When I was a boy I was so taken with C.S. Lewis’ “Chronicles of Narnia” that I believed it was all true; that Narnia was, in fact, a place that could be gotten to.
For a year or so I opened every door fully believing that any one of them could end up being a portal. I’d be off on an adventure of a whole lifetime and be back in time for dinner.
After regular disappointment with doors of all kinds I noticed that if I stared at one point on a reflective surface long enough, the area around the point would fade to white. I surmised that if the world was fading that had to mean I was too, so Narnia must be awaiting me.
Clearly I didn’t understand allegory, but I felt the truly true things of Lewis’ tale; the “Deep Magic” folded in.
In many ways I’ve still been chasing Narnia ever since. I find it in moments; sunlight through a leaf, the sound of a stream, my son’s laughter, the way my daughter hugs with such intention, my wife’s smile, singing the Gloria Patri acapella, and especially in those precious, precious moments when God moves beyond a shadow of a doubt in my life and the lives of others.
So much of the Modern American Christian Fundamentalist Evangelical experience seems devoid, and sometimes avoidant, of any sense of wonder and joy. Many of us attend church because we feel obligated. Our kids are there for the donuts, the puppet show, or the coloring pages. We walk away from a Sunday and have difficulty remembering a single point of the sermon we just heard that we say is so important.
This is not an unknown problem.
We try to fix it by making worship more contemporary with electric instruments and a fancy light show. We try to make our sermons short, more positive and easily applicable. We try to manufacture it with a coffee shop, the right songs, exciting kids programs, and giving people activities, logo t-shirts and stickers for our car bumpers.
What may not be common knowledge, what we avoid suggesting or admitting, is that for all these efforts they haven’t made us better Christians or enabled us to find more joy. We keep returning to “broken cisterns” (Jeremiah 2:13) and moving farther away from Living Water.
“Finding Narnia” is a blog project about remembering what it was to have childlike faith and see God for who He really is, who we really are, and finding joy and wonder through returning to Him; all through a Narnian lense.
The allegory of Narnia is perfect for this application because we have all already been there; the Chronicles will serve as a shared language and touchstone, a shared catechism (I’m sketchy on this word…might not be appropriate).
I don’t know where we’ll end up, but it is my great hope that at the end we will be that much closer to the heart and land of the Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea and shuttle towards it in our little coracle with joy and wonder like a certain sword-wielding mouse we all admire.
My hope is to present you with a weekly article regarding such things. I’m not yet sure how it will be shaped, but as Eustace once showed us…the form is not the thing that is important. It is the heart underneath and the lessons learned.
Till Aslan Shakes His Mane,
W
Finding Narnia 
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