Lewis Carroll, the English author, wrote a sequel to his much-admired novel Alice in Wonderland.
The sequel, titled Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, sees Alice walk through a large mirror — the looking glass — only to discover that on the other side, life runs back-to-front.
Examples include:
- Walking away from something brings you closer to it
- Running helps you stay in the same place
- You remember events and feel pain before the cause actually happens
- Cake is shared by passing it around first and cutting it afterwards
To read the poem Jabberwocky, Alice needs to hold the text up to a mirror.
In today’s Gospel (Mt. 16: 21–27), Jesus, I suggest, is daring us to walk through the looking glass — to be audacious, and indeed courageous, enough to live back-to-front.
Jesus says:
“For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?”
P.S. Be cautious around full-length mirrors — who knows what might happen!
