Every time I show someone the Narnia library and take them through the wardrobe, they really do think, at first, that I'm showing them the inside of a closet, and then the magic happens, I push open the back of the wardrobe and we walk through into the library.
When I first came to Hope, there were no trees in the library, no lamppost. The wardrobe was the only clear tie the library had to Narnia. But then a few months later, the trees appeared, with melting snow on the branches. Winter is coming to an end. And then the lamppost, lighting the way.
I admit, that when I'm alone, I step up to the wardrobe, open it and close my eyes before pushing my way through the back because I still can't give up that hope, all these many years later that one of these times, there won't be books and chairs waiting for me on the other side, but something far more enchanting and mythical and mystical and beautiful and wondrous.
But even if all I ever walk into is this library, it will always hold special meaning to me. It was here in this library that I learned some of the most basic building blocks of trust. It was here that I first learned about centering prayer. It was here that I closed my eyes for a whole twenty minutes with several other people and gave that time to God, not thinking, or trying not to think, just resting and being.
It's amazing how vulnerable you feel when you close your eyes around others. Maybe it goes back to those Head's Up Seven Up games of childhood, where you sat with your head down on your desk and your thumb up while others snuck around the classroom, choosing people at random with a push of the thumb. There was anxiety always. Would I be chosen? Did I want to be chosen? What did being chosen or not being chosen say about my social standing?
I worried a lot as a kid.
So it meant a lot to me in ways that I think you can understand if you think about it to close my eyes during centering prayer and trust that no one was going to sneak in. No one was going to watch me. No one was going to bother me at all, because centering prayer wasn't about any of us, it was about God.
Centering prayer bonded me to the people I prayed with. I can't enter the library and not think about Craig and Judy and Pastor Debbie and Russell and Marty and all the people that followed.
This library carries with it a piece of my soul. And every time I return it's as if the walls are humming, welcoming me home, singing a tune that echoes in my heart. There is peace here.
When I first came to Hope, there were no trees in the library, no lamppost. The wardrobe was the only clear tie the library had to Narnia. But then a few months later, the trees appeared, with melting snow on the branches. Winter is coming to an end. And then the lamppost, lighting the way.
I admit, that when I'm alone, I step up to the wardrobe, open it and close my eyes before pushing my way through the back because I still can't give up that hope, all these many years later that one of these times, there won't be books and chairs waiting for me on the other side, but something far more enchanting and mythical and mystical and beautiful and wondrous.
But even if all I ever walk into is this library, it will always hold special meaning to me. It was here in this library that I learned some of the most basic building blocks of trust. It was here that I first learned about centering prayer. It was here that I closed my eyes for a whole twenty minutes with several other people and gave that time to God, not thinking, or trying not to think, just resting and being.
It's amazing how vulnerable you feel when you close your eyes around others. Maybe it goes back to those Head's Up Seven Up games of childhood, where you sat with your head down on your desk and your thumb up while others snuck around the classroom, choosing people at random with a push of the thumb. There was anxiety always. Would I be chosen? Did I want to be chosen? What did being chosen or not being chosen say about my social standing?
I worried a lot as a kid.
So it meant a lot to me in ways that I think you can understand if you think about it to close my eyes during centering prayer and trust that no one was going to sneak in. No one was going to watch me. No one was going to bother me at all, because centering prayer wasn't about any of us, it was about God.
Centering prayer bonded me to the people I prayed with. I can't enter the library and not think about Craig and Judy and Pastor Debbie and Russell and Marty and all the people that followed.
This library carries with it a piece of my soul. And every time I return it's as if the walls are humming, welcoming me home, singing a tune that echoes in my heart. There is peace here.
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