The Man Who Walked Into A Wardrobe

 When I lived in Nottingham, I met a man who walked into a wardrobe.

We were with his sister, talking together in her bedsit. All at once he got up and walked over to her wardrobe. He opened the door, and closed it behind him. His sister and I went on with our conversation. It seemed like the sensible thing to do. Twenty minutes later, he came out and sat down again, as if nothing had happened.

After a while, I gave in. “Don’t mind me asking, but… what were you doing inside the wardrobe?”

"I was hanging upside down from the rail to find out what trousers feel like.”

I liked that! But, there was more. He was something of a latter-day hippie, I suppose: in the quiet, in the darkness, he said, he was seeking illumination, looking for enlightenment.

It didn’t strike me as a very strenuous search. Perhaps he had the notion that Narnia was in there, amongst the cheap print dresses and the sweaters and the scarves. Anyway, he emerged unchanged: out into the daylight, and still in the dark.

Jesus said: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8.12)