zombievunicorn

I’ve been waiting for some science experiment to go horrifically wrong and finally give me the zombie apocalypse that Columbus and Tallahassee romanticized in the 2009 hit, Zombieland. They just make running for your life, killing zombies and nearly dying every few hours look like a grand time. Because anything is fun with the right people.

I’m going to make a giant assumption, but the idea that some undead, half-dead or something akin to it destructive force being set loose on the planet after a failed medical or military experiment isn’t that much of a stretch for some people. (Insert your conspiracy theory here.) We’re used to scenes of death and destruction because violence of some sort is always happening somewhere and news media are always more than happy to broadcast every moment of it they can capture.

Add to that ongoing searches for cures for AIDS, cancer, death and the hiccups and science is bound to take us to a place of no return. When war and medical science get together for a good time, we’re bound for some sort of post-apocalyptic dystopian existence- I just hope it isn’t anything like Waterworld. Mostly because I’m not a Kevin Costner fan.

A man-made hell of unfortunate proportions

seems like it really could happen, doesn’t it?

In contrast to the potential of an undead takeover, there are other places our imaginations can take us. Like through the wardrobe, to that place Lewis named Narnia.  The land created by a singing lion, filled with unicorns, dragons, centaurs and fauns (among other things) feels like nothing more than a fantasy, doesn’t it? There’s no way a place like that could ever exist.

Or could it?

In a sense, we can’t create a place like Narnia or Hogwarts (the place I’d rather be) like I think we could make a huge mess of the word like we’re already doing. It seems like we’re better at distorting life than we are at creating it. And if we aren’t ruining some species by genetically modifying them to give us more food (for example) then we’re accidentally driving it into extinction. Because humanity is super awesome like that.

But here’s the deal- those problems came about as a result of the fall. What does our creative ability look like without that? I’m simply spectating, but instead of bloody messes and wars, Freddy Kreuger and the Teletubbies, maybe our ability to imagine new things looks more like Narnia. It looks like life and not death.

Can the redeemed imagination do any wrong? Unfortunately, yes. But that’s because none of us will ever be completely sanctified while we’re in the land of the living. But I’m convinced that our imaginations will pass into eternity with us. What then will we do with them?

No longer will lusts, jealousies, insecurities and all those other awful things camp out in our minds, so what’s left? Lewis believed that he’d catch some glimpse of Narnia in eternity because the world he created was part of him- and not a part that necessarily had to die with his flesh. It might look different than the way we experience it when we read the series, but maybe we’ll walk through that wardrobe someday in the future and see something movies and computer technology couldn’t create.

Maybe another way to put it is that perhaps our hopes and dreams are a little more realistic- or have more potential to come true than our fears ever will.

What do you think?