Every now and then, a familiar place in Santa Barbara — a grocery aisle, a bus ride, a quiet corner of the library — can feel strangely luminous, as if something just beneath the surface is trying to get our attention.
This week’s reflection imagines what might happen if C.S. Lewis, with his blend of reason, wonder and mischievous insight, wandered through our everyday landscapes.
What would he notice? What small magics would he point out that we’ve grown too hurried to see?
This piece is an invitation to look sideways at the ordinary and rediscover the enchantment that still shimmers in the most unlikely places.
Looking Sideways with C.S. Lewis
This morning, while eating my granola,
I wondered what C.S. Lewis would do if he found himself in the cereal aisle at Safeway — all those cartoon animals shouting promises of wholegrain salvation.
Surely, he’d pause,
tilt his head the way professors do when they suspect a deeper magic at work, and then smile — because even here,
amid fluorescent lighting and discount stickers,
the old enchantment is trying its best to get our attention.
Perhaps he’d notice the automatic doors opening of their own accord and think,
Ah yes, hospitality — the spell still holds.
Or he’d watch a child talk to a tablet
as if it were a small, rectangular faun,
and he’d nod approvingly at the persistence of
imagination in the age of battery warnings.
I like to think he’d ride the city bus
and see the passengers — heads bowed, thumbs flicking,
not as distracted mortals but as pilgrims consulting their pocket-sized books of hours, seeking directions to the nearest coffee shop or kingdom.
And maybe, on a quiet afternoon,
he’d wander into a public library,
where the air still smells faintly of paper and possibility,
and he’d whisper to the librarian,
as if sharing a secret with Aslan himself,
that fairy tales were never meant to be outgrown — only outwaited.
Because Lewis would know that the wardrobe has multiplied:
it now hides in bus stops, in overheard conversations,
in the sudden kindness of strangers,
in the way a dog looks at you as if you might yet surprise her by turning into something noble.
And he’d remind us — gently,
the way a friend nudges your elbow when you’ve forgotten your own brilliance — that wonder is not a relic but a renewable resource,
quietly refilling itself
every time we choose to look
with the eyes of someone old enough
to read fairy tales again.
