul.  In Narnia the chivalry of a mouse is stronger than the coils of a sea serpent.  In Narnia it’s wise to trust the one you’ve normally trusted even when she asks you to do something crazy.  In Narnia evil has an enchanting spell.  In Narnia the one who wants control won’t always tell you the truth.  In Narnia sometimes sacrifices have to be made. In Narnia the oldest stories are the best stories.  In Narnia the whole thing got started with a song. In Narnia the most important thing to hold onto is each other. In Narnia the lion is not safe, but he’s good.

I wonder if it’s time to go back to Narnia. I wonder sometimes if in our complicated world we’ve lost touch with reality (at least I think I have).  I wonder if we are stacking the blocks but forgetting the mortar.  I wonder if in our effort to be safe we’ve forgotten to be good.


More and more I think that all I ever needed to learn I learned in Narnia.