C. S. Lewis penetrates another thick skull

Have you ever read through a book where you've had to set it down and just pant for a bit, perhaps roll your eyes and holler at a family member about some recent tidbit that finally penetrated your brain? They might nod their head and smile condescendingly, probably because it's the same concept they've been trying to explain to you for six weeks. The instant I finished G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy I simply had to run wild in the backyard, jumping on the trampoline, picking roses (bloody fingers to show for it), and swinging into the overgrown cherry trees. It was serious.

I listened to a lecture recently where the speaker was saying how we couldn't get away from language or words. But not because we're chained to the ABCs and semicolons. Spoken words and black scribbles are our wings to fly.
So, there...you should feel like a lunatic feather dancing around your backyard after you finish a good book. ;-)

I reread Mere Christianity this summer and I as I was tearing through I could barely believe I'd heard this stuff before...even though I know more people than just C. S. Lewis have been trying to smash it into my concrete noggin. I recently got over my moral qualms about writing in books, which means this tome is crowded with underlines, exclamation marks, smiley faces, lopsided stars, scribbled margin notes and questions for C. S. Lewis whenever we should meet.

One of the biggest points in Mere Christianity that really whacked me over the head this time, was an extremely obvious concept that shapes all of Christian life—becoming like Jesus.

Don't judge. You know how you can read something once and then another time and swear it was worded differently the first time? Really we are the reordered words.

One of the passages in the Bible that tries to tell us about all this, is Ephesians 4. The Apostle Paul talks about what we were, unbelievers walking in all sorts of sin. We can't live that way anymore (v 17), so God is doing something new in us, remaking us in the stature and fullness of Christ (v 13). This is what's happening now and what we will be like in the future. 

Being a Christian is following Jesus, continually putting away the old self that doesn't belong to us anymore, reshaping our thought processes and the eyes through which we see the world, and aggressively putting on the new self—holiness and righteousness—the likeness of God. (v 22-24)

Much of C. S. Lewis genius is encased in his ability to write out an illustration of a familiar or maybe difficult concept in a manner that brings it home in an entirely unique way. And that's what he does here. From cover to cover, Mere Christianity sketches out and puts some flesh on our calling—the Spirit recreating us to be like Jesus. Not simple adherence to a set of rules, but instead a life that is more like a painting of a portrait. Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes in Discipleship that we are not to be ruled by our conscience, but by the will of Jesus. As days and times of sanding and remolding go by, the character and shape of our Savior becomes more and more evident in us.

If this is the goal—if this is the single purpose of new life—than we must pray for, seek, and encourage this “infection.” Every thought, word, and action should be a reflection of Jesus, the true, real New Man. This is about doing what we know as right even when we don’t feel like it and it is about totally recreating our impulses. 

What we do when someone demands our time, accuses us, cuts in front of us on the highway. How we act to unbelievers, to children, to our friends. It not only changes our actions, but turns our thought patterns upside down (or right side up, as the case may be).

Jesus is our Savior, and also our teacher, our model, our entire curriculum and key to understanding that world.

You may say (especially if you are in an English frame of mind)--this all sounds very cheeky, pretending we're Jesus. It is. We're hopelessly confused and messed up and all gritty with sin. But this is exactly what God commands—Be like Jesus. Don't worry, I planted the virus and I'm going to make sure it takes over. Keep your eyes on Me.

"God looks at you as if you were a little Christ: Christ stands beside you to turn you into one. I daresay this idea of divine make-believe sounds rather strange at first. But, is it so strange really? Is not that how the higher thing always raises the lower? A mother teachers her baby to talk by talking to it as if it understood long before it really does. We treat our dogs as if they were 'almost human': that is why they really become 'almost human' in the end."
-C. S. Lewis

He can and will make us into brilliant mirrors reflecting Christ's character and light when our eyes are focused in the right place. This isn’t “mere” Christianity. This is radical. 

Most of us have Mere Christianity sitting on our shelves. I recommend you pick it up an read through all those bite sized chapters.Most everything in this post is stolen from Lewis' chapters Faith, Toy Soldiers, and Let's Pretend, and he says it all so much better.

...thus rambles my slow brain. Grateful for great men and a mind capable of growing.
God is good.
The Gospel is endless
and beautiful.

C.S. Lewis, Max McLean, and your affectionate Uncle Screwtape

As previously stated, I got to see The Screwtape Letters in Portland on Saturday. :-)

I am so blessed to have gone. I wish I could just round up people and drive them into the theater! It was absolutely amazing and really made you chew on some thought-provoking stuff.

Although I knew it was going to be good, I wasn't prepared for how entertaining it would be. It never let you get remotely bored. I just wish I could see it several more times because there is so much to take in and think about.

I've read The Screwtape Letters and listened to Focus on the Family's rendition (not as good as reading the book) but it was very different to see it acted/narrated. It was also interesting to see what they choose to keep in and what they had to cut out. I think they did a good job preserving it's C.S. Lewis-ness.

The music was amazing. The acting, lighting, props...all wonderful.

You can see an interesting interview with McLean here. You can also see his narration of Mark on Youtube.

A lot of portions really stuck out to me. Something about hearing things from the other direction really gives you a wakeup call.

Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems too have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.

In a week or two you will be making him doubt whether the first days of his Christianity were not, perhaps, a little excessive. Talk to him about 'moderation in all things'. If you can once get him to a point of thinking 'religion is all very well up to a point', you can feel quite happy about his soul. A moderate religion is as good for us as no religion at all--and more amusing.

What he says on friends and conforming or becoming a different person depending on who you are around....and therefore being disloyal to all sets of acquaintances and then only feeling vaguely self-satisfied, self-righteous, or just shameful was extremely interesting. The whole section is something I think a lot of us young people could do some studying on.

Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one--the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.

If this portion was in the play, I missed it. I need to include it though because it is something I need to hear.

The most alarming thing in your last account of the patient that he is making none of those confident resolutions which marked his original conversion. No more lavish promises of perpetual virtue, I gather; not even the expectation of an endowment of 'grace' for life, but only a hope for the daily and hourly pittance to meet the daily and hourly temptation! This is very bad.

Or do you not realize that the patient's death, at this moment, is precisely what you want to avoid? ...he will almost certainly be lost to us if he is killed tonight. This is so obvious that I am ashamed to write it...They, of course, do tend to regard death as the prime evil and survival as the greatest good. But that is because we have taught them to do so. Do not let us be infected by our own propaganda.

The portion that is in Chapter 31 of the book was extremely powerful in the play. We, one day, will stand in the presence of our living God! There, devils can only cower.

C.S. Lewis is a genius. The end.

I'm so glad I got to see this. I want to read the whole book again. I hope we can have more amazing, well-done productions that turn our thoughts straight towards our Savior (however mixed up the direction might sound).

Thanks for reading,
Miss Pickwickian

Your Affectionate Uncle

There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors, and hail a materialist or magician with the same delight.

(C.S. Lewis. The Screwtape Letter.1941, p. 3)

I am going to go see Max McLean's Screwtape Letters in Portland on the 12th. I am very excited. I've been wanting to see this for a very, very long time. And before the performance I get to introduce Aisha to Portland's Powell's. They should get along quite nicely. I haven't been there for 12 1/2 months!!! Gasp. :-)

I'm sure you'll hear more about the Screwtape after we see it.

Thanks for reading,
Miss Pickwickian

If You Look

"If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair."
~ C. S. Lewis

By it I See Everything Else

I stole this quote of my brother's profile because it is absolutely amazing. So, yeah...he was the one who found it. :-)

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."
~ C. S. Lewis