There are certain rites of passage that await most children in their exploration of the world around them. Some good, some bad, all valuable. These inaugurations don’t look the same for all children, in every culture or generation, but they serve the same purpose….discovery. To a child, this enormous and complex world can at once be terrifying, confusing, and boring. These rites of passage create a framework equipping a child to understand their world, or at least to experiment as they try to make sense of the absurdity of life.
For many adolescents, this comes in the form of discovering great literature for the first time. More recent generations crossed this threshold via J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. The exotic creatures, magical powers, elaborate locations, and bizarre vocabulary captivate a child’s often evasive attention, while the characters and storylines educate them in the way life often operates. These fantasy realms can be hilarious and horrifying simultaneously, much like the real world, but also safe because the book can be closed whenever the emotions become overwhelming.
I came along long before Harry Potter, so my on-ramp to worlds unknown was Star Wars, which arrested my attention when I was only five years old. Much to my chagrin, early 80’s technology didn’t allow me to access this world anytime I wanted. There was no streaming service housing the entire catalog of my favorite films, but I soon discovered an even greater technology existed, my imagination.
The portal to access my imagination was literature. I had always read books, or been read books by my family, but these new worlds only really became accessible when I started reading for myself. One of the greatest joys in reading is in discovering a book for yourself, which eventually feels like the books are choosing you as if guided by some unseen hand who knows what you need before you even begin to seek it. In this way, many a child has found himself drawn into the land of Narnia.
C.S. Lewis, author of the beloved Chronicles of Narnia series, was one of those rare few who possessed the intellectual flexibility to be able to challenge the most brilliant minds, educate the curious minds, and enchant the minds of children . Most of us made our first journey to Narnia in the same fashion as Lucy Pevensie from the first book in the series…through the wardrobe. In his initial invitation into Narnia, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, Lewis employs the wardrobe as a portal into this magical world of discovery and enlightenment. From the outside, the wardrobe was merely a piece of furniture large enough to house the apparel of one or two persons, but once inside it opened up to a practically endless world.
Lewis is hardly the only, or even the first author to use this gateway to a greater universe device. It’s actually so common to fiction writing that it’s practically a standard literary device for fantasy writers (see Carrol’s looking glass and rabbit hole…Dr. Who and the TARDIS…Platform 9 3/4 at King’s Cross Station in Harry Potter). Outside of literature, this concept even has a place in scientific discussions. Physicists will explain that, like the wardrobe to Narnia, mathematically it’s possible for something to be exponentially larger on the inside than it appears on the outside. They speak of a traversable wormhole as essentially a connection between two regions of space (a portal or bridge between different universes). On one side you might have something that appears small, like a door or room, but once inside it opens up to an entirely new universe, another dimension right on top of our own, but only accessible and visible via these portals. Whether or not this is theoretically possible through the known physics governing our universe, I can’t say, but I don’t need science to prove what my heart has experienced.
Like most everyone I presume, my childhood understanding of love was confined to people like family (parents, grandparents, etc), friends, and, in my case, Princess Leia. In time, romantic love would enter the equation, and though it has the potential to grow into something profoundly beautiful, initially it tends to be stunted by selfishness and personal gratification. Nothing could have prepared me for the exponentially magnified love I experienced when I became a father. It was a bit different with my second son because I now knew where to look because I had been there before. With my first son, the time before he was born was just abstract. I knew my wife was pregnant, that he existed, but it was mostly just blips on a screen or blurry images they told me was my son. Watching her stomach grow I knew there was life inside her, but it wasn’t until I saw him for the first time that I felt the irresistible pull toward a beautiful new world. That little squirming, crying baby was the wardrobe, the portal through which I would enter a land far greater than Narnia. As the nurses tended to him, cleaning and checking him, I ached to hold him, to comfort him, and soothe his cries. It was as if I’d crossed the event horizon of a black hole made of pure love and I immediately knew there was no escape. I was drawn in and I reached to take hold of my son, but instead something took hold of me. Through this tiny little creature love from a realm beyond reached out and seized me, and once it had me I surrendered to it, letting it take me wherever it wanted me to be. It didn’t take me far, I never left the room, I didn’t even move, except to sway, after regaining the strength from my buckling knees, and yet I was taken somewhere I’d never before seen. Love pulled me into my own heart and it was as if an entire room in my heart had been opened, the door to which I’d never even noticed though it had been there the whole time. What I had perceived as a modest sized heart, with barely enough room to love a handful of choice people, was suddenly so much more than I’d ever known. It was all encompassing, boundless and powerful beyond anything I’d ever experienced and it was all right there all along. How could something so gigantic and profound be held within a fist sized heart, much less how could it have gone unnoticed for 19 years?
That was the day I first glimpsed the kingdom of heaven. I’d always believed there was such a place, somewhere far off, somewhere out there, but that was no longer true. Truly, the kingdom of heaven is within you, there is nowhere to go, it is with you always. Follow me for a moment into the mystical and transcendent.
If God is above all and through all and in all as Paul says (Ephesians 4:6), then all that exists, exists within God. An unborn child is created within its mother, exists within its mother, and yet is separate from its mother, though connected by a cord. This much greater life source provides life to her child via a cord, a conduit, a portal. We exist within God. We are not God, we are separate from Him and yet we remain connected to Him. It is in Him we live and move and have our very being, as Paul says again (Acts 17:25,28). Perhaps Paul knew this because he personally got a glimpse of the kingdom of heaven through the appearance of Jesus on the road to Damascus. God is infinite and God is love and that means love is infinite, and John says God lives in us and it is through love that we know this (1 John 4:11-13). How can an infinite God, within whom our seemingly infinite universe exists, possibly dwell in me? He placed within us a portal, a small opening, a wardrobe if you will, that traverses space and time and gives us access to boundless love. The love I touched when I first held my son, opened the door of my heart to this realm where love believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things and never fails. It transported me into the kingdom of heaven and once that door was opened the kingdom of heaven began to seep through and spill over into my world, blurring the lines between where the realm ruled by love begins and my world ends. What came washing in with this flood of love was a newfound capacity to love neighbors, strangers, even enemies. Suddenly there was room to love to depths and heights and breadths not previously perceived or even thought possible, and it was always there.
“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in…To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat down with my Father on his throne…After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne.” (Revelation 3:20-4:2).
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