Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians in the Christian New Testament, says that we now see through a glass darkly. Is that merely a figure of speech, or does it, as I have always wondered, imply that what lies on the other side of that glass is not far away.

My friend has glass walls on two sides of her shower that separate her shower from her back and side yards. The walls are clearly visible from her neighbor’s yards. Her neighbors can see her in her shower.

However, the glass walls are made of glass blocks. They allow light to enter the shower, and allow a viewer from the outside to detect movement in the shower. The glass blocks, however, distort the image so much that her neighbors don’t realize what they’re seeing. Ah yes, a twist on the oft-quoted phrase about “living in a glass house.”

Do We Live Next Door to a Glass House?

Has it ever occurred to any of us that we might have detected movement on the other side of the glass wall? Was it our imagination, or is something really there?

In one sense it is so near, yet so very far. How can we get to the other side of the wall? We have heard rumors, but surely they are just fantasies. No sensible person would believe such rumors. Do you not agree?

Undoubtedly we have been seeing reflections, shadows, a playing of the light on the edges of our known reality.Only a child would imagine otherwise.

The Edge of the Earth

As any wise person would once tell you, “Don’t venture too near the edge of the earth, for you may fall off.” One should stick to known regions to explore.

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In L. Frank Baum’s story, The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy is swept away by a tornado to Oz, a land very unlike Kansas, Dorothy’s home. Dorothy appeared to have no choice in the matter.

Similarly, Lucy, in C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe while pushing deep into the back of a wardrobe (a large cabinet in which clothes are hung) during a game of hide-and-seek, suddenly found herself in a forest, a forest seemingly very far from her home in England. Lucy was seeking neither that place, nor the doorway to it. Yet somehow she stumbled into another world, Narnia.

As Lewis story progresses, Lucy’s two brothers, Peter and Edmund, and her sister Susan also find their way into Narnia. Yet none of them can explain how they found the place. It was almost as if a doorway into Narnia unexplainably opened up to them.

If Narnia was indeed “another dimension”, whether a dimension that exists only in the mind, another actual “physical dimension”, or a “world” of the spirit, then how did Lewis explain how one might get there?

Create a Doorway

If Narnia was a fantasy, a creation in the mind of Lewis, then finding the doorway into that world would be as simple as Lewis creating a doorway of his liking. Anyone might enter in, or the doorway might be available only to those chosen by its creator.

In The Chronicles of Narnia, entrance into Narnia is limited to a select few. However, rather than those few finding the doorway, the doorway seems to find them. The doorway appears only to those whom it chooses.

Indeed the doorway often does not appear to be a doorway. Those it selects to enter may discover only that they have somehow entered, be it through the back of a coat closet or by way of a flood of water that burst out of a painting on the wall. As Dorothy was unwittingly swept away to Oz, those who enter Narnia generally seem to enter by a means not of their choosing.

If we are to assume that the Chronicles are fantasy, then we must decide that this is merely the device Lewis used to remove his human characters from this world and move them to another world. The solution is simple. Lewis could get his characters to Narnia by any means he chose. Perhaps the only question to consider in that case would be “Why did Lewis choose the means he did? Were they only convenient devices, or were they intended to tell the reader something?”

A Real Doorway

If we consider the possibility that Narnia is an actual physical place that somehow exists in another physical dimension, perhaps in a “parallel universe”, then the “doorway” to Narnia must be an actual doorway of some sort. However, how would one “cross over” into another dimension, even if it is an actual physical place, using an actual physical doorway that one might find in this dimension?

Is it possible that the “doorway” to the supposed other dimension is not visible in this dimension? Perhaps one must find it by some means other than by sight. But how does one find it and how does one enter?

If Lewis did indeed find such a doorway, would he explain how we too might find it? Would he allow any and all to use this doorway? Suppose the doorway might also be used to enter other places not nearly so pleasant as Narnia. In that case might he disguise the doorway to prevent unwary travelers from meeting with an unhappy end?

Did Lewis give us any clues that might hint that travelers from this world might spoil those places to which such a doorway might lead? Consider the case of Digory and the witch. Perhaps “Narnia” should be protected from our kind.

A Doorway into the World of the Spirit

Assuming that Lewis’ “other dimension” existed primarily “in the Spirit”, should we assume that he wished us to find a doorway to that dimension and enter along with him into that dimension? If his stories might be considered simply a retelling of the story of salvation, as some have suggested, might he be attempting to lead the reader along the path to some sort of “spiritual” experience?

Even if one might suppose such a purpose for the Chronicles, does that explanation fit some of Lewis other stories, such as The Dark Tower and That Hideous Strength? Did some of Lewis stories have one purpose and others yet another?

The Hidden Doorway

Even though Lewis stated that his stories were conceived as “holiday fiction” for the amusement of children (perhaps primarily for the amusement of the child in him), again we return to the question “Was there more to his stories than that?”

Many have found obvious connections in some of the stories to Christian stories and teachings. But again, “Was there more to his stories than that?”

Might his stories be multi-layered? – A children’s story/holiday fiction at one level, Christian doctrine oft times at another level, and perhaps something else at yet another level? If there was from time to time yet another level, what might that level be? Is it possible that Lewis is telling us of something he discovered or experienced, either in person or in a “journey of the mind”?

In the next post, “Are we Far From Narnia?” we will continue to discuss the possible locations of the “another dimension” of which Lewis wrote.

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Many of C. S. Lewis’ stories take place in locales none of us have ever visited. Indeed, some of these places seem to exist only in the imagination of C. S. Lewis. We suppose he invented them and their names merely to suit the purposes of his stories.

How indeed shall we find Narnia, the land of the dark tower, or the land of Glome? On what map shall we locate them? Where indeed might we find them?

Might what Lewis said about his space travel stories give us any clues about his fantasy writing in general: “No merely physical strangeness or merely spatial distance will realize the idea of otherness which is what we are always trying to grasp in a story about voyaging through space: you must go into another dimension.”

What did Lewis mean by “another dimension”? Was he referring to a “dimension” that exists only in the mind, another actual “physical dimension” or, as he referred to it, a “world” of the spirit?

A Dimension That Exists Only in the Mind

Would we not refer to the “dimension” that we visit in our dreams as one that exists only in our minds? At times, the places we visit in our dreams bear striking similarities to places we frequent in our waking hours, albeit with some dissimilarities. Lewis recounts that he slept poorly for years and was frequently awakened by his nightmares. Might that explain the land of the dark tower?

On the other hand, some of his stories bear certain similarities to fantasy stories he had read. He indicated that images from his childhood, some from children’s fantasy literature, resided in his memory and worked their way into his stories, as did stories from mythology.

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Humming Birds and Star Ships

As I settled into my lounge chair just below a wall of blooming passion vines on that sunny late autumn afternoon, I felt something alight on my arm. It was my friendly backyard hummingbird, or “Harry” as I usually referred to him.

“Harry, are you planning to spend this winter living in my back yard, like you did last winter? Why don’t you fly south with the other hummingbirds?”

When I sat in my lounge chair in my back yard to read, as I did almost every day, Harry would appear and sit nearby, or occasionally would sit on my arm for a few minutes.

When I casually mentioned this to an acquaintance, I immediately knew that she did not believe me. I had “crossed the line,” mentioning something she had never experienced and had never heard of this happening to someone else. She did not believe it was possible to have a hummingbird sit on one’s arm.

On another occasion, a good friend told me about regularly seeing unusual objects in the sky of the remote area where he lived. He sometimes saw them in the late afternoon, but most often after dark. One evening just after sunset, as he drove down a winding, abandoned country road, one of the objects came down from the sky and landed in an open space near him. He drove even closer.

“You’re the only person I’ll ever tell what I saw and what happened after I drove up by it. I’ll never tell anyone else, because they’ll think I’m crazy.”

True to his word, he has never told anyone else and I doubt he ever will. He is certain no one will believe him, which would affect his credibility in the community in which he lives and works.

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