Narnia

Disclaimer: This post sort of jumps around, because I wrote it in a rather stream-of-consciousness manner.

Sometimes I just want to escape the reality I'm in.

I don't mean this to be depressing. I just...feel a bit out of place.

The feeling is always subtle enough that I know it's not something that's meant to be changed, really. It's not some way I'm acting that makes things uncomfortable. It's not necessarily my environment. It's not what I'm doing. It's not what I'm thinking. It just is. Maybe it's where my focus is at. But, really, I don't think it can be pegged to one thing exactly.

Ha. I don't even know why I'm tying to explain this feeling in a blog, because I know it to be indescribable by nature. The most I can say about it is that in those moments of displacement, I want to be in Narnia.

I love Narnia. I love how everything there is good or bad. I love how bright and beautiful everything is. I know, I know. I sound crazy. It's an imaginary country described in books. It's just that everyone in Narnia is so excited about what they're doing. They are purposeful...and when they aren't, they're content. I imagine that the countryside is gorgeous and I could just spend a whole afternoon lying on the side of a hill staring off into the landscape, finding animals in cloud formations.

I suppose that if I were in Narnia itself I would just long to be in Aslan's country instead.

"Oh, Aslan," said Lucy. "Will you tell us how to get into your country from our world?" — "I shall be telling you all the time," said Aslan. "But I will not tell you how long or short the way will be; only that it lies across a river. But do not fear that, for I am the great Bridge Builder."

I'm content right now. Don't get me wrong. I'm blessed to be where I am, doing what I'm doing. I know that. It doesn't mean that I can't long for that more complete peace, long to be fully content and not merely complacent.

And it comes down to the same thing every time. Honestly. Every time I come to this screen and write and think and ponder and examine myself and my desires, I realize again that what I need is right in front of me. If I would just make that full and complete effort to seek out Christ in all I do, I'd be fully and completely content. The question I should be asking is what's stopping me? And then I realize that I know that too -- my own sin.

It's as simple as that. Except that that is anything but simple. Caught in a constant state of trying to break free. So I just keep singing to myself "It is well with my soul." And one day, it will be. The day I break free into the "new Narnia" where everything is brighter and better and...perfect.

"Perhaps you will get some idea of it if you think like this. You may have been in a room in which there was a window that looked out on a lovely bay of the sea or a green valley that wound away amoung the mountains. And in the wall of that room opposite to the glass there may have been a looking glass. And the sea in the mirror, or the valley in the mirror, were in one sense just the same as the real ones: yet at the same time they were somehow different — deeper, more wonderful, more like places in a story: in a story you have never heard but very much want to know. The difference between the old Narnia and the new Narnia was like that. The new one was a deeper country: every rock and flower and blade of grass looked like it meant more. I can't describe it any better than that: if you ever get there you will know what I mean. It was the unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling. He stamped his right fore-hoof on the ground and neighed, and then cried: "I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here."

I think that The Chronicles of Narnia is a brilliant work of literature. Few other pieces of fiction bring me such a feeling of peace, such a depth of understanding. Maybe they are for children, but if that's the case then I knowingly choose to be childish.