Bless the Lord oh my soul Oh my soul Worship His Holy name Sing like never before Oh my soul I’ll worship Your Holy name
The sun comes up It’s a new day dawning It’s time to sing Your song again Whatever may pass And whatever lies before me Let me be singing When the evening comes
You’re rich in love And You’re slow to anger Your name is great And Your heart is kind For all Your goodness I will keep on singing Ten thousand reasons For my heart to find
And on that day When my strength is failing The end draws near And my time has come Still my soul will Sing Your praise unending Ten thousand years And then forevermore Forevermore
This past week I’ve been working my way through Becoming Mrs Lewis by Patti Callahan, a novelisation of the relationship and romance between my hero, C.S. Lewis, and Joy Davidman. I hadn’t known that much about either Joy or her writings prior to starting this book, most of which was gleaned from the rather unreliable Shadowlands movie.
I have to say that, by the time I finished this book, my appetite had greatly increased to know more about this fascinating woman. In fact, I immediately ordered two books by Dr. Don King, one an edited collection of her letters, and another of her poetry, short extracts of which we were treated to at the start of each chapter.
The book is beautifully written. I can’t emphasize that enough. Patti Callahan took me on a journey. I couldn’t help be drawn in as I travelled with Joy, experiencing the highs of her trip to England, as well as the lows of her crumbling marriage.
We’re currently going through “Surprised By Joy” at the moment in our book club and I wanted to assemble a workable chronology for the events of C.S. Lewis’ life and the years in which he published…
1898 – Born in Belfast (November 29th)
1905 – Family moves to “Little Lea”
1908 – Mother (Flora Lewis) dies
1910 – Attends Campbell College
1911 – Attends Cherbourg House, Malvern
1913 – Enters Malvern College
1914 – Begins tutoring with W.T. Kirkpatrick in Surrey
1917 – Starts at University College, Oxford
1918 Wounded in action
1919 – Spirits in Bondage: A cycle of lyrics
1923 – Graduated from Oxford University
1925 – Hired as a don in English
1926 – Dymer
1929 – Father (Albert Lewis) dies
1929 – Becomes a theist
1931 – Becomes a Christian
1933 – The Pilgrim’s Regress
1936 The Allegory of Love
1938 – Out of the Silent Planet
1939 Rehabilitations and Other Essays
1939 The Personal Heresy
1942 – The Screwtape Letters
1942 – A Preface to Paradise Lost
1943 – Perelandra
1945 – That Hideous Strength
1945 – The Great Divorce
1949 – The Weight of Glory
1950 – The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
1951 – Prince Caspian
1952 – The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
1952 – Meets Joy Davidman
1953 – The Silver Chair
1954 – The Horse and His Boy
1954 – Hired as Professor of Medieval and Renaissance English at Cambridge University
1954 – English Literature in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama
1955 – Surprised By Joy
1956 – Marries Joy Davidman in a civil ceremony
1957 – Marries Joy Davidman in an Anglican ceremony
1958 – Reflections on the Psalms
1960 – The World’s Last Night and other essays
1960 – Studies in Words, The Four Loves
1961 – An Experiment in Crticism
1961 – A Grief Observed
1963 – Lewis dies at home (November 22nd)
1964 – Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer
1964 – Poems
1964 – The Discarded Image: An introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature
1966 – Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories
1966 – On Stories: And other essays on literature
1966 – Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature
1967 – Letters to an American Lady
1970 – God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics
1977 – The Dark Tower and Other stories
1979 – They Stand Together: The Letters of C.S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves
1980 – The Weight of Glory (Expanded version)
1985 – Boxen: The Imaginary World of the Young C.S. Lewis
1985 – C.S. Lewis’ Letters to Children
1991 – All My Road Before Me: The Diary of C.S. Lewis, 1922-1927
The San Diego diocese will be giving me an award next month:
The San Diego Young Adult Office is pleased to announce David Bates as one of our FIAT AWARD recipients for 2018! David will be honored at the Annual Christmas Gala on December 15th.
David Bates was born in England where he worked as a software engineer. In his search for adventure, he moved to the United States over ten years ago, living in Washington DC, Seattle & finally settling in San Diego.
While David continues to work in IT, he is also a Catholic speaker, presenting at events around the country on Scripture, Church History & Evangelization. His talks can be found on his blog, RestlessPilgrim.net, & on the podcast Theology With An English Accent.
An active member of the San Diego Young Adult community since 2010, David has been involved in many different ministries at parish level, such as playing guitar for Our Lady of the Rosary Lifeteen Mass & leading the JP2 Group at St. John the Evangelist for several years. He is now a member of Holy Angels Byzantine Catholic Church where he is a choir member & cantor.
David has also served at Diocesan level, as a member of the Diocesan Pastoral Council & the Young Adult Commission, the group which inaugurated many San Diego traditions including the Annual Diocesan Young Adult Mass. David maintains the SDYAM Podcast which contains recordings of all the San Diego Theology On Tap talks. He orchestrated the “Daughters of the King” gala events & helped organize retreats for the Goretti Group. For fun, David enjoys dancing & has taught salsa & swing lessons at many youth & young adult church events.
Recently David has been pouring most of his time into the podcast, “The Eagle and Child” where, with his co-host Matt, he unpacks the works of C.S. Lewis, the Christian apologist & author of the Chronicles of Narnia. David also hosts a monthly book club where Lewis’ works are discussed at a local coffee shop. In addition to leading monthly Taize prayer evenings and a running group, he also organizes, as part of The Finer Things Club, outings to the theatre, the Symphony & other cultural events. He is currently writing the final chapters of his 1st book, The Table of the Word, a guide to starting and leading a Parish Bible study.
My pastor put an announcement in the parish bulletin on Sunday. As you may guess, he has a sense of humo(u)r about my being English…
We have always known this but we see today in a much more terrifying way that the greatest persecution of the Church does not come from external enemies but arises from the sin of the Church
Today we address a question which is often asked by skeptics: why are all Christians not obviously nicer than non-Christians? In response, Jack asks “Did Christ come to make nice people or new men?”
