whoof of Aslan
Wednesday
morning: I'm going to spend it – -- Time is “spent” and when
it's spent it's gone. In fact, it's gone whether one spends it or
not, and it can't be saved up for later. Use it or lose it – -- on
myself, which despite promises to self I've not yet done after the
rush of last week and weekend, which for me as an old retired priest was like
Advent and Lent squeezed into a few days! I'm going to do as I DWP, reading a book. The preface stole my heart and the first few chapters snared me. C. S. Lewis A BIOGRAPHY by A.N. Wilson, 1990. A birthday gift. So far, right from the preface,
it's like going back in Time starting before my grandfather was a young
husband and father. Time will change, because it brings Lewis right
through 1963, when he dies within days of his 65th
birthday, six months before Pop died at 92, actually.
I love Lewis, not so
much for his Christian apologetics, for which I think he was too
intelligent. Rational, rationalized, it was a leap and a decision.
Other Lewis: when I read it in my fifties or sixties, Perelandra
was too weird, though if it survived the move I may try it again in my eighties decade. I love The
Great Divorce, as anyone knows who's ever d
ozed off while I was in a pulpit. Best of all are
the seven Chronicles of Narnia. Like
getting on the Hogwarts Express with Harry for the first time, Lewis'
first chronicle is the most captivating, and I just found out that
the Wardrobe is real, made by Lewis' grandfather, on display in the
museum at Wheaton College. Why for hero worship would I consider
traveling to Illinois to be in its presence when I wouldn't
consider, nor especially want, to visit Jerusalem or Capernaum?
Perhaps because Jerusalem and Capernaum still exist in my mind as
Jesus knew them and not for disillusionment as tourist councils have them. I'd rather be illusioned.
Of
course, I did get goosebumps the first time, 1947 I suppose, I stood
and looked at Lincoln's tall hat in the Smithsonian. And I would
like to go back to Maine, this
time to Broad Bay, now Waldoboro, and wander where Andreas Wäller
came from Germany in the 1700s. Not to mention lobster and clams.
With
Lucy, High King Peter and the others, I'm full aware there's
something beyond the winter fur coats in the back of the wardrobe,
even if like the professor, I'm too old to go back there, and Digory Kirke was but 52. Still and
all, it's magically possible that what I see beyond my porch railing
is actually the picture on the bedroom wall,
into which Lucy, Edmund and Eustace were pulled into Narnia.
It's a picture
into which Lucy, Edmund and Eustace were pulled into Narnia.
Still, for all the excitement in NarniaTime between the Wardrobe, the lamppost, and the train wreck, my all Time favorite is The Last Battle.
Thos+
in +Time+