From my All About Jack: A C.S. Lewis Podcast page – The New York C.S. Lewis Society is one of many places holding a special celebration of the author’s life during the fifty’s anniversary of his death. Their event is called C.S. Lewis: In Memoriam and is co-sponsored by the Sheen Center. It is a one-day event; on Saturday, November 23rd. William O’Flaherty spoke with James Como, author of several books about Lewis and the emcee of the event.

Listen to “C.S. Lewis: In Memoriam” (NY Event)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

• Learn more about C.S. Lewis: In Memoriam NY Event

• Visit New York C.S. Lewis Society Website

• Visit James Como’s Website

“What we learn from experience depends on the kind of philosophy we bring to experience.”

Miracles: A Preliminary Study (Published 5/12/1947)

~~~~~

“Christianity…is precisely the story of a great Miracle. A naturalistic Christianity leaves out all that is specifically Christian.”

Miracles: A Preliminary Study (Published 5/12/1947)

~~~~~

“It is probable that Nature is not really in Time and almost certain that God is not. Time is probably (like perspective) the mode of our perception.”

Miracles: A Preliminary Study (Published 5/12/1947)

~~~~~

“Yes, pride is a perpetual nagging temptation. Keep on knocking it on the head but don’t be too worried about it. As long as one knows one is proud one is safe from the worst form of pride.”

Letter to Genia Goelz  (from Volume 3 on 5/15/1952)

~~~~~

(Screwtape advised Wormword): “Keep his mind off the most elementary duties by directing it to the most advanced and spiritual ones.”

The Screwtape Letters – III (first published in The Guardian on 5/16/1941)

~~~~~

“Everywhere, except in theology, there has been a vigorous growth of scepticism about scepticism itself.”

Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism (“Fern-seed and Elephants”) (Lecture given on 5/11/1959)

~~~~~

“The sort of statement that arouses our deepest scepticism is the statement that something in a Gospel cannot be historical because it shows a theology or an ecclesiology too developed for so early a date.”

Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism (“Fern-seed and Elephants”) (Lecture given on 5/11/1959)

    Listen to as PODCAST: LMR14-Puddleglum 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There are so many memorable characters in The Chronicles of Narnia it seems unfair to pick just one, even when you exclude most of the main characters.

While I could obviously choose a favorite from among the key players in the Narnia stories, looking past them Puddleglum from The Silver Chair stands out in my mind. You remember him, don’t you? He’s the Marsh-wiggle who guides Jill and Eustace in their adventures to locate and rescue Prince Rilian.

But that’s not the reason millions love him…it’s his pessimistic view throughout the story that makes him enduring. But don’t forget, according to Puddleglum himself, his fellow Marsh-wiggles accuse him of wearing rose-colored glasses! Interestingly, Lewis modeled him after his real life gardener, Fred Paxford.

Tell me who your favorite character from the Narnia story is by leaving a comment below!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Learn More:

• The Silver Chair
• Puddleglum on WikiNarnia
• Puddleglum on Wikipedia

The following is part of a weekly series reflecting on the life of C.S. Lewis. This is done by summarizing various events or happenings during his lifetime for the noted week and may include significant events related to him after his death.

A couple of landmark events in Lewis’s professional life occurred this week. After holding a temporary position at Oxford teaching philosophy, he was elected a Fellow in English Literature at Magdalen College, Oxford on the 20th in 1925. Just over 10 years later, in 1936 on the 21st his first scholarly work was published. Regarding the first step, his fellowship at Oxford, it cannot be understated how excited both Lewis and his father was about this milestone. Albert, his father, who had supported him financially since 1919 recorded these words in his diary: “I went to his (Jack’s) room and burst into tears of joy. I knelt down and thanked God with a full heart.”

This same year (1925) was when Lewis’s former tutor, F. P. Wilson suggested to him that he should consider writing a book on some characteristic of Medieval thought. About two years later he began the task of creating something that would dramatically build his reputation as a first-rate scholar. The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition may not be read by many outside those interested in literary criticism, but it clearly shows that from his early days as a Christian Lewis didn’t see any conflict about being a person of faith who took his “secular” work seriously.

It’s interesting to note a connection about this first professional work and another more personal event happening in the mid-1940′s. It was just before the publication of The Allegory of Love in 1936 that Lewis made a connection with Charles Williams. Williams would go on to become a very close friend of Lewis and had such an influence on him that the final book of the Ransom Trilogy is viewed as a title clearly influenced by him. However, the connection to this week is a sad one, as Williams died without much warning at the early age of 58on the 15th in 1945. On a brighter personal note, Lewis’s mother was born this week, on the 18th in 1862.

In terms of speaking or having something else published this was a somewhat quiet week. The third letter from Screwtape was release in The Guardian and he gave a talk at the Oxford Socratic Club. On the 20th in 1946 he spoke at a regular meeting of the Socratic Club. “Religion without Dogma?” was Lewis’s choice for a topic. It was selected because he wanted to reply to Professor H.H. Price’s paper that was previously read at another of the club’s meeting. While first published the same year in the Phoenix Quarterly, it was also in the fourth issue of The Socratic Digest from 1948. The article version now available in God in the Dock contains a slightly revised version of the paper.

In “Religion without Dogma?” Lewis begins by summarizing Professor Price’s positions into four points and then takes the assertions one at a time. The first, which he disagrees with is “that the essence of religion is belief in God and immortality.” This is also addressed in a chapter in Reflections on the Psalms. One of the other points had to do with the miraculous, which Price stated as something that could not be accepted by those believing in science.

As noted the third Screwtape letter was released. It was on the 16th in 1941 and begins with presenting some perspective about why a believer’s behavior is often slow to change. Due to habits and thought patterns one “can practise self-examination for an hour without discover any of those facts…which are perfectly clear to anyone who has ever lived in the same house.” The patient’s mother is indirectly introduced and another demon name Glubose is mentioned.

- – - – -

Read Previous Retro Weeklies

Please note, as with most of my contests, it is ONLY open to those living in the U.S. (sorry, but it’s the publisher who mails the prize and they set the limits). See complete rules below.

ALL YOU HAVE TO DO TO ENTER is simply leave a comment below about ANY fact about Lewis that you know, or can find. If you need one check out my facts on Twitter. Deadline to enter is Thursday, May 16th at 6 p.m. Eastern.

NOTE: Only one entry per person, so if you entered already on the first announcement don’t do it again here. Those who haven’t yet can enter on either announcement page.

FIVE random individuals from those who enter will be the winners! You will be notified by email, so leave an address you check frequently (it will be from lewisminute (at) gmail.com).

- – - -

****COMPLETE RULES****

• Only those living in the U.S. are eligible to win.
• Prizes are promised by the publisher and are agreed to be given by them…so they determine how far they will mail a prize.
• If you are one of the random winners you must reply within 48 hours of notification or another person will be selected (email will come from lewisminute (at) gmail.com)
• Entries are assigned a number and a random number generator is used to pick the winners.

First, don’t forget to enter to **WIN** a copy of THIS book by Colin Duriez; C.S. Lewis: A Biography of Friendship. Visit the contest page for details.

From my All About Jack: A C.S. Lewis Podcast page – Colin Duriez is what you might call “an expert to the experts.” He is among the top writers/scholars on not only C.S. Lewis, but also J.R.R. Tolkien. Just releasing now is his book C.S. Lewis: A Biography of Friendship. William O’Flaherty spoke with him about this title and why he chose to portray the life of Lewis through his friends.

Listen to “C.S. Lewis: A Biography of Friendship”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

• Purchase C.S. Lewis: A Biography of Friendship by Colin Duriez

• Get a Chance to WIN A Biography of Friendship (by May 16th)

• Visit Colin Duriez’s Website

“Thanks to processes which we set at work in them centuries ago, they find it all but impossible to believe in the unfamiliar while the familiar is before their eyes”

The Screwtape Letters #1 (first published in The Guardian on 5/2/1941)

~~~~~

“The Christian must wage endless war against the clamour of the ego as ego: but he loves and approves selves as such, though not their sins.”

Two Ways with the Self (Published in The Guardian on 5/3/1940)

~~~~~

“No doubt all history in the last resort must be held by Christians to be a story with a divine plot.”

The Discarded Image (Published on 5/7/1964)

~~~~~

“The process of living seems to consist in coming to realise truths so ancient and simple that, if stated, they sound like barren platitudes. They cannot sound otherwise to those who have not had the relevant experience.”

Letter to  Dom Bede Griffiths OSB (from Volume 2 on 5/8/1939)

~~~~~

(Screwtape boasts:) “All the habits of the patient, both mental and bodily, are still in our favour.”

The Screwtape Letters – II (first published in The Guardian on 5/9/1941)

~~~~~

“You don’t see Nature till you believe in the Supernatural: don’t get the full, hot, salty tang of her except by contrast with the pure water from beyond the world. Those who mistake Nature for the All are just those who can never realise her as a particular creature with her own flamed, terrible, beautiful individuality”

Letter to  Dom Bede Griffiths OSB (from Volume 2 on 5/10/1945)

~~~~~

“You cannot know that everything in the representation of a thing is symbolical unless you have independent access to the thing and can compare it with the representation.”

Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism (“Fern-seed and Elephants”) (Lecture given on 5/11/1959)

Please note, as with most of my contests, it is ONLY open to those living in the U.S. (sorry, but it’s the publisher who mails the prize and they set the limits). See complete rules below.

ALL YOU HAVE TO DO TO ENTER is simply leave a comment below about ANY fact about Lewis that you know, or can find. If you need one check out my facts on Twitter. Deadline to enter is Thursday, May 16th at 6 p.m. Eastern.

FIVE random individuals from those who enter will be the winners! You will be notified by email, so leave an address you check frequently (it will be from lewisminute (at) gmail.com).

If you want to learn more about Colin Duriez you can read a recent interview done by Kelly Belmonte at the ALL NINE blog.

- – - -

****COMPLETE RULES****

• Only those living in the U.S. are eligible to win.
• Prizes are promised by the publisher and are agreed to be given by them…so they determine how far they will mail a prize.
• If you are one of the random winners you must reply within 48 hours of notification or another person will be selected (email will come from lewisminute (at) gmail.com)
• Entries are assigned a number and a random number generator is used to pick the winners.

The first effort came late last year (2012) and so far this year there has been two more video. The debut essay was “The Grand Miracle” from the God in the Dock book collection of shorter works. On the April 15, 1945 Lewis preached this short sermon at St. Jude on the Hill Church in London. By the end of the month it was found in the April 27th issue of The Guardian. In this message, Lewis notes that Christianity is likely the only religion that cannot be stripped of its miraculous elements. He believed that the greatest miracle was Christ’s birth.

The follow-up release was “The Laws of Nature” in mid-March. It was first published April 4, 1945 in The Coventry Evening Telegraph. It dealt with the topic of prayer in relation to, or how some people view it, as opposed to the laws of nature. The article opens with a comment made by a friend at the start of a day before Lewis’s first student arrived. The friend expressed disagreement with something another said about her prayers being the reason her son was not killed by a bullet that nearly missed him. Before being interrupted the person concluded it “was simply due to the laws of Nature” and not prayer that it happen that way. Later when Lewis reflected on the matter he developed his argument for why upon careful analysis it isn’t just that simple. You have to consider the source behind these laws, something science is not able to explain. The essay is also available in God in the Dock.

Just recently released (at the end of April) was another video. The essay present was the last one he wrote and is known as “We Have No ‘Right to Happiness’” in God in the Dock. The YouTube presentation is given the title of “On ‘Sexual’ Morality” by the artist. It was published in the December 21, 1963 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. As you might guess from the titles, Lewis tackles the question of having a right to happiness from the specific angle of sexual expression.

The following is part of a weekly series reflecting on the life of C.S. Lewis. This is done by summarizing various events or happenings during his lifetime for the noted week and may include significant events related to him after his death.

“Miracles” is among the many misused words in our vocabulary today. This was true even back in 1947 when Miracles: A Preliminary Study was released on the 12th this week by C.S. Lewis. Of course, Lewis was addressing more of an unbelief in the miraculous. In fact, as the inside dusk jacket of the first edition notes, the subtitle isn’t about Lewis giving his tentative thoughts on the subject, but rather the book is designed to be “a study preliminary to any historical inquiry into the actual occurrence of miracles.” That is, before any examination of specific miracles one has to believe that the miraculous can genuinely occur.

Miracles is also the last book Lewis wrote with any completely new apologetic material. As noted previous in an earlier weekly, Lewis was called to task about some material from this book and it resulted in him revising the third chapter. In the first edition it was called “The Self-Contradiction of the Naturalist,” but it was revised and retitled as “The Cardinal Difficulty of Naturalism.” That new edition actually came out this week, too, but 13 years later on May 9, 1960.

In Lewis’s personal life a very significant meeting occurred on the 11th in 1926. Prior to returning to the Christian faith Lewis met J.R.R. Tolkien, who not long after became one of two friends that were invaluable aids in Lewis’s conversion. They first met on that date in May at an Oxford English faculty tea, but Lewis wasn’t all that impressed my him. However, they soon became good friends once it was discovered that they each shared a love of “Northernness” and enjoyed Norse mythology. Because of their mutual interests they began getting together to discuss them (an ultimately their own writings) in what eventually became known as the Inklings. One of the outgrowths of this was for them to challenge each other to write a science fiction story from a Christian worldview. Lewis would write a “space-journey” and Tolkien a “time-journey.” Tolkien’s effort was never published during his life, but Lewis’s attempt resulted in Out of the Silent Planet, which was the first of three similar themed books. It’s interesting to note that this effort has some indirect ties to the distancing between Tolkien and Lewis. When the last of the trilogy, That Hideous Strength came out it was immediate recognized as being influenced by the writings of Charles Williams. It was Lewis’s close friendship with Williams that began the decay of the relationship between Lewis and Tolkien. Prior to all this, however, Lewis was a key factor in encouraging Tolkien to finish writing The Hobbit and seeking to get it published. He was also a vital influence in the follow-up, The Lord of the Rings.

Also on the 11th this week, but in 1959, Lewis gave a lecture to students at Wescott House in Cambridge. When first published after his death in 1967 in Christian Reflections the title was “Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism.” However eight years later it was the lead essay in another collection of shorter works by Lewis. Fern-Seed and Elephants, while a catchy title for a book (and essay) apparently didn’t impress readers in the seventy’s as that book is out of print. In the talk, given to theology students, Lewis gave four criticisms of modern theology; so you can imagine it is not a light-hearted read. However, despite being given to a specialize audience, any interested in Lewis’s views on the Bible will be especially rewarded with digesting the speech. Hear an essay chat I did with Reggie Gates on this talk in two segments (1st Part / 2nd Part).

Finally, two key happenings were on the 9th this week. The first was in 1941, when the second letter from Screwtape was published in The Guardian. As you may recall from last week this material was initially given without any explanation of the reverse perspective. In this letter, later available in the landmark book The Screwtape Letters, Lewis has Wormwood’s uncle provide some interesting thoughts about the Church and how it can be “one of our great allies” (recall that good is bad for the demons, so calling the Church an ally to Hell is a real slap in the face to the contemporary Church). This letter also introduces the idea (mentioned also in the ninth letter) that our enemy’s goal is just as much to keep our mind off of things as they are to suggest ideas. The other event was the broadcast of a recording Lewis had made a few months before in 1948. This very brief audio was an adaptation of the preface of The Great Divorce. From my understanding it was aired just before a dramatic version of the book was presented, but no recording of that radio drama was made.

- – - – -

Read Previous Retro Weeklies