In the both the book and film version of C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, an ornate wardrobe in an attic was a magical portal to a world called Narnia. The wardrobe transported some of the characters to another time and place. It would be a lot of fun going on such an adventure, but there is a reason they are called fantasy stories. Such things only exist in the minds of gifted writers like Lewis, who write so vividly that we feel we too have spent time in such strange and wonderful places. Being a fan of this genre, I have found myself sometimes wishing that I too had a wardrobe that could take me to another time and place.
Well, I don’t have a magic wardrobe in the attic. Truth is, I don’t even have an attic, but I do have a basement with a blue storage trunk, and I found my thoughts taken back to another time and place by way of that trunk. As I was putting it back onto a shelf, I thought of college in 1985. My friend Dwayne owned the trunk then. He gave it to me when he graduated from college and entered the U.S. Air Force. Normally, Dwayne would pack up the trunk with his books and stuff, then go back to Arizona, his home state. The summer of 1985 was different; he was off to flight school, and he no longer needed the trunk. He gave it to me out of friendship, not out of the year-end necessity to purge. I began to reminisce how we were the unlikeliest of friends, especially since we had a strong dislike for each other when we first met. I’m still not sure how it came to pass, but somewhere in between listening to Pink Floyd and throwing K.C. and the Sunshine Band albums out the dorm room window, we each realized that we could share our hopes, dreams, and fears with each other without cynicism. He didn’t share those inside details of his life very often, but when he did, it was kind of a privilege. It was in those moments that I was invited into “Dwayne’s World.”
Just like Narnia, it was filled with an array of good and bad things. A painful detail for me still, is Dwayne was an atheist. I say was, not because he became a believer, but because on my 23rd birthday I received the news that Dwayne was killed in a military plane crash during an air show in France. I wasn’t a believer then either. To quote the lyrics from a Pink Floyd song, we were “just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year….”; but by God’s grace, only several months after Dwayne’s death, I became a believer and God’s Holy Spirit came to live in me. Words from the same Pink Floyd song, “Wish You Were Here”, had taken on a whole new meaning. I wished Dwayne could have been there to see the change in my life.
Over the years I’ve kept some college memorabilia in the trunk, but it is mostly filled with letters from friends and especially letters from my best friend and wife Roxanne. The contents of the trunk serve as a reminder of how many other people have invited me into their “world.” Some of the letters are filled with their hopes, dreams, and fears.
The trunk now serves as a reminder of how God continues to bring so many new people into my life. I still wish I could be invited back into “Dwayne’s World” so I could tell him about the wonderful things God has done in my life, but the reality is that he isn’t coming back, and I won’t ever have that opportunity with him. That unrealized opportunity causes me to think about the story Jesus told of the three servants who were each given the responsibility to steward something valuable for their master. The story is found in Matthew 25:14-30. The story makes me very sober regarding the prospect that when God brings another “unlikeliest of friends” into my life, and that person invites me into their world through the sharing of their hopes, dreams and fears, I need to be clear regarding how valuable that is. More so, I need to be aware of how valuable that moment is to God. I need to be attuned to His Spirit and instruction so that I can be a good and faithful servant.
Unlike Narnia, each person’s “world” is real; and unlike Narnia, I don’t need a magic wardrobe to get there. God will supernaturally provide me the opportunities to spend time in other people’s “worlds.” They are strange and wonderful places, but most importantly they are very valuable to God. So, when He takes me to those places, I want to make the most of those opportunities. I hope you want to as well.
Grace to you.
Dave Paukner
