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 THE
LION IN THE CELLAR
Down Into the Darkness of Our Past
©
2005 by Jim Robinson
One of
my favorite books is The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe
by C.S. Lewis. Night after fantastical night, I read aloud
from this book to my daughter when she was only three or four.
I’ve since done the same with my son. This timeless
classic continues to fascinate decades after its publication,
and a new generation will experience the power of its message
in a feature film later this year.
Many of us know the story: Four children discover a three-dimensional
wardrobe, and through it stumble into the magical world of
Narnia. Here, in a place filled with talking animals and vivid
imagery of good and evil, the children ultimately make friends
with Aslan the lion. Aslan is, of course, Jesus. And the story
is an allegorical retelling of His sacrifice and ultimate
victory over darkness. The White Witch (Satan) has caused
all of Narnia to be covered in snow—“Always winter
and never Christmas” as good Mr. Tumnus the faun reports
to one of the children—and ultimately Aslan returns
to bring life and color (Paradise) back into being.
Early on in their journey, the four children take refuge in
the home of Mr. and Mrs. Beaver. Following a wonderful supper,
Mr. Beaver begins telling everyone all about Narnia and the
witch and Aslan. Though they haven’t yet met Him, the
very sound of His name causes a stirring in the children.
“Who is Aslan?” asked Susan.
“Is—is he a man?” asked Lucy.
“…I tell you he is the King of the wood and the
son of the great Emperor Beyond-the-Sea…Aslan is a lion—the
Lion, the great Lion.”
“Ooh!” said Susan, “I’d thought he
was a man. Is he—quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous
about meeting a lion.”
“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said
Mrs. Beaver, “if there’s anyone who can appear
before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either
braver than most or else just silly.”
The very discussion has them all a-shiver, sitting there around
the fireplace with cups of steaming tea in their hands. Scared
to listen and scared not to, they cannot help asking more.
And then Lucy, youngest and most innocent, asks a most profound
question. She wants to know, as do we all, about the character
of this Aslan.
“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver. “Don’t you
hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe?
‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s
the King, I tell you.”
In one
way or another, Lucy’s question is one each of us asks:
Is He safe? Can I approach Him without being eaten?
GENERIC
FEAR
We live in a frightening world: The war in Iraq, tragedy in
New Orleans and Mississippi, and, among many believers, a
general sense of an ever-growing evil spreading its shadow
throughout our culture. In my counseling practice, I consistently
deal with people who seem stalked by a daily darkness, a thing
I call “generic fear.” This fear can be the result
of unresolved issues from the past, completely unrecognized
for years on end, ultimately manifesting itself in all sorts
of ways in someone’s life—as it did in Carla’s.
Carla is married with three kids. They are Christians. She
is highly educated and works as an administrative assistant
for a legal firm. She walked into my office with a somewhat
false-feeling air of confidence. We exchanged the usual small
talk, and then she grew quiet; she found it difficult to describe
the dis-ease that had drawn her to counseling.
“I’m just not happy,” she said. “And
I don’t know why. My husband is a good man, and he loves
me. My children are beautiful. We are a blessed family…”
Her voice trailed off, and she stared at the floor.
“You feel that something is missing from your life?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know.”
“Tell me what in your life is enough, and what is not.”
“What is enough… I don’t know what you mean.”
“What feels complete for you? Is your relationship with
your husband complete? Does it satisfy you?”
“Yes.”
“Being a mother?”
“Yes.”
“Your career?”
“Yes."
“Then why are you here, Carla?”
“I…I have all I thought I ever wanted,”
she said slowly. “And somehow… somehow it is not
enough.” She straightened and looked directly at me.
“I feel…” Staring now, hopeful, waiting.
“Empty,” I said, and it was not a question.
“Yes,” she answered, her voice small and hollow.
“Empty.”
THE
DARK CELLAR
I see a lot of people like Carla in my practice. Looking at
life in the present, everything appears right. They have a
nice house. They go to church, and they believe in Christ.
They do not drink or do drugs, and they move through their
lives seeming very “normal” on the outside. Obviously,
Carla’s external life circumstances were not the cause
of her vague but insistent pain. And so, it became necessary
that she and I go back in time, to a place where she began
the discovery of her true identity… and God’s.
At first, she was reluctant to tell me much; she painted a
picture of a “wonderful” childhood, with “parents
who loved me.” And yet, she seemed unable to describe
many specific memories for me; there seemed large chunks of
time during her adolescence that she either could not remember,
or chose not to.
Even though Carla and I didn’t make much progress during
that first visit, she decided to come back. Over time, she
finally felt safe enough to tell me about the parts of her
childhood that were less than idyllic, allowing me intimate
observations of a family that, like my own, was strongly invested
in looking good on the outside, while being very broken on
the inside. And she revealed her own ways of medicating the
gnawing fear she had learned—compulsive cleaning, shopping,
and especially eating, secretly seeking comfort the way she
had as a child, sneaking down into the kitchen while the rest
of the family slept, eating chocolate until it made her sick.
The sessions were wrenching and painful for her, once she
finally decided to share her secret shame and stop pretending
to be okay. But she did it. She asked me to walk with her—one
slow, small step at a time—down into the “dark
cellar” of her past. Once there, it took enormous courage
for Carla to begin the process of sifting through the various
stored artifacts of her girlhood, fearfully, tearfully. When
the air grew too thin down there, we would come back up, and
breathe, and thank God for not having swallowed us up. Each
successive trip down we were able to stay a bit longer, and
uncover more things… beautiful things, mostly, photos
of parents who did their best, and loved as they were able,
giving more gifts than curses, more sunny days than storms.
But we also found things long buried and covered in dust…verbal
shaming and affairs and alcoholism and sexual abuse. We discovered
broken promises, broken hearts, broken dreams. Ultimately,
Carla stumbled upon the kind of treasure that crushes before
it heals. She found fading photographs of those she had once-upon-a-time
worshiped as perfect and powerful. But then, daring to look
more closely, her eyes finally adjusting to the dark…she
instead saw images of broken gods who all along had been nothing
more than human.
WORD
HAS BEEN SENT
Often, someone will ask: Why go back? What good will it do
to dig up the past?
We go down into these long-neglected recesses of our memories
not in an attempt to blame anyone, but to discover the origin
of those wounds that were never faced and never healed. We
make this journey not to accuse, but to surrender. Ultimately,
we return to our past so that we might find our way to our
true future.
Carla is happier now. It has had little to do with me, of
course, other than God putting me in her path to serve as
a companion. She’s been willing to do the work, to fill
in the blanks, to seek support from others who can relate
to her holy longing. She met a terrifying beast in the cellar
of her past, whose power transformed her fear into forgiveness
and hope.
“I’m
longing to see him,” said Peter, “even if I do
feel frightened when it comes to the point.”
“That’s right, Son of Adam,” said Mr. Beaver,
bringing his paw down on the table with a crash that made
all the cups and saucers rattle. “And so you shall.
Word has been sent that you are to meet him, tomorrow if you
can, at the Stone Table.”
Word has
been sent. We are to meet Him. Each of us, commanded by the
Word to go to the Stone Table, and stand face to face with
a massive, man-eating lion. God desires that I should walk
up to this creature and willingly offer myself as supper.
It is, of course, death that will result. And it is this death
of our old selves that terrifies us so, and often causes us
to take the most circuitous routes imaginable towards our
true selves.
Coming face to face with our wounds requires great courage
indeed. Daring to step through the unlocked gate of our emptiness,
down the stairs into a forbidden past, we move beyond our
broken hearts, sacrifice our shame, and face our fear. At
the risk of death—and the greater risk of not dying—together
we must stride right up to the Great Lion, and stare into
His glaring, golden eyes.
And in them, find Love.
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