I sometimes switch the XM Satellite radio in my car to “Audio Visions.” Yes, it is the “new age” channel, but don’t judge me. Usually, I find nothing to offend my Christian sensibilities in the instrumentals and even I need a break from the classic rock stations (and certainly from my less frequent attempts to find something that connects with me on XM’s interpretation of a Christian station, which seems at times to me less worship than sanitized teen pop, sadly). Plus, it is a very surreal experience to drive through crowds, traffic and chaos listening to the same music you heard in the massage therapy office. Especially as I navigate the phenomenon we have in the states known as the “school pick-up line,” the contrast between the inside and outside of my car is fascinating—outside flustered teachers try to control both the cars and the kids and inside water flows, birds sing while pan pipes sound…makes me smile and laugh and reminds me metaphorically that whatever is playing in my real inner world is indeed portable!
XM graciously reminds you which station you have chosen every quarter hour or so. For Audio Visions, this exercise is conducted by someone with an East Indian accent who also adds a tagline intended to further inspire. The last time I was listening to Audio Visions was October 31st--one of those days that I was trying to be calm in the midst of chaos. I was doing last minute things to prepare for a never-before attempted “Enter Narnia” night for children in which our church was conducting a walk-through wardrobe experience, complete with a crowning ceremony, for each participant, as well as something we called Aslan’s warrior training course, which I will leave to your imagination. We also had several other ambitious attempts to capitalize on the movie-generated buzz surrounding the timeless classic. We had mailed out 800 fliers and since our new property is highly visible, and so-called “Halloween alternatives” are well attended in the states, we were assured a crowd and excited about the possibilities.
Because I don’t believe in doing an event that we don’t first experience, I had been teaching our youth (who were the prime movers in terms of actual work) about the real Narnia—the spirit dimension. We had been talking about what it means to go through the wardrobe, so to speak, every day, choosing again and again to live from the realm where love has conquered death and where we already reign as kings and queens through the victory won for us. A Savior on the move to erase winter and restore the flesh of those turned to stone is, after all, the essence of the Christian message. What’s not to experience?
These were the precipitous circumstances on Oct 31st that would cause me to react with surprise to an XM station identification that I know I must have heard before. When my Indian-sounding friend said, “Audio Visions: Follow me through the looking glass…” I was captivated! For the rest of the day, I was gone down a path of comparison between the Lewis Carroll classic and the C.S. Lewis one and the vast rays of understanding shed by their difference!
I read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass as a young child and discovered simultaneously the power of literature and the impressionability of my own psyche. No one knew—because I didn’t express all my thoughts then as I do now—what havoc it wreaked upon me. But I clearly remember journeying in my imagination with Alice down the rabbit hole and through the looking glass. In my childlike struggle to sort out the visible world, Alice’s “other” world left a mark of fear upon me—much like Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon journey into madness. I cannot remember a time in my life when I was for one second a materialist: I have always sensed that there is more to life than meets the eye. Lewis Carroll’s (perhaps opiate-induced) visions may have been intended as harmless fantasy, but they actually filled me with the fear that the invisible world was distorted and mad, chaotic and eerie—always a note out of tune and a few degrees off center, cycling on and on without hope of correction. (And all those around me just thought I was reading a children’s classic.)
Sadly, I missed out on Narnia until I was an adult. By that time, I had already discovered the truth about the invisible realm. My insatiable seeking had been answered by the true King. Yes, there are dark forces and strange happenings to be fought through, but the heart--the essence--the overwhelming tone and tenor of the universe is the immeasurably good heart of a Creator God who welcomes his children both to intimacy and information about all that He intends. I knew the story before I read the metaphor and it only made me love the metaphor all the more. C.S. Lewis expressed through The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe the invisible world that is absolutely true, totally available and unexplainably healing to those who have been frightened by bizarre facsimiles.
Here are two children’s classics that made indelible marks on popular culture. One produced feelings of meaninglessness (at least in me) and would later become a sort of literary mascot for the drug culture in the 60’s—a permission slip to go so far beyond the looking glass that many would not return! Ironically, Lewis Carroll (real name, Charles Dodgson) was trained to be an Anglican priest although he never accepted the position. There is evidence that he was interested in theosophy and alternative forms of spiritual searching. Clive Staples Lewis, however, did all his searching before he entered the faith and did not enter until he was fully convinced. His conversion may not have been loud or celebrated, but it was complete, and the art he produced could not fail to be lit up by it. Lewis produced a classic children’s tale which bore like seed in the wind the sum total of all meaning. Narnia grounds us far more than the looking glass could ever disturb us.
As I continued to ponder the divergent worldviews of the two men with “Lewis” in their names—I realized, however, that it was symbolic of much more. Why did XM choose an Indian voice for their soothing ID? Because Audio Visions, and New Age in general, is but evidence of a huge philosophical swing in the west which is causing us, after many years of asserting our superiority, to finally humble ourselves and accept the wise men from the mysterious “EAST”.
Our rational medicine alone can’t save us—now we are open to acupuncture and massage. Our attempts to organize our lives and businesses have fallen short of being able to handle the organisms we call “humans”—Skinner and Pavlov were wrong: we are not all predictable machines! Now, we resource ourselves with touchy-feely spiritual seminars that are designed to connect, lead and motivate on levels much deeper than behavior. And our understanding of the universe has betrayed us. Quantum physics has lead the most left-brained experts into a world that sounds more like Narnia than the one that many churches describe! East is everywhere meeting West and the XM marketers know that. (In parts of America such as the one I live, this is an even bigger deal, since this mindset is not being brought by any actual emigrants, but by the pop culture alone. You haven’t lived until you get to watch, as I have, a big, tough redneck Texas cowboy get a Chinese medicine staple inserted in his ear for appetite control from a local chiropractor…I rest my case…)
In the body of Christ, we have been taught to shun the east, but it needs to be pointed out that there is a huge difference between “eastern thought patterns” and “eastern religion” (perhaps as large a difference as there is between Christianity itself and religion!!!). Eastern religion is the enemy camping out on the right side of the brain and filling the flesh with imaginative ideas upon which demons can entrench themselves. But eastern thought: that is a different story. Eastern thought is simply stepping through the boundary and admitting that there is another side of the equation. If you are Lewis Carroll, it will be a looking glass and madness, but you need not give up the quest. If you are C.S. Lewis, it will be a wardrobe and a wonderful world of deep magic that heals the soul forever. It is the observers call whether that barrier through which we “break on through to the other side” turns out to be a looking glass or a wardrobe!
Let’s not shun the collective quest in society for a bigger picture of reality. If the church (as it must have done in Lewis Carroll’s day) fails to paint the vistas of invisible landscape clearly with the words of Scripture, then many voices will describe the bizarre apparitions of randomness, because the spiritual nature of man will not give up the search. Scripture itself declares and centers upon the fact that there is an alternate--or more accurately, supplemental—reality beyond the one the physical senses take in.
The mere fact that God is declared by the Bible to be “invisible” tells us everything about how to live: the real meaning of anything will not be found without factoring in that dimension. (I Timothy 1:17) The same Scripture describes God as “immortal”; therefore, any analysis of life is incomplete if limited to one moment. It is only the eternal perspective that will yield the truth. In other words, the complete picture of any situation is found not in the facts as they have presented themselves alone, but also in the invisible potential of the Kingdom of God to manifest through those facts! We need to see the scenes in our lives not as photos, but holograms!
When Phillip (Acts 8) was told to leave the revival in Samaria and go down a lonely road, he found a traveler from the court of the Queen of Ethiopia who was struggling to understand the book of Isaiah. Rather than trying the latest evangelism technique, Phillip simply connected with the search the Ethiopian was already on by asking, “Do you understand what you are reading?” The Ethiopian’s reply is a challenge we cannot ignore: “How can I if there is no guide?” New age paganism advertises “spirit guides” as a means of enlightenment and any real Christian reels in horror at the potential danger. BUT, if Christians have not offered ourselves to guide them through the invisible world—that is, if all we do is warn them about the dangers of the dark side, but never open up a wardrobe leading to the vibrancies of the one true INVISIBLE God--can we blame them for going through the looking glass?
The pantheistic tendencies in Western culture need not be feared, but rather rerouted to the invisible Truth. I now realize that I am dangerously close to gross overuse of a metaphor, but my passion will now make me cross that line, almost proudly. We can either offer the world an entrance into Narnia where they will discover redemption, or we can leave them to search for their momentary and ultimately unfulfilling escapes from life “through the looking glass.” If all they find is soothing music and a massage, they will not be changed. What if we said yes to the challenge (as many are) and refuse to fear the eastern thought swing since the God we serve is Lord of the whole compass and the whole brain? What might emerge from our courage and what Kingdom possibilities might actualize? What is the invisible side of the picture of the philosophical timeline of Western culture? I think the ice just might be melting…
