things he said suddenly started clicking: it was about what's inside us, not the ghost in the machine.
Lewis was liberating. Thanks for bringing him up on this sometimes parched board.
Edit PS: That led me to Madeleine L'Engle .....
Max,
couldn't a said it better meself.
Lewis was liberating for me. Just sprung from the Kult and badly burned by the spiritual Kounterfeit it is, and then discovered Lewis.
He was liberating at a time liberty was (and still is) very important to me.
Some may have a big problem with Lewis's concept of the Dissolution of Self as being liberating (and I'm not sure that was what you were referring to...), and as being what it truly takes to be an individual creation of God... and Individualism is something I have always prized.
I think Lewis's take on that is beautiful.
A musician friend a while back recommended Madeleine L'Engle, and having a background in graphic art, I purchased her "Walking On Water - Reflections on Faith and Art" and several chapters in, find her observations fantastic. This woman is a sage. She's what - in her 80s? Is she still living?
"Mere Christianity" is another of C.S. Lewis works which really builds up faith in God and it's reasoning is stunning.
And all this nourishment outside of the only organisation providing "spiritual food" !
Pubsinger,
You know, I'd almost recommend the "Screwtape Letters to an exiting Dub, as that one, goes into the trickery and deception of the Con Man (from any realm) being able to snooker the gullible.
And come to think of it, I don't remember the WTS ever quoting C.S.Lewis like they did certain other Christian writers. Maybe the KultLeaders did not approve of Lewis's tobacco habit. (He smoked like a train!)
It's still an good book,[Mere Christianity] and one I couldn't put down- at times in frustration, at times in great interest.
terraly,
Yep.
Lewis can be a hard read. Challenging. But well worth the effort, methinks.
Like Maximus, I've read some of his works twice, and the second time
around, derive something that blows me away - that I completely missed
the first time.
Recently, I re-read "The Problem of Pain
(because I've been in a lot of pain lately) and caught something
which escaped me the first time reading it.
I identify with it so much, and I trace back this "something"
Lewis alludes to, to my earliest childhood memories...
I'll call it "The Signature of the Soul"
Here, I made a webpage for the excerpt:
* http://intrex.net/tallyman/soulsign.html
Thanks for bringing up a positive, encouraging thread, Tallyman.
Rational,
You're Velcome and We Konkur!
BTW, since you used Lewis's work when you were Dubbing,
did you ever recall seeing the WTS use a quote from Lewis in their lit?
Guess I'm alone in hating the Narnia books. I thought they were sexist, smug, suffocatingly preachy.
MumsyD,
The Narnia books are (about) the (only) ones by Lewis I haven't explored
in any depth... since I'm not a Kid, only a big Kidder!
So, I can't say what they'd appear like through the eyes of a child.
(especially a 21st Century child)
But, "sexist"?
That seems so out of character with the rest of what I've read by Lewis.
And the movie "Shadowlands", which several in this thread have mentioned
with Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger, as C.S.Lewis and Joy Gresham
(Joy, a radical divorcee from NYCity, Jewish born but a Christian convert)
did not have a trace of sexism displayed by Lewis's character.
In the Movie, Hopkins absolutely delights when Joy comes to visit him
in England and cuts down his sexist friends from the "Brit Boy Club"
with her very unique, razor-sharp sarcasm.
In the end of the movie, Lewis says to her on her deathbed:
"You are the truest person I have ever known"...
and you can tell he means it, and you get the impression that he is
more referring to her outspokenness, than anything else.
And Lewis "smug"? This is TOTALLY out of character with all else I've read.
I love the guy so much because he is exactly the opposite of smug.
He puts in more "disclaimers" in his writings that any other I've ever read.
The link I post above to terraly has this in the excerpt:
"What I am now going to say is merely an opinion of my own without
the slightest authority, which I submit to the judgement of better
Christians and better scholars than myself.
His stuff is chockful of that kind of self-effacing comment.
She is very depressed, as she is having a hard time with her restaurant right now and could really use the emotional support of my parents. Un fortunately, they are in the middle of their summertime spiritual paradise (co stayed with them for two weeks and their distric convention starts tomorrow.) Therefore, they are treating her as if she were literally dead.
Thanks again, am sending warm thoughts your way and hoping you are doing well.
Lisa,
Thanks for the well-wishes. I can use them.
Hope your sis pulls out of the tailspin she's in.
What kind of restaurant does she have?
Did the Circuit Overseer eat there?
Did she spit in his food?
(I might have been tempted...
)
They ought to rename them "Gastric Conventions"
sure seems like they generate a lot of heartburn...
"Shadowlands" ... the true story of "Lewis"?If so............see it.......a bit of a weepy though.
Ana,
Yer right. That scene in the end with Lewis and his stepson,
both losing their Wife and Mom... and gots no one but each other,
well, that's a tearjerker alritey.
Oh yes, I forgot about Out of the Silent Planet. I read the next one (Perelandra?) but it was a bit scary at the time...
Simon,
yeah, but I thought the third, "That Hideous Strength" was even spookier,
especially, when Merlin stepped out from behind "The Veil" back into
this world and spoke some heavy stuff.
(Hey, anyone who liked the recent TV Miniseries "Mists of Avalon"
would relate to Lewis last book in his sci-fi trilogy, as there is
a generous dose of the mixture of the Old with the New (Celtic Christianity))
I too am a big CS Lewis fan! It is really cool to see others have found him on the way out of JW-dom! I have come to love many of his books.
lisaBObeesa,
Yep.
I'm glad I found Lewis when I found the Way Out of the WT.
I've considered my 20 years of "lost time" in Kulthoodish Servitude
as not unlike that of the wanderings of the prodigal son.
With the help of Lewis and others, I've found my way home.
I am relatively new to the writings of C.S. Lewis.
He has some very good information on the
Bible as myth and what that means.
Quester,
I have to agree with Lewis that mythology, legend and lore
is often rooted in something factual, and should not be summarily dismissed
as of no value as "history".
What size sweatshirt do you wear? I want to start creating a tie-dye for you ......thanks hun,Luv ya!
Tina,
wOw! Tanks!
I wear between a Large and Xtra Large.
What I usually do with Tshirts, is buy a 100% cotton Xtra Large,
and then wash and dry it, and it shrinks down to the right size...
I don't know how that translates to sweatshirts
TT
