Reflections on God … Man … Life
Walter Hooper, an American who went to visit C. S. Lewis in 1963 unexpectedly grew so close to him that during the summer months he ended up serving as his private secretary. Lewis invited him to return to England in 1964 to take up the position permanently. Lewis’s death in November 1963 seemed to end Hooper’s dream of renewing that role, but he shortly after became the primary literary agent for all of Lewis’s works, a role he has maintained… Read more »
By the start of this next week, I will have completed three chapters in my proposed book on C. S. Lewis’s impact on Americans. My first chapter deals with the often-repeated charge that Lewis didn’t really like Americans. Some excerpts from this chapter follow. Here’s how it begins: On the very first page of The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis, author Alan Jacobs tells the story of a precocious “Jack” Lewis, probably no more than eight… Read more »
I’m busily writing what I hope will be a book about C. S. Lewis’s influence on Americans. I’ve analyzed the survey that 87 individuals responded to, and hope to get that published. I’ve also written the preface and the first two chapters. Here’s an excerpt from that preface. Keep in mind this is a draft, but I trust it is worth your read today: I grew up in Bremen, Indiana, population roughly 4,000, surrounded by corn fields and a significant… Read more »
Regular readers of this blog know that I’ve been concentrating a lot lately on C. S. Lewis and that I hope to write a book about his influence on Americans. The survey I conducted with the help of the Wade Center at Wheaton College is now complete. In all, eighty-seven Americans responded to that survey, giving me some indication of just why they consider Lewis important to their lives. I’ve finished analyzing the data, have written a complete report on… Read more »
I’ve now completed my research into the letters of C. S. Lewis to Americans. It was a joy to delve into them. Near the end of his life, Lewis wrote often of his expectation of heaven. He was in bad health for the last couple of years, and held rather loosely to this world. As he explained to Mary Van Deusen, one of his most regular correspondents, who was contemplating a move from one house to another, I think I… Read more »
Going through the letters of C. S. Lewis, I reached, this week, the time in 1960 when his wife, Joy, died. After a two-year cancer hiatus, the disease came back in full force throughout her bones. Lewis always knew this could happen. In 1957, after the laying on of hands and prayer, she made a miraculous recovery (even the doctors admitted as much). Yet both she and Lewis knew this might not be a permanent thing, that perhaps God was… Read more »
C. S. Lewis’s letters to his American correspondents cover the gamut of topics. Sometimes, he goes into deeply Biblical issues, offering advice from his well of knowledge. Other times, he is more whimsical, but also with an air of wisdom that is hard to miss. To one of his regular correspondents going through some physical trials, he ruminates on the process of getting older. Maybe I’m drawn to this because of my own advancing years, but, for whatever reason, I… Read more »