The show Stranger Things ended recently. It was an epic five-season battle against evil breaking into the small town of Hawkins, Indiana. As happens with all good stories when the ending arrives, there's a deep and mysterious sense of longing that burns beneath our surface. It's the soul's plea for continuance. And that feeling is anything but arbitrary. It taps into something that makes us human—that draws our humanity from the loud and lit present into the dim and dreamy future. Continuance is the call of all great stories because continuance is the lone prayer of every heart: to keep going.

One of the finest endings I've ever read is from C. S. Lewis's The Last Battle:

All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.

The story continues. Words walk forward. The narrative marches ahead into some hazy but beautiful cloud of hope. And that haunts us.

Continuance is the call of all great stories because continuance is the lone prayer of every heart: to keep going.

It's similar with the ending to The Lord of the Rings: 

And Rose drew him in, and sat him in his chair, and put little Elanor upon his lap. He drew in a deep breath. "Well, I'm back," he said.

Back from years of travel. Back with a mountain of memories. But back to a new life, another path winding into the countryside. And Frodo, of course, took another pass across the sea. His life kept drumming beyond the clouds and water.

And what about the ending to Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, a book referenced throughout the fifth season of Stranger Things: 

But they never learned what it was that Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who, and Mrs Which had to do, for there was a gust of wind, and they were gone.

Gone. The angelic guides of Meg Murry were off to help another. And Meg, as the series continues, walks forward to more adventures through time. That's continuance.

Perhaps one more: The Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson, as the characters fly to a mysterious well in the woods.

"They say the water does amazing things," Artham said as he lifted Sara and situated her behind Leeli. "They say it heals—and maybe even more. I've wanted to taste it for a long time." 
"It's worth a try," Kalmar said. "Either way, it's going to make a great story." Kalmar mounted the other dragon and held out his hand to his mother. "Are you coming?"

Yes . . . are you?

Wondering Forward

Continuance is what makes a story worth starting and finishing. But that doesn't mean all stories end in resolution. Part of continuance is the residual longing for a consummated resolution. With Stranger Things, we wonder what really happened to Eleven, and we long to know how the lives of the other characters play out. With Lewis, we want a peek at the next chapter, just one, so we might fully trust the miracle. With The Lord of the Rings, we want to know how Frodo fairs across the sea, and what life Sam is coming back to. For A Wrinkle in Time, we never learn what Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who, and Mrs Which had to do. And for The Wingfeather Saga, we are left with the promise of the ancient well, with water that might do miraculous things, even raising the dead.

The absence of satisfaction is the presence of pursuit, and we are built to chase, fashioned for a finality we never quite grasp.

These instances of continuance, of further beckoning, are powerful because the God-given pith of every person says, "More. More. More." No story seems worthy if we are perfectly satisfied with its ending. The absence of satisfaction is the presence of pursuit, and we are built to chase, fashioned for a finality we never quite grasp.

The Door

The real beauty in this is that the story of our own lives mirrors continuance. Lewis, in fact, used the image of a door to convey it. In The Weight of Glory, he writes,

At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendors we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumor that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.

The most potent stories remind us that we're on the wrong side of the door. We are close to a threshold that leads elsewhere, but we cannot turn the handle. Somehow, someway, it must be turned from the other side. We cannot open the door ourselves. Another must open it to us. Grace must turn the handle. There is no other way.

Our lives are veined with longings for continuance, like leaves run through with sunlight. But that means we are also bent and waiting, watching the handle, hoping for grace to open what we cannot enter on our own.

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For a story on the power of doors, check out The White Door.