Listening to the Giants

Reason is the natural order of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning.           C.S. Lewis Lately I have been obsessed with the writings of C.S. Lewis. I feel like I have been woken up from a 20-year nap with a Rip Van Winkle beard and new eyes, eyes that see through the lens of imagination. Recent personal examples: Reading Lewis’ The Great Divorce , I can actually imagine the Deep Heaven and the grey town (Hell). Reading The Magician’s Nephew , I imagine the horrific evil eyes and curved mouth of Queen Jadis and sit in fearful awe of the majesty Sovereignty of Aslan (Jesus Christ). Reading Perelandra (the second of Lewis’ Space Trilogy), I felt my imagination overtake me…in a way I haven’t experience since I read A Wrinkle in Time at the innocent age of 8. To paint the landscape, here is the scene in Perelandra that literally shook my inner soul: “There he (Ransom) stopped dead and stared at Weston (a man likely posse...

In his autobiography Lewis recalls his personal grief, “I must now turn to a great loss that befell our family when my mother became ill. There were voices and comings and goings all over the house. Our whole existence changed into something alien and menacing, as the house became full of strange smells and midnight noises. ... I remembered what I'd been taught — that prayers offered in faith would be granted. I set myself to produce by will power a firm belief that my prayers for her recovery would be successful. It didn’t work. He later adds, “With my mother's death all settled happiness, all that was tranquil and reliable, disappeared from my life. And there has never been really any sense of security and snuggness since. I've not quite succeeded in growing up on that point. There is still too much of mommy's lost, little boy about me. My father's good qualities as well as his weaknesses incapacitated him for the task of bringing up two noisy and...