Further Up & Further In

A Reflection of Closed Doors

"Peter, High King of Narnia," said Aslan. "Shut the Door."

Peter stepped forward, as he always did when Aslan asked, and as he always would. The door of the stable swung outwards, and to reach it Peter had to reach outwards too; into the cold, and the dark, and the ice, and the emptiness. His hand began to reach forward, almost numb already.

The wasteland Peter looked out upon was not Narnia, he reminded himself. And yet.

Narnia. Cold and dead and frozen.

For a moment, just a moment, Peter did not believe in ending worlds. He believed only that there would be spring again.

And a Narnia waiting to be burst into new life and colour could not be locked away.

Peter, so different than he had been when he first entered that world, felt no different now. So far from the world before him, he knew he was older. Wiser. Stronger. Peter was a warrior and a king. But all at once, like so long ago, he was a scared child. His hand pulled back from the frozen air, away from the handle of the stable door, and he hesitated. He chided himself as he remembered the way he always hesitated.

Peter's eyes turned to Aslan - hesitantly, again, and again, and again. He hoped somehow the Lion would understand. He could not close that door. That was a door which should never be closed.

"That is what doors do, Dear One." Aslan's mouth never moved, but his eyes met Peter's. "The Gate is open, now shut the door."

Peter reached out into the cold once again and grabbed the handle of the door. Lion-strength, not his own, pulled the door closed.

Not for the first time, Peter cursed the crown he had never asked to bear; scoffed at the title he had never felt worthy of. If Edmund had been the High King, this duty would have gone to him. Or if Lucy, small and valiant, had been named Queen above Kings, she would have been the one holding the golden key Peter now clenched in his fist. But it was Peter, always Peter, who would bear the load for his siblings. Even when he ached under the weight of it.

And the weight, indeed, was heavy. His mind jumped back to the foolishness of shutting a wardrobe door, and he knew, terrifyingly, that he had just done that which he had sworn he would never do.

He would walk on English streets, but he would never walk away. He would make a life in England, but he would never turn his back. The door must always remain open. He would never close himself to it.

How many times had he and his siblings thought to themselves, "we were made for Narnia?" How many ways had they belonged to that world more than the one they came from?

Still, Peter believed.

He believed the voice of the woman he loved; sharp and confident and honest in a way he would never be. He believed the words of his best friend; ever pondering things he couldn't know but wanted to. (Oh, how he wanted to.) He believed that there were wars to wage and battles to win in England; though not the kind fought with steel and silver and gold and fire. His sword now was spirit. His crown - for he always wore it, even now - was light. Peter believed. Almost. Always. Maybe enough.

Hesitantly, (again, again,) Peter placed the key into the lock. He trembled. The chill of the world outside still reached him through cracks in wood and forgotten dreams, but he trembled for more than that.

Then new warmth ran through him.

The Lion at his back had taken a step closer.

"I made you King Under Me for a reason, Son of Adam. I trusted my world to you. Trust me now. Lock the door."

Peter trusted.

The hesitation left him, and Peter turned the key.

And as he did, it occurred to him for the first time that he had not been made for Narnia, as he had always believed. If anything, it was Narnia which was made for him.

Because he had never believed in anything so truly as he did once he came to Narnia. He had never known what it was to trust God until he met him face to face. Perhaps he had had inklings of this before, but it was only now that he understood. Peter was not made for Narnia, nor was he made for England, nor any other country he had previously seen. He was made instead for Aslan. And Narnia, dear as it had been, was only meant to draw him to Him.

The door between Peter and the dead, shadowed world was locked now. But as he turned and the light overtook him once more, the sight of the golden mane and overwhelming eyes reminded Peter that he had all he needed.

He had sworn never to close that door. Even when the wardrobe at Professor Kirke's led nowhere any longer, Peter could never quite bring himself to shut the door all the way, in hopes that some hint of the world left behind might come through.

But he understood it now.

And he'd never have understood if he had never trusted that it was time.

Aslan's eyes laughed now. "Come further in! Come further up!" Aslan shouted, shooting off westward.

"So," Peter began, no longer feeling the weight of the words, "night falls on Narnia."

Everyone stood near him, shaken and on the verge of tears, but he felt no fear. Aslan was a golden blur ahead of them.

They began walking, no more hesitation.

The Gate is open. Further up and further in.