Thoughts on Narnia #3

By Marie Scott

Just before I sat down to write this Narnia blog entry, I wrote the poem below. Then I
went searching for some inspiration in one of my favorite Narnian adventures: Prince Caspian.
As I opened the audio book and scanned the chapters, one of the first ones I saw was "Aslan
Makes a Door in the Air." Considering what I had just written, that chapter was clearly the one to re-listen to first.

In this last chapter of the Caspian story, Aslan assembles the peoples/creatures and
calls to the regular men to grant them a way out of Narnia, if they so desired to go back to the
world of their origin. To leave, they simply walked through a door. But this door - it was odd.
Mysterious. "Aslan had caused to be set up two stakes of wood...about three feet apart [a third
piece across the top] so that the whole things looked like a doorway - from nowhere into
nowhere." The great lion told them that walking through the door would bring them to another
world. But when a Telamarine man went through the door he simply disappeared, from the
perspective of the onlookers in Narnia anyway.

When someone finishes his or her time on this earth, it seems to us left here like that
person goes through a similar door. Sometimes great empty sadness besets us because we
doubt we will ever see and connect with them again, because they seemed to be heading for a
different world than we. Sometimes the sadness is underpinned by great hope, even relief and
joy, because we know we will follow to that same world someday. Even still, the feelings often
mix and mingle, and switch places inside of us like a strange dance.

Not My Turn Yet/Eternity Beckons

I always feel jealous
At the funeral of a saint.
Is it an honor to be left in the fight for a while?
Or the plight of those less spiritually mature?
To be left behind undoubtedly loses the comparison
When considered against being taken up into the heavenlies
To be with Jesus in the in between…

The angst for another weary day
The falling short again
The unresolved heartaches
And the cruelty of the clock
These all keep me wishing it were my turn already.

Then I wonder if we all seem so silly here
Squirming in our long and lonely days
When from there it’s clear how truly few those days are.
Is it like consoling my three-year-old who has to wait
Two more whole days before the waterpark adventure
When he has already been waiting four?

To live is Christ, said the venerated apostle,
And some days I could not agree more
Other days though, I must confess,
The exit calls to me quite frequently
and I keep an eye out for the door.
Marie JL Scott
09.17.2023

C.S. Lewis' picture of the "door in the air" sounds so simple doesn't it? If only I could go
from here into paradise with Jesus in one simple step whenever I thought I've had enough of
this dismal world. But truly, more than that I dream of the glorious day when He will come back
for His people, more like an earlier chapter where Aslan leads a procession through the towns
and people come awake and follow after him revitalized. I often think I will see that day. I do not
know, of course how my turn will come. But I will keep looking toward that final redemption and restoration. In the meantime, may I desire more of Him here and now in the very grime of earth, transforming it before my eyes. "I want Your will to be done, not mine," Jesus prayed. And so He went on, "for the joy set before Him." (Mark 14 & Hebrews 12)

But how do we keep going when it's hard on those days? I relate to Lucy's experience
when she runs to meet Aslan and bears hard news like the wind dropped from her sails, then
Aslan speaks, “It’s hard for you little one…Lucy buried her head in his mane to hide from His
face, but there must have been magic in His mane. She could feel lion strength going into her.
Quite suddenly she sat up, ‘I’m sorry, Aslan, I’m ready now!’” How many times I have come to
Him just sure I could not go on, and every single time somehow I became able to continue. He
is never depleted of the grace-strength we need. So let's keep coming back to Him at each next
step. Until one day - that next step will be into glory with Him forever.