Inns and Home

Inns and Home

You hear people often say, there’s no place like home. It is very true when you come to think of it. What homes provide—the necessities for living—lodging places like inns will most likely accommodate, even to a greater degree in terms of quality and abundance; however, when it comes to the choice of living, one would almost certainly choose one’s home, as simple as it may be, over any fancy inn. One may find the inn to be a place of temporal lodging, but never permanent residence. There are things about the home, beyond its physical features and functionalities, that overshadow any other place we do not call home. What one finds at home and not elsewhere is a restless mind quieted, a weary body refreshed, a hurting heart comforted. A home is a place of rest, restoration, renewal, a place where one is brought back to the reality of oneself, being whom one ought to be. In other words, one can really be oneself when one is at home. It is the deep longings of our souls to reach home when we are not and more so when we are troubled. When we sail on unknown waters, we long for a shore to dock; when we fly in storming skies, we long for a ground to land; when we struggle in nations of warfare, we long for a peaceful country to live in. But not everywhere is home. There will be many islands, many landing strips, many peaceful countries along the way, but they are just inns, not home. There is only one place where we shall find our true home. It is the destination of our journey; it is that one Shore, that one Land, that one Country we call Heaven. All else, as much as they may resemble home, are just the shadows of what is to come. We are living in an imperfect world, in fact, a very broken one, destined to die. The things in this world, however good, lovely, or beautiful they seem to us, are just shadows or copies of the Real Things that we will find in Heaven. This very earth we inhabit is in fact, like the old Narnia in Lewis’s The Last Battle, Shadowlands, which is doomed for destruction, which is to bring about the Real-lands and all that is within. Those homelike inns we discover on our life journey are mere refreshments or appetizers, provided for temporary satisfaction and not lasting fulfillment. We shall enjoy them but not dwell on them; we shall look forward to the Main Course. And we shall never let the security and comfort of the inns become a hindrance for us to long and pursue our true home. In “Refreshments on the Journey” of The Business of Heaven, Lewis wrote: “The security we crave would teach us to rest our hearts in this world and oppose an obstacle to our return to God: a few moments of happy love, a landscape, a symphony, a merry meeting with our friends, a bathe or a football match, have such tendency. Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.”

The Pilgrimage

I wrote the following prose poem under the inspiration of John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress and C. S. Lewis’s The Last Battle.

The Pilgrimage
—From the Valley of Vision to the Mountain of Majesty

“For the Vision was given to you in the Valley, so that you may have faith in the Majesty you shall behold on the Mountain.”

In my dream I saw a pilgrim
With a Burden on his back
Treading through a Deep Valley.
The path wound and darkness
Loomed in like thick fog.
The Burden grew heavier each new step
He took, and his heart became
lonelier, sadder, and emptier.
Not a sign of life but him alone
Who saw himself no different than
A dead creature, such a lifeless soul
Wandering in a lifeless darkness.
Not a sound of hope but his own breath
With a faint sound, such a hopeless sound
Awaiting to be devoured by a hopeless silence.
Yet with the last breath of his life, he cried out
In desperation, for a deliverance from
Darkness, lifelessness, and hopelessness.

Even as he was crying, a light befell him,
Blinded him of his path and there,
Along with the light, came forth a delicious smell
So soothing and enchanting—the smell
Put the weary soul into a deep sleep.
In his unconsciousness he was given
A Vision, in which he saw
At the far end of the Valley
The path led to a Great Mountain,
And from the top of the Mountain
Shone rays of a Great Light, a Light
So bright, so beautiful no words could describe.
He stood beholding the Light in awe and saw
As far as the Light was, Its radiance lit up
The Valley with ineffable glory. Then he heard
Voices of the utmost beauty, singing great songs of praise
As if waterfalls pouring down from the Mountaintop
Where the source of the Light dwelt.
His heart leaped with joy when he heard
A Great Voice, distinct from the Singing Voices
And with inexpressible loudness, calling to him:
“Come, my son, further up and further in!”

All the sudden he woke up and was certain
If he had heard the Great Voice alive
He would have been dead almost instantly.
Then he saw everything around him
Still the same as before—a Deep Valley in
Lifeless darkness and hopeless silence.
Nothing seemed to have changed. But wait—
What about the Vision? Was it real?
As he looked yonder, he hoped to see
At the end of the path the Great Mountain might be—
But only to find a slope of the Valley reside.
A lie, thought he, there’s no such Mountain.
But wait—where’s did the Burden go?
All the sudden he realized how free he was,
For he could no more see or feel the Burden
On his back, nor found it anywhere around.
It couldn’t have been lost on the way, thought he,
for he was carrying it all along—even when he fainted.
It simply disappeared, thought he, and there must be
Something in the Vision that took the Burden away.
If so, thought he, the Vision must be real.

Again he looked yonder and saw
No sight of the Great Mountain; but he believed.
Along with belief, came strength, courage and,
Above all, hope. He now walked with
A changed heart, despite the unchanging Valley.
The end of the path was finally reached,
And he was indeed standing
At the bottom of the Valley slope.
But wait, wait a minute!
There, before him, a new path began
Where the old path ended, and it’s going up, high above
The ground and going in, deep into—wait,
It’s further up and further in—O, the Great Mountain!
What joy overflowed his heart!
And what revelation came to his mind—
Surely, the bottom of the Deep Valley was
The very foot of the Great Mountain!
And the new path to the Great Mountain
Should come only after passing through
The old path from the Deep Valley.

At the entrance of the new path he saw
A great stone with these words written:
“For the Vision was given to you in the Valley
So that you may have faith in
The Majesty you shall behold on the Mountain.”
The journey he then took on was
A journey from darkness to light,
With each new step leading to
More beauty, deeper wonder, and greater glory.
What he saw and heard was very much like
What was in his Vision except here it was
Not Their shadows but the Real Things Themselves—
So real that no dream or vision could fully display.
And the stories happened along the new path were
Simply too grand and wonderful to be written down.
For at the foot of the Great Mountain he was beginning
The First Step of the Real Pilgrimage, a journey
No pilgrim on earth ever traveled: which goes on
Forever and ever: in which every step is better
Than the one before.

His Birth

Heaven touches Earth
Myth becomes fact
Throne to manger
God into man.


"That is the humiliation of myth into fact, of God into man; what is everywhere and always, imageless and ineffable, only to be glimpsed in dream and symbol and the acted poetry of ritual becomes small, solid---no bigger than a man who can lie asleep in a rowing boat on the lake of Galilee" (Lewis, "Is Theology Poetry?").

True Consecration

Consecration begins with the emptying of the self. To empty oneself simply means to give up oneself to whatever the object of consecration is. The level of consecration depends on how much of the self is being emptied or given up. True consecration of the self is not the giving up of individual parts (strength, emotion, or wisdom, etc.) that belong to the self in a separate manner but the surrendering and presenting of all aspects of the self as a whole, altogether at once. Christ demonstrated true consecration to the Father by giving up all of Himself---the very nature of His divinity, thus "being found in the appearance as a man" (Philippians 2: 6-8). As followers of Christ, our consecration to Him therefore begins with the giving up of who we are---the very nature of our humanity. It is then, when we have totally given up, emptied of ourselves, that we can allow Christ to fill us with Himself and, along with Himself, true humanity. Humanity is manifested in personality. Our own personalities reflect who we are but not who we really ought to be---our real selves. We can know and become our real selves by acquiring real personalities found in Christ as we give up ourselves to Him. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity: "At the beginning I said there were Personalities in God. I will go further now. There are no real personalities anywhere else. Until you have given up yourself to Him you will not have a real self." There must be a real giving up of the self if the real self is to be found. Lewis described it as "throw it (the self) away 'blindly'." We need to take off "the old clothes" of ourselves before we can really put on "the new clothes" of Christ. And since we don't have "the new clothes" with us to begin with, we must look for it---as Lewis put it: "Your real, new self (which is Christ's and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him."
The essence of true consecration is that Christ gave up His divine Self to become like one of us, so that by giving up our mortal selves to Him, we may, more and more, become like Him.

Till We Have Wings

In The Magician's Nephew, Strawberry, the horse, was given a pair of wings to take on an adventurous mission. As we know, the wing is not an innate component of a horse. The addition of wings, therefore, makes the horse a physically and functionally different creature; we shall then no longer call it a horse but by a new name. In fact, Aslan gave Strawberry, along with its new wings, the new name Fledge. The process of turning a horse into a winged creature is not mere improvement but transformation, producing not a better horse of the old kind but a new kind of horse, a new creation. This is analogous to one's conversion to Christ. The Bible says that "if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come" (2 Corinthians 5: 17). What is new is not of the old; there's nothing of one's old self that is capable to put on "new wings." One's conversion is not based on what is found in oneself but in Christ and what He has provided. It is He, alone, who provides the "wings" and makes us anew. What is new is distinguishable, set apart from the old. But it is more than that: the new creation is, in fact, what is ought to be in the first place. The renewing process is also a restoring one. Along with the renewal of our old selves, Christ restores us to our original, default state---what we were created for and meant to be. It is our fault that we lost our "wings" given to us in the first place; until we have our "wings" back on, we cannot live our lives to the fullness. But God who created us to be "winged creatures" in the beginning loves us so dearly that he made us new "wings" and is offering them to us freely. If you are not content with what this life has to offer, if you want to expand your visions, to see beyond this world, to soar in skies you have never imagined of... to be all that you were created to be, then you need to have "wings." The question raised in Till We Have Faces is "How can the gods meet us face to face till we have faces?" Here, I shall ask the following question: How can we reach God till we have "wings"?

Are you ready to ask for "wings" and fly to Him?

Into the Wardrobe

---Finding True Freedom of the Soul

In the absence of true fulfillment, the state of the soul is like the emptiness of a room except that, in such empty room, there is a wardrobe. The journey of the soul starts with the opening of the wardrobe. Inside the wardrobe one discovers the reality of one's soul---a land dead and frozen in eternal winter under the evil spell of sin. Everything that one finds through the door of wardrobe is longing for the breaking of the spell---the end of winter and the coming of spring, as it is with every part of one's soul under the curse of sin. It is, however, no good with one's own effort to break the spell, for the very nature of the soul, being sinful, is unable to save itself. It is obvious that a man who doesn't know how to swim and happens to be drowning, despite his desperate struggles, cannot save himself without the intervention of some kind of external factor, a life jacket, for example. In Narnia, Aslan came to free the land and its creatures from the curse of the spell. Likewise, in our world, Christ came to free the earth and its people from the curse of sin. The freedom of the soul can only made possible through the breaking of the very thing that creates bondages to the soul---sin. The ultimate defeat of sin is achieved by the total destruction of its power or, in another sense, the maximum level of evil that its power generates---eternal death. Christ demonstrated the victory over death, the ultimate evil resulted from sin, through His own death and resurrection, thereby, fully and once for all, ending the power of sin. It is through this sacrificial act of Christ that we have been given the opportunity to obtain true freedom of our souls. A new journey of the soul begins with one's acceptance of Christ as one's Savior who conquered sin and the wage of sin---eternal death, and the impartation of His resurrected life that overcomes the power of sin.

"You see, at just the right time, when we were still sinners, Christ died for the ungodly." (Romans 5: 6)

"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 6: 23)

Beyond Narnia

Not just a stone table
But the temple curtain
Torn into halves

Not just an evil spell
But the power of sin
Broken into pieces

Not just a deeper magic
But a new covenant
Founded by His blood

Not just an imaginary land
But our own world
Redeemed by His grace

Not just a lion
But the Great Lion
From the tribe of Judah

Not just a tale
But the greatest story
Ever told to mankind!

Aslan Saves

What I do
Is no good
Unless Aslan's
On the move.

I am to blame
All my shame
He takes away
By His mane.

What price
What sacrifice
His very blood
Alone suffice.

A new song
Now I sing---
The winter's gone
The spring's begun!

Faith and Security

. . . Crying is all right in its way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later and then you still have to decide what to do. When Jill stopped, she found she was dreadfully thirsty. She had been lying face downward, and now she sat up . . . She listened carefully and felt almost sure what she heard was the sound of running water.
The woods were so still that it was not difficult to decide where the sound was coming from . . . Sooner than she expected she came to an open glade and saw the stream, bright as glass, running across the turf a stone's throw away from her. But although the sight of the water made her feel ten times thirstier than before, she didn't rush forward and drink. She stood as still as if she had been turned into stone, with her mouth open. And she had a very good reason: just on this side of the stream lay the Lion. . .
"If you're thirsty, you may drink."
. . . For a second she stared here and there, wondering who had spoken. Then the voice said again, "If you are thirsty, come and drink." . . . It was the lion speaking. The voice was not like a man's. It was deeper, wilder and stronger; a sort of heavy, golden voice. It did not make her any less frightened than she had been before, but it made her frightened in rather a different way. "Are you not thirsty?" said the Lion.
"I'm dying of thirst," said Jill. "Then drink," said the Lion.
"May I -- could I -- would you mind going away while I do?" said Jill.
The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience.
The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic.
"Will you promise not to -- do anything to me, if I do come?" said Jill.
"I make no promise," said the Lion.
Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer.
"Do you eat girls?" she said. "I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms," said the Lion. It didn't say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.
"I daren't come and drink," said Jill.
"Then you will die of thirst," said the Lion.
"Oh dear!" said Jill, coming another step nearer. "I suppose I must go and look for another stream then."
"There is no other stream," said the Lion.
It never occurred to Jill to disbelieve the Lion -- no one who had seen his stern face could do that -- and her mind suddenly made itself up. It was the worst thing she had ever had to do, but she went forward to the stream, knelt down, and began scooping up water in her hand. It was the coldest, most refreshing water she had ever tasted. You didn't need to drink much of it, for it quenched your thirst at once . . .
"Come here," said the Lion. And she had to. . . (The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair)

Like Jill, we want assurance, we want security, we want our life with Christ to be safe and predictable. But if we really want to know God and grow we must step out in the risk of faith. Yes, the Lion is scary, but the other alternative is to die of thirst, for "there is no other stream." In the presence of the most dangerous One, you are indeed the most secured.