CS Lewis and You

As a teen, I read his space trilogy. The third book was slow going for the first half but then it picked up. Really enjoyed those. Should read them again. Some things that stuck with me are the Merlin character, the link of godlessness, whether false religion or science, and the fake trees. I saw an article recently about man-made trees and I immediately thought of "That Hideous Strength," which I read two decades ago.

Enjoyed Narnia as a kid. One of the enduring images is the guy (prince?) tied in the chair - which one is really him? When is he actually crazy? All day, or the couple hours at night? Such a great image.

James Gresham, grandson to Lewis by marriage to Joy, was at LeTourneau in the early 90s. I happened to be there then as well but I never found a good excuse to meet him. LeTourneau holds a funny talent show once a year and Gresham and friends did a Monty Python sketch about a kid who had been getting bad grades, thanks to having died a while back. The British humor was somewhat lost on me at the time, I'm afraid, but they were pretty good.

My mom read the Narnia books to my brother and I when we were little, so those are obviously favorites.

There is a quote from Lewis in the preface to The Screwtape Letters that I have copied out. He says:

"My religion would not be in ruins if this opinion were shown to be false."

This has been very thought provoking for a gal who was raised in a church that was very strict on what is correct doctrine, and very adamant about the consequences of not having it right.

Rec'd "Mere Christianity" as a gift when I was at a point in my pilgrimage at which it held no interest for me; one year later it was strategic in taking down obstacles to faith. Chronicles of Narnia, Space Trilogy and Screwtape all helped me figure out "what I had gotten myself into" after initial repentance. "Till We Have Faces" stands at the top as an influencer for how I reinterpret my life (Rom 12:1-2) as I get older, particularly my very active "inner life." Very thankful for the man and his story.

My favorite Lewis read is definitely "Till We Have Faces". I read it 4 or 5 years ago and have never been able to stop talking about it. I would say that it is one of the most beautiful pieces of literature I have ever encountered.

The Cosmic Dance scene in the Space Trilogy (can't remember what book) overwhelmed me emotionally when I first read it. To this day it is still one of my favorite depictions of God and the relationship He has to His creation...

My favorite Narnia moment is in the Last Battle, when the barn serves as a portal to Aslan's Country, and the "unbelievers" are entirely blind to its glories.

"The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe" as a way to grasp the Christian story. After I read it I gave it to my mother who taught children. When she finished she said, "I love Aslan." She always had loved him, she just knew him by another name.

Unique insight coupled with fervent intellectual humility...

Pursuing a broad range of topics from a cohesive whole...

Humor...

Refusing to major on the minors...

A creative thinker speaking on topics dominated by analytical thinkers...

I probably read the Narnia series through several times over before I ever realized they were 'Christian'

I am blown away by the description of evil, innocence, and temptation in Perelandra (and less so in That Hideous Strength)...

I continue to be indebted to his concepts about Heaven and Hell, God, Faith, etc.

His thoughts are seeds that have taken root, and caused many beautiful and nourishing things to grow in my mind...

I can't imagine heaven or hell without thinking about Lewis' description in "The Great Divorce."

Three things:

-Every last bit of The Great Divorce

-The Mere Christianity quotation: "The Christian way is different: harder, and easier. Christ says 'Give me All. I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don't want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down.... Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked - the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.'"

-Listening to the Radio Theater version of Lion, Witch and Wardrobe with my four-year-old, and watching her face break into a huge, sparkly-eyed grin every time we get to the line: "Aslan was on the move."

Jeremy, for a long time my favorite Lewis biography was George Sayers' "Jack." A student and later a friend of Lewis, Sayers is uniquely positioned to write a biography that both strives for some degree of objectivity while avoiding (because unnecessary) much of the educated guesswork that a biographer who didn't know the man would have to engage in.

But since reading Alan Jacobs' The Narnian, I at leat need to make room for it beside "Jack" and perhaps even give it pride of place.

Far too much to put down. The man is titan. There's simply no better prose writer of the english language.

My favorite piece of writing is the end of Mere Christianity. The last 10 or so pages are gold. They are not his best writing, simply the most personally meaningful to me.

As an aside here, an interesting-looking book which has gained a fair bit of media coverage in the UK on CS Lewis is this one:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Planet-Narnia-Seven-Heavens-Imagination/dp/0195313879/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1248094971&sr=1-1

Not read it myself yet, but it intelligently explores medieval cosmology in Lewis' theology and literature - looks fascinating.