Are You Attached to God?

Lewis to Joyce Pearce in Collected Letters Volume 2, July 20, 1943: It is to me inconceivable that Nature as we see it is either what God intended or merely evil: it looks like a good thing spoiled.

The doctrine of the Fall... is the only satisfactory explanation. Evil begins, in a universe were all was good, from free will, which was permitted because it makes possible the greatest good of all. The corruption of the first sinner consists not in choosing some evil thing... but in preferring a lesser good (himself) before a greater (God).

The Fall is, in fact, Pride.

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Any Winged Horses Out There?

The note in A Year with C.S. Lewis for May 11 indicates that Lewis met J.R.R. Tolkien this day in 1926. It's apropos then to reflect on a selection from Mere Christianity about the Christ's salvific work to make us new creatures, not simply nicer people.

As is widely known, Tolkien helped Lewis find his faith in Jesus almost six years after their first introduction, on a sleepless night of heightened conversation with their mutual friend, Hugo Dyson. After that night, Lewis wrote, "Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened..." (Read more about that night)

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Jack in Retrospect Monthly - May

by William O'Flaherty
The first Christian book, first academic title, last apologetic work and a Narnian prequel top the list of books published during Lewis's lifetime in the month of May. Two more books were also released after his death this month and his first claim to fame in the U.S. had its beginning in 1941 during this period.

Lewis's second book ever came seven years after his debut effort. His third title, The Pilgrim's Regress, was six years later on May 25, 1933. However a lot of changes occurred in his life by this time. Lewis had returned to the Christian faith and this was his first attempt of putting his beliefs in a book. He also had completely left behind his dream of being a poet. Yet, this first prose effort didn't hold out much promise for his eventual fame. The Pilgrim's Regress was semiautobiographical and his only allegory, yet many of the references in it were obscure. Ten years later Lewis wrote a preface to aid the reader in understanding the material better, but most still find it difficult.

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Attaching Ourselves to Heaven

We all wrestle with death. Its presence is around us constantly. It's in us too. But three great revelations of God in the Old Testament tell us that he is one, that he made us in his image, and he seeks after us because he loves us. All three revelations bleed into the New Testament with Jesus who yells down death asking the rhetorical question, "Where is your sting?"

Lewis rightly says that none of us have met a mortal being, for we are all immortal, either on our way to heaven or falling into hell. It means that our soul is marked with an everlasting scent.

In A Year with C.S. Lewis, the April 20 excerpt is from The Screwtape Letters. Lewis brings immortality into focus through the demons' study of God, their enemy, and his humans. "The truth is that the Enemy," Screwtape says, "having oddly destined these mere animals to life in His own eternal world, has guarded them pretty effectively from the danger of feeling at home anywhere else."

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Jack in Retrospect Monthly - April

by William O'Flaherty
During April, over the years, three books of letters from C.S. Lewis were posthumously released. Two books in the middle of series and more than a dozen talks or essays were first heard or became available this month as well.

Not long after his death, on April 18, 1966, Letters of C.S. Lewis, edited by his brother Warnie, was released. It also contained an insightful memoir. Walter Hooper edited a specific group of letters that were published on April 19, 1979, They Stand Together: The Letters of C.S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves. Greeves was Lewis's friend from boyhood and they kept in touch throughout his lifetime. Letters to Children released on April 11, 1985, edited by Lyle W. Dorsett and Marjorie Lamp Mead.  All content from these three books are now contained in the three volume The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis. While not a book of letters, All My Road Before Me: The Diary of C.S. Lewis, edited by Walter Hooper came out on April 18, 1991. It covers the years 1922-1927.

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Jesus Defines Humility For Us

Easter is here. The great passion of death's sting emptied into the dying Messiah. He would complete what he had said, "I am the resurrection and the life." These three days changed the world, our perception of God, and his want for us. As we've read about pride in A Year with C.S. Lewis earlier this week, it's fitting to now turn to humility. 

From The Screwtape Letters (Illustrated)

Once we realize we're full of pride, the task is to forget ourselves altogether. And, according to Lewis, "If you think you are not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed."

Humility is harnessed to our intentions. If we are to love God or our neighbor, we must look outside of ourselves. But it's tricky. The readings from The Screwtape Letters for Saturday and Sunday contend with this reality as the demons dissect how to give their patients a false sense of humility.

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The Problem of Pride

If you've been reading A Year with C.S. Lewis, the last several days have circled around pride, a subject that will continue through the week. "The Christians are right," says Lewis, "it is Pride which has been the chief cause of misery in every nation and every family since the world began."

During Holy Week, our pride comes face-to-face with Jesus. Today's naysayers pantomime an age-old sentiment: why does Jesus have to die? Why does God need a blood sacrifice to be assuaged? I'm a good enough person. I don't need Jesus to do that.

Their questions are rooted in pride. Lewis names pride as, "the worst of all vices" because, "it comes direct from Hell." It creeps into our religious life by the devil himself. He wants us to be secure in our own chasteness, our own bravery, our own self-control, our own holiness.

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Lewis and His Dates

by Devin Brown
C. S. Lewis opens chapter four of his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, with this statement:  “In January, 1911, just turned thirteen, I set out with my brother to Wyvern, he for the College and I for a preparatory school …” (56).

However, since we know Lewis was born on November 29, 1898, simple math tells us that in January 1911 he would have just turned twelve, not thirteen.  He would not have turned thirteen until eleven months later in November 1911.  Lewis’s statement here about his age seems to suggest that he was not particularly good at simple math.

And he wasn’t.

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We Like To Ask Why

We like to ask why. Young children ask why about everything they see. They do it out of a sense of wonder and curiosity. Perhaps that's one reason why Jesus invites little children to his side, because the so-called rational and reasonable approaches of adults haven't taken hold in them. Children see everything without those tools -- those vices -- which we rely on to hem in the mystery of God.

In A Year with C.S. Lewis for March 12-15, Lewis reflects on the age-old question of God's authority, his messiahship, in such a messed up world. If there is evil in the world, how can that be God's will? Or, as we might be more accustomed to frame the question, if God is loving, why are there starving children in the world; if God were kind, why does he allow war and disease and suffering?

There isn't an easy answer. We know it's complex and riddled with theological perspectives about God himself, sin, humanity's fallen nature and how God interacts with his creation.

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Jack in Retrospect Monthly - March

by William O'Flaherty
The month of March in C.S. Lewis's life includes two "firsts" and two "finals." His first book ever published happen this month and the first book collection of essays also came out in March. As to finals, The Last Battle was released and the bulk of the last BBC radio series were completed during March.

Before reaching his 10th birthday Lewis had read the epic poem Paradise Lost. On March 5, 1908, he recorded this fact in his diary. Later in life he wrote A Preface to Paradise Lost that was based on a series of lectures he delivered. Another book that Lewis read this month for the first time in 1916 was Phantastes by George MacDonald. The impact MacDonald had on his life proved profound, so much so that Lewis claimed that MacDonald, "baptized his imagination." Lewis paid tribute to MacDonald in many ways over the years, including editing a collection of quotations that came out on March, 18, 1946 entitled George MacDonald: An Anthology.

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