Category: Education

Getting to Know Chesterton

  

I’ve been working steadily on a course I will be teaching at my church this fall; I call it “Writers C. S. Lewis Admired.” It has been challenging, but in a good and profitable way, as I am becoming better acquainted with those writers. George MacDonald provided Lewis with a baptized imagination in his youth. I was already familiar with the Lewis-Tolkien relationship (although I am picking up even more information now) and I have studied and read Dorothy L…. Read more »

My 72nd

  

I don’t comment on my birthday every year, but I do want to take some time today to reflect on God’s blessings as I consider my 72nd birthday. First and foremost, I am grateful to the Lord for His unfailing love and compassion toward me. I have had highs and lows spiritually in my life, and at one time I almost succeeded in walking away from Him. Yet He never gave up on me. This particular Scripture rings true on… Read more »

Intellect & Imagination: The Proper Balance

  

One of Lewis’s comments in his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, came to mind recently as I thought about the path my own life has taken. Lewis was an intensely rational person, a trait drilled into him by his tutor, William Kirkpatrick. At the same time, he was a person who reveled in imaginative works of literature. At various times in his life, one or the other would come to the forefront. There was a time, though, as a young man… Read more »

The “Extras” in Out of the Silent Planet

  

I have just this week completed teaching Out of the Silent Planet to a dedicated small group in person at my church while a larger number watch on Zoom, and a much larger number than the first two groups watch the video later. It’s a privilege that I don’t take for granted. Now that I have finished that book and will enter into Perelandra next, I would like to take a few moments to note that one of the benefits… Read more »

Grateful for Opportunities to Be Productive

  

This is a very interesting and productive time in my life. Normally, that isn’t the case for someone who has passed the 70 mark, but I don’t know when I’ve felt more in tune with what the Lord has me doing. And a lot of that centers around C. S. Lewis. At the university where I taught full-time for thirteen years and now serve as an adjunct professor, I’m teaching my Lewis course to twenty-one students. Most of these students,… Read more »

Unchanging, Yet Changed

  

What does the title of this blog post mean? It sounds kind of contradictory, doesn’t it? Yet it expresses what is happening in my thinking and reflections on God, man, the church, our society, and the political ramifications that flow from our beliefs about all of those. If you have been a regular reader of my blog over the years, you probably already know some of the thought processes I’ve been experiencing, especially in the last six or seven years…. Read more »

A Journey into Unfamiliar Territories

  

Regular readers of my blog know that I am in the process of developing a course at my church on C. S. Lewis’s “Ransom Trilogy.” Although I’ve taught the third in the series a number of times, I’ve never attempted to cover all three, but I’m looking forward to helping tell Lewis’s tale to those who are unaware of it and who don’t know the underlying themes that Lewis explores. The background that led to Lewis writing the trilogy began… Read more »