Bigger on the Inside

One of the coolest things about the British sci fi series Dr. Who is the Doctor’s spaceship/time machine. The TARDIS (an acronym for Time and Relative Dimension in Space) is a police box (about the size of a phone booth—remember those?).

Dr. Who's TARDIS

But that’s just on the outside. On the inside, the TARDIS is palatial, with many large rooms and possibly a swimming pool in the library. As a long parade of mystified visitors and companions have exclaimed in wonder, “It’s bigger on the inside!”

The controls of the TARDIS

The concept of bigger-on-the-inside is sometimes called dimensional transcendence, and it pops up a lot in fantasy stories.

• For example, do you remember the World Quidditch Cup at the beginning of Harry Potter and the Tri-Wizard Tournament? The Weasleys and Harry stay in tents that are much larger and more luxurious inside than outside, causing Harry to exclaim, “I love magic!”

• And in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Herminone’s little beaded handbag holds books, tents, and many changes of clothes. The boys were lucky that Hermione planned ahead and packed for their trip.

• In Patricia McKillips’s Harpist in the Wind, when you climb a certain spiral staircase, you never get any closer to the top—unless the owner decides to let you in. 

• In The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Zarniwoop has a complete universe in his small office.

Sometimes the trope of “bigger on the inside” is played for a humorous effect, and sometimes for something more profound.

My favorite example of dimensional transcendence comes from The Last Battle, the final book in The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis. The children enter a small stable that contains all of Aslan’s Country. They are reminded that once on Planet Earth, a stable held Heaven under a bright star—at the birth of Jesus.

But when you think about it, the adult human brain weighs about 2½ to 3 pounds, with a volume of about 1260 cubic centimeters in men and 1130 in women. Not very big. Unless you’re comparing it to the brain of a Stegosaurus, which was about the size of a lime.

And yet, our minds hold galaxies, paradoxes, stories, symphonies, the accumulated memories and knowledge of a lifetime. A sudden smell or a melody can unlock some hidden and forgotten memory we would have thought lost and inaccessible.

Where and how do we store the knowledge of how to play Chopin on the piano? Or how to write a story or a poem? Or how to compete at sports at the Olympics level? Sometimes we can even do things we don’t know how to do! We human beings are so much bigger on the inside than on the outside. 

Marianne Moore wrote a poem that says:

The mind is an enchanting thing is an enchanted thing, like the glaze on a katydid-wing subdivided by sun till the nettings are legion.

Our minds are amazing, with so many "nettings" and interconnections. And our spirits are amazing too. The Apostle Paul said,

We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves. --  II Cor. 4:7 New Living Translation

We are like clay pots that don't always look very impressive on the outside. But on the inside. . .we are so much bigger.

Image Credits:

  TARDIS - Author: Chris Sampson;

  TARDIS Controls - Author: Chris Sampson;

  Nativity Scene - Author: Photo: Andreas Praefcke;

  Skull with brain - Author: Images generated by Life Science Databases(LSDB);

  Ranunculus in blue pot - © Can Stock Photo / Neirfy:

  Clay pot with flowers - © Can Stock Photo / Elenarts

The Story Wizard: J. K. Rowling

My grandfather was a railroad man -- so maybe it's my family heritage -- but the sound of a train on a summer night can transport my thoughts to far-off places and times. I always wonder where the train is coming from and where it's going. Some little part of me wants to hop that train like a sooty-faced hobo and catch a ride to an alternate life. 

It's not that I'm unhappy right where I am, but there's just something wistful, something beckoning in the sound of a train. Who knows? Maybe I could be like Harry, Ron, and Hermione -- off to conquer the world and the Dark Lord on the Hogwart's Express. 

So many great scenes in the Harry Potter books and movies take place on trains and in train stations. Harry meets Ron and the Weasleys while looking for Platform 9 3/4. The boys meet Hermione on the train. Harry's first encounter with the Dementors happens on a train. Fortunately, he meets Professor Lupin at the same time. Even the afterlife scene is set at King's Cross Station. The train takes Harry away from the muggle world and toward a new life. And perhaps the same could be said for the creator of these stories as well.

Trains have played an important role in the life of British children’s author J. K. Rowling.

King's Cross Station, photo by Timothy Baldwin

Her parents met on a train travelling from King's Cross Station to the town of Arbroath in Scotland. The year was 1964, and both were on their way to join the navy. They later married, and their daughter Joanne was born July 31, 1965.

Emma Watson
(Hermione Granger)

Young Jo loved reading and writing fantasy stories. Rowling later recalled: “...The first story I ever wrote down (when I was five or six) was about a rabbit called Rabbit. He got the measles and was visited by his friends, including a giant bee called Miss Bee."

Joanne's teen years were sometimes difficult. Her mother had multiple sclerosis, and her father became distant. Jo still loved books and writing, and she later confessed, “Hermione is loosely based on me. She's a caricature of me when I was eleven, which I'm not particularly proud of."

Her best friend was Sean Harris, a young man who owned a turquoise Ford Anglia, like the flying car featured in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. In fact, the character of Ron Weasley was partly drawn from Sean.

Fast forward a few years. Jo had graduated from the University of Exeter and was living in Manchester. In 1990, she was taking a train from Manchester to London, when there was a delay for four hours. While she waited for the train to move again, the idea for Harry Potter simply popped into her head. She saw a boy who is on his way to Wizard School. 

The ideas came in a rush, but she couldn’t find a pen—and she was too shy to ask anyone if she could borrow one. But maybe that was a good thing, because she had time to really think through the plot. She had been writing since she was six years old, but never had she been this excited about a story. She started writing it down that night, but events in her life soon put her writing on hold, just like a train with a delay. 

Fast forward again. After a bitter divorce, Jo was a single mom, struggling to provide for her child. She took the baby on long walks to help her fall asleep. Then she pushed the stroller to a coffee-shop where she worked on her story—as often as she could. With hard work and great determination, she finished Harry Potter and the Philospher’s  Stone, Book One in the series.

J. K. Rowling

No one knew then that the Harry Potter books would become the bestselling book series in history. Or that in just five years, Jo would go from a life of struggle and poverty to being one of the richest women in Britain.

And like so many other great adventure stories, it all began on a train.

Paws for Reflection

Yo. My name is Tolkien, and yes, I hold you in disdain. Hey, I’m a cat. It's in my job description.

Week after week, my human neglects me while she putters around on this stupid blog. She should be brushing my fur, rubbing my belly, and—of course—feeding me! But oh no, she’d rather read some silly book or write some silly blogpost. Silly = book or blog without cats.

My pet human

So this week, I’m taking matters into my own paws. I’m gonna write the blinkin’ post. How hard can it be? Okay, the shift key is a little tricky.

My topic? 

Cats in story and myth. Duh. But where to begin?

Where better than with the Cheshire Cat, in Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll? When Alice asks which way she ought to go, the cat sagely replies, "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to." His best trick is appearing and disappearing at will--a talent all cats possess to some extent. At one point, he slowly fades until only his haunting grin remains. He’s arrogant and obnoxious. He’s my hero.

The Catwings books, by Ursula K. LeGuin, are about cats born with--wait for it--wings! In Catwings, the cats fly away from danger in the city, only to find other dangers in the country. The series continues with Catwings Return, Wonderful Alexander and the Catwings, and Jane on Her Own.  Flying would be so cool. The expression on Miss Mousie’s face? Priceless!

The Cat in the Hat, by Dr. Seuss, clearly illustrates the relative cleverness of cats and humans. Two human children are home alone and bored. (So pathetic. Why don’t they just chase their tails?) It’s up to a visiting cat to entertain them by balancing a teacup, a glass of milk, a cake, three books, a goldfish, a rake, some toys, and his umbrella while he dances on a ball. This clever cat appears in six Seuss books.

The intelligence of cats is again recognized in The Cat Who… mystery series by Lilian Jackson Braun. These books--with titles like The Cat Who Moved a Mountain and The Cat Who Saw Stars--feature a news reporter named Jim Qwilleran and his Siamese cats, Koko and Yum-Yum. (Yum-Yum? Whatever.) The cats "dig up" clues to help solve mysteries. In an exemplary display of overindulgence, these cats are fed lobster, salmon, and crab. Required reading for all cat owners.

And then there’s Crookshanks, the true hero of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. After all, it was Hermione’s kitty who sniffed out Ron Weasley’s annoying pet rat Scabbers, the rat who turned out to be none other than the notorious Peter Pettigrew who betrayed Harry’s parents to their death. (But even to other cats, Mrs. Norris--Filch’s cat--is gag-on-a-hairball CREEPY. Petrification was a big improvement.)

Puss in Boots, a classic French fairy tale, shows once again that humans are helpless without their cats. In this story by Charles Perrault, a cat uses his feline wits to get wealth, position, and a princess for his penniless master. Although why he needs all that stuff when he's got a cat, I'll never know. 

It’s almost time for me to resume my life of pampering and privilege, but I must mention one other cat of legend and lore: Aslan—the great lion in The Chronicles of Narnia, by C. S. Lewis. Aslan is the very model of majesty and amazingness. Best of all, he’s not a tame lion.  And though he is the greatest cat of all, he still looks at us and says, "Us lions." How cool is that?

Hark! Is that the heavenly anthem of food falling into my dish? Okay, I’m out of here. And really, what’s the big furry deal about blogging? All you need is the right subject. Duh.

That was easy. Let's eat. Duh.