"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
Today I finished Tolkien’s Ordinary Virtues: Exploring the Spiritual Themes of Lord of the Rings by Mark Eddy Smith. It’s an extremely readable book, riskly through The Lord of the Rings, drawing out important life lessons and the importance of virtues from Tolkien’s magnum opus.
This week I’ve been reading Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus by the late Nabeel Qureshi. The book is something of an autobiography, the journey of a fervent Muslim to Christianity.
Nabeel is a great story-teller and this book was definitely a page-turner. I particularly liked his ability to give the reader a substantial introduction to Islam while in the process of recounting his early years.
The apologetic content is thoughtfully handled and what comes across more than anything is the love he had for his former faith and his continued love for his family, despite the strain his conversion inevitably placed upon their relationship.
This weekend I finished Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God by Francis Chan. It has been quite some time since I’ve read a book by a contemporary Protestant author which blew me away, but this is definitely one of those books. Over the course of this short volume, Chan re-sensitizes us to the holiness of God, to demands of obedience and to the call of Jesus to give him EVERYTHING.
If you want your life to continue uninterrupted, don’t read this book. If you are satisfied with a happy, comfortable Christianity, don’t even think about cracking the cover… However, if you have a sneaking suspicion that you’ve grown lukewarm in your faith, order this book right away. Don’t be surprised if you are made to feel more than a little uncomfortable.
This morning I finished If I had lunch with C.S. Lewis: Exploring the ideas of C.S. Lewis on the meaning of life by the well-known Lewis biographer, Alister McGrath.
It was an intriguing approach to discussing Lewis’ thought – imagining a series of lunches with the man himself – the dream of any C.S. Lewis fan! The book is not, as one might imagine, a fictional dialogue between the author and Lewis. Instead, in each chapter, the author looks at some topic close to Lewis’ heart and provides a digestible overview of what Lewis had to say about it. Such areas of discussion include the meaning of life, friendship, the importance of stories, apologetics, education, suffering and Heaven.
This was a quick, enjoyable read and provides a nice alternative to the more traditional books about Lewis.
This last weekend I finished C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity: A Biography. Just to be clear, this isn’t a biography of C.S. Lewis, it’s a biography of a book he wrote.
George Marsden recounts the genesis of what is probably Lewis’ most famous Christian apologetics book, Mere Christianity. He traces how Lewis’ talks to the RAF transitioned into radio addresses on the BBC and these were converted into three separate books which were ultimately collected together under the single title “Mere Christianity”.
It was interesting to hear the criticisms which were offered at the time against both Lewis and his arguments by skeptics, as well as the reception of his work over time among different Christian denominations.
If you like learning about C.S. Lewis, but want to read something a little different from the usual popular biographies, I’d thoroughly recommend this book!
Last week, Joseph Heschmeyer, who works for Holy Family School of Faith and is the author of the blog Shameless Popery, came to San Diego to speak to the Immaculata Young Adult Bible Study Group. His talk was on the subject of theosis, the title of his talk being “That man may become God”.
Theosis can seem like a daunting subject, but it really is essential to understanding Christianity and Joe gave a really fantastic presentation. Afterwards, many people told me that it was one of the best talks they’d heard in ages…
That Man May Become God (Download)
Summary
Lewis suddenly sees a vision, “a great assembly of gigantic forms all motionless…standing forever about a little silver table…[where] there were little figures like chessmen who went to and fro doing this and that…[each the] puppet representative of some one of the great presences that stood by. And the silver table is Time. And those who stand and watch are the immortal souls of those same men and women”. This vision terrifies Lewis and asks MacDonald if “all that I have been seeing in this country false? These conversations between the Spirits and the Ghosts were they only the mimicry of choices that had really been made long ago?”. His teacher says that alternatively you might say they were “anticipations of a choice to be made at the end of all things”, but that it would be better to say neither. The point was that on this journey he had seen the choices a bit more clearly than on earth because “the lens was clearer. But it was still seen through the lens. Do not ask of a vision in a dream more than a vision in a dream can give”. It is at this point that Lewis realizes that he is not actually dead and only dreaming. MacDonald warns him that, when he tells others, to emphasize that it was only a dream.
The vision of the chessemen fades and he is back in the wood again. Standing with his back to the sunrise, Lewis seeing the land light up before him as the sun rises. Suddenly the air is filled with “hounds, and horns; …ten thousand tongues of men and woodland angels and the wood itself sang”. Screaming, Lewis buries his face in the folds of MacDonald’s robe, but “The light, like solid blocks, intolerable of edge and weight, came thundering upon my head”. In the next moment, the folds of MacDonald’s garment become the folds of Lewis’ ink-stained cloth which he had pulled down as he fell from his chair. The blocks of light turn out to only be the books which he had pulled from the table. He wakes up “in a cold room, hunched on the floor beside a black and empty grate, the clock striking three, and the siren howling overhead”.
Questions
Q1. How do you understand the vision of the chessmen? How does Lewis now understand this journey? What warning does MacDonald give Lewis?
Q2. Why is Lewis terrified by the sun?
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