April 25, 2025
"If he had chosen to look back, which he did not, he could have seen the spire of Much Nadderby, and, seeing it, might have uttered a malediction on the inhospitable little hotel which, though obviously empty, had refused him a bed..."
— C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet
# The False Refuge of Nadderby
Much Nadderby, with its familiar spire, represents what we all long for in moments of uncertainty: a return to the known, the hospitable, the promised rest. Ransom, expecting welcome, arrives instead at rejection. The hotel—once a haven—has changed hands. The kindly old landlord he counted on is gone, replaced by a faceless "lady" who views guests as a nuisance.
This moment of displacement, of a world no longer answering to our previous maps, is profoundly human. Who hasn’t found themselves walking into what should have been comfort, only to find the door locked, the lights off, the tone cold?
Yet this rejection is not the end of the story—it’s the threshold.
# Refusing to Look Back
The line “If he had chosen to look back, which he did not…” is loaded with quiet heroism. It’s a narrative grace note: Ransom could have clung to bitterness, cursed the closed doors of Nadderby, and turned back. Instead, he walks on.
In spiritual and psychological terms, this is the moment of true freedom—when the ego, denied its planned path, chooses not to double down, but to surrender and move forward. The longing for certainty is eclipsed by a deeper responsiveness to the unknown.
# Off the Road to Nadderby, Onto the Pilgrim’s Path
The road to Nadderby is, symbolically, the road of reasonable expectations, remembered kindness, and assumed hospitality. But what if the divine, the mythic, the more real path cannot be accessed through what is comfortable?
To be thrust off that road is not a punishment. It is an invitation to sacred dislocation.
So many of our true paths begin with closed doors:
- The job that ghosted us.
- The community that turned cold.
- The friend who became a stranger.
- The opportunity that evaporated.
These feel like maledictions. But from the other side of the story, they become narrative ruptures that open space for destiny.
# The Longing Beneath the Plan
At the soul-level, what we most long for is not the fulfillment of our plans—it is the moment we are caught up into a deeper pattern, one that reveals we are part of something alive, intentional, and beautiful.
Had Ransom been welcomed at the inn, he would have slept. The next day would have been a continuation of his walking tour. No voyage to Malacandra. No encounter with eldila. No transformation of self.
But because he was denied what he thought he needed, he stumbled instead into what the cosmos had been preparing all along.
# Personal Application: The Benediction in the Malediction
Many of us are somewhere along a road we chose. And then we are refused a bed—we are denied the rest we thought was promised. The key is to not look back with bitterness, but to recognize the moment as a sacred redirection.
The deeper path—the one that defines the meaning we long for—rarely begins at a milestone. It begins in exile.
So if you find yourself off the road you thought you'd take, know this:
You are no longer walking toward Nadderby.
You are walking toward your real name.