My favorite book makes a lamp post a significantly central feature of the story, the marker between two worlds, the point of reference between two timelines and the memory trigger.

It acts like a lighthouse shedding light, guiding back to the safe harbour of the present world after traversing the seas of adventure in another world in another timeline.

The lamp post sits in the wood, alight in the dark and the cold of perpetual winter, a sentry to the divide between the worlds, the threshold – the end for one people and the beginning for another!

*My favorite book will always be C. S. Lewis book The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe. It is second to John Bunyan’s Pilgrim Progress, we could say in a genre, followed by Tolkien’s middle earth series and recently by the Paul Young’s The Shack. Somewhere in there is the Rowling’s Harry Potter series.

The Narnian series is a child’s delight of popping in and out of another world without any damage the normal life and time period of the world we inhabit. This week’s pic brought the lamp post in the book into focus for me and intrigued me enough to do some research!

*Friday Fictioneers is talented group of enthusiasts penning down a story, a poem, a prose, etc., expressing their heart about a photo prompt, every week. Thanks for this week’s beautiful PHOTO PROMPT © Sandra Crook

*When the Pevensie children enter into Narnia from the wardrobe they encounter the lamp post. A piece of their world in the world of Narnia, out of place and out of context. What is this? What is Clive Staples Lewis hinting at?

If there is one thing I know about Lewis’ analogical tale, everything has a meaning and often more than one. Aslan is Jesus, the stone table the Cross…. I could go on but that would be getting off the topic at hand, the lamp post. The origin of the lamp post comes from “The Magician’s Nephew” (which being the second book makes it a prequel meaning George Lucas has been pipped at that) where the white Queen herself takes a broken lamp post with her to Narnia where amazingly it grows into a new one. By the time the Pevensie children arrive it has been there forever and quite normal for Narnian’s to see. Normal but not in the same context as the Pevensie children or ourselves and this is the point I will endeavour to make. Why? Because there are people, places, times and maybe even objects and animals that God uses for his purpose. God brings the familiar of our world of our senses to explain a part of His. Now we could split hairs here about the duality of mortal and immortal divine and human sacred and profane, but I often wonder if that’s not something that is as far separated as we think. And I believe that Lewis saw this to be true.

The lamp post sits in the wood in Narnia alight in the dark and the cold of the White Witches winter. A sentry to the divide between the worlds. Mr. Tumnus tells us this is boundary of Narnia the threshold. For Tumnus the lamp post is the end of Narnia for the Pevensies it is the beginning. This is the point where I tell you to think about the people and places God has used to invite us further into His world. Your memory should be able to tell you these things more than I can. What I am going to tell you is that God has done this since the beginning of creation. Creation was an invitation for humanity, Moses and the pillar of cloud and fire, the Prophets, Angels, Chariots of Fire and Jesus too.Jesus is the lamp post familiar and out of context at the same time. Human with flesh and blood able to die and also divine and risen Lord of all. The archetype is one that God uses and continues to use, bringing people and places, organisations and even memories to use. So when you read this and remember these lamp posts, these things that are used by God familiar yet out of context to where you think it should lead. We should not glorify the lamp posts but God who put them there. Don’t look for them because like the lamp post they will come when you least expect them, even in a wardrobe.http://thischristianguy.blogspot.in/2011/11/lamp-post-in-narnia-what-god-uses-for.html?m=1

*In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the lamppost functions as a beacon in more ways that one—showing the children the way to Narnia when the come into it from our world, and showing them the way back when they need to leave. At the end of the adventure, it’s the lamppost which leads the way home for the children, triggering their memories of their old lives in England.

The lamppost is an object that isn’t quite Narnian and isn’t quite a part of the “real world.” Narnia is pseudo-medieval, so the lamppost is anachronistic. But the Pevensies’ come from the England of the 1940’s, and the lamppost is outdated by 1940’s standards—it has a flame burning in it rather than an electric bulb. It exists out of time and place, which is why it so efficiently signals to the children (and later, to the queens and kings) that something is off.

If all these things didn’t make it important enough, the lamppost also causes Edmund to slip up and prove to Peter and Susan that he lied about his first trip to Narnia—the fact that he knows which way to go to find it proves he has been there before. Yup; this lamppost sheds light on pretty much everything…including lies. (http://narnia.wikia.com/wiki/Lamp-post)

*C.S. Lewis wrote the Chronicles of Narnia as an allegory for Christianity. The lamppost, in that way, is supposed to represent the Light of Heaven/God. It serves as a guiding light for the children, always bringing them back to Narnia, the kingdom of Heaven. (https://www.quora.com/What-does-the-lamp-post-in-the-Chronicles-of-Narnia-symbolize)

*Photo courtesy of Wattpad link https://my.w.tt/UiNb/8lN8ZMZxQI