Our library now has a lamppost.
It has a wardrobe and trees still covered in snow, but just beginning to bud.
There is even a lion that seems to move around the church on its own even though it is only made of stuffing and cloth.
The library at Hope needed a lamppost though to really make the scene complete and now, thanks to a donation, we have one and it’s beautiful.
Though the first of the published Narnia books is titled The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, one could argue that it is the lamppost that appears in this novel and in others that carries with it enough symbolism to warrant at least a mention in the title.
It is the lamppost that is waiting for Lucy on the other side of the wardrobe doors.
Years later, it is the lamppost that leads Lucy and her brothers and sister from Narnia back to our world.
When Lucy first enters Narnia, she arrives at night. It is winter in Narnia. It is cold and sad and dark, but Lucy is charmed rather than afraid. Here in these magical woods, here in these foreign lands is something completely familiar and yet so out of place … a lamppost.
It is the only source of light in this new world she has entered.
It is a light that has been burning for centuries.
The origin of the lamppost goes back to the creation of Narnia itself, when the soil was so rich and alive that anything planted grew … even a lamppost.
In The Magician’s Nephew, it’s revealed that Jadis (who will eventually become known as the White Witch) had once been to our world. Stripped of her powers here, she tore off the arm of a lamppost to use as a weapon. But soon she is whisked away with Digory and Polly to witness the birth of Narnia.
Jadis is so disturbed by the mysterious lion (Aslan) who is singing the world into being that she throws the arm of the lamppost at him. It bounces off, harmlessly, and sinks into the ground where it later grows into a new lamppost.
This brand new fledgling arrives into the world already lit and casting light, and it stays that way through to the end of Narnia itself.
And what a message C.S. Lewis sends with this little lamppost. That a thing once used as a weapon could grow to be a light in the darkness, a comfort to a small girl visiting a strange new world for the first time.
It is testament to the power of all things good.
I will be reminded of that now every time I walk into the library at Hope and see our new light.
