Further In

"You look lost," said a man. 

I was walking high above the town and had reached what you might call upper pasture land. It was further up than I had been in a while, and well out of the town. The man and his wife, who were also out 'walking high' had come suddenly around a corner to find me staring into my phone. 

"I am trying to find which direction might be the most fascinating," I said, and they laughed. "It's all pretty fascinating up here," said his wife. We discussed finding The Burrows in this direction, or Steeple Lane along there, which leads to Knill's Monument. I decided upon Knill's, and they went on the other way. 

Knill's is about as high as it gets, and the trek reminded me of C.S. Lewis' book "The Last Battle", when the Pevinsie children find themselves out of the Shadowlands and in the high Mountains (where Aslan is). Everything they had loved about England was even better there, clearer and sharper, and there was a wonderful resemblance between the two. And the great thing was that they could Run! and the running wasn't hard, because they had been fit for it, and could breathe as easily as if they were sitting.

Where I walked today, the fields were so blindingly green, and the horses so friendly, and the clouds so white and puffy that I felt it must almost be Narnia. I thought, just as Peter and Edmund and Lucy had thought, "This is my real country. I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now." 

It's like that when we finally stumble upon Narnia. 

Up, and up I climbed, finding it easier to take the steps and breathe the air, because I had been practicing. Along the way, I met other travelers who said hello, and smiled, and one even said, "I saw you in church this morning!" Her hair was blond, too, and she wore a beautiful flowing blue dress (out on the hills?) and she said she had been to the wedding in the Parish church at 1:00. 

"I hadn't time to go home between the service and the wedding, so I stayed there. I am heading home now." 

I laughed when she mentioned there was a wedding because our organist, at the end of the final hymn ("Onward Christian Soldiers") had surprised everyone by striking up the Wedding Recessional. The blazing intro to it gave me CHILLS with everyone cheering and applauding at the end. And now I knew why. 

She went along home and I strode off to the tip-top of Knill's, where one can see everything, every direction, north, south, east, and west, and there is no more climbing. One day, no one knows when, we will find ourselves out of the Shadowlands and in the high Mountains (where Aslan is). And we will be fit for the run, not because we are strong on our own but because we are made strong by Him. 

"Welcome, in the Lion's name! Come further up and further in!"

"All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before."

See you along the Way!

the SconeLady

Knill's Monument