To enter Narnia the children must open the closet door and discover a land of vivid imagination and reality.
We follow them, on the page and on the screen, because we know a good story is a magic door. Even in our fast-paced, text-messaging, digitalized society and the high-tech computer generated imagery that brings this story to life, we are irresistibly drawn through the magic door.
“Please,” we whisper – as we settle into plush chairs while the theater darkens and the story begins – “take me with you.”
Story opens a space between people that is unbound by reality. Our imaginative ability to tell story and our empathetic ability to receive story can take us anywhere and make it real.
Through story, we accept an invitation into experiences that are not our own, but through identifying with them, they become almost our own. Once story grabs us everything else falls away. And I think this is exactly why we cannot let go of story: it is the medium of our deepest learning, entertainment and search for meaning.
Story is also the builder of social identity. As diverse as we have always been, the English roots to American culture are still strong in the stories we accept as classics. We seek to stay related to something long ago identified as the cultural ideal: European, especially English, classicism.
Coming out of the theatre a few years back, having just seen “The Fellowship of the Ring,” I followed two young boys up the aisle as they said to each other, “I hear this is based on a book…” I wanted to grab them by the collar, adjourn to a nearby restaurant and start reading “The Hobbit,” while plying them with hot chocolate. The books of our youth hold astounding importance over time. Stories that become classics have generation-wide impact that affect us as a culture in ways we may barely recognize.
Harry Potter and Narnia come just in time to bring the thrill of the movie and the depth of the books into the lives of millions who are, in one way and another, looking for characters they can identify with, characters who face in myth the challenges we face in reality.
Story is a map for how we see ourselves, the world around us, and our possibilities. A shy boy who used to imagine himself riding on the back of Aslan is now a man with complex business responsibilities. He still visualizes walking into tense situations with Aslan at his side. “I don’t talk about it,” he says during a break in a seminar on the power of story in business, “but the image of Aslan reminds me that true authority is about being present, not roaring all the time.”
A first-grade teacher uses stuffed toys of the Pooh characters, along with frequent readings of the stories, to help children understand the dynamics of peer relationships.
“In the Hundred Acres Woods, each animal shows tolerance for the other’s quirks. One little boy who was socially struggling said to the class – ‘don’t make me eat my thistles alone, I’m Eoyore.’ The children began to embrace him.”
Story keeps us from being swept away in the noise and distraction. In the media event this movie will become this winter, the story itself offers us an opportunity to revisit the cultural values we profess: valor and sacrifice and the struggle for good to win over evil. In the darkened car, riding home with scenes still playing in our minds, we can gently ask each other what needs courage in our own lives.
Christina Baldwin is the author of Storycatcher, Making Sense of Our Lives through the Power and Practice of Story. More about her work can be found at www.storycatcher.net
