4-30-18<\/p>\n
I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God. It changes me.<\/em><\/p>\n This is a line written by C S Lewis, the preeminent Christian apologist; and spoken by Anthony Hopkins\u2019 portrayal of Lewis in the motion picture Shadowlands<\/em>.<\/p>\n The movie observes its 25th anniversary this year. It is also the 25th anniversary of me being an idiot for never having watched Shadowlands<\/em>. I revere the Oxford don Lewis and frequently quote him (for instance, in last week\u2019s blog essay); I pass out copies of his humble but monumental Christian books (Mere Christianity; The Screwtape Letters<\/em>); I had never read his children\u2019s classics (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe<\/em>; others of the Chronicles of Narnia<\/em> series) but my children did, and loved them. My daughter urged the movie Shadowlands<\/em> on me.<\/p>\n But I never saw it. Sloppy and neglectful. I heard only good things about the biopic, as it were, of a hero.<\/p>\n I made up for lost time (reminding me that his friend Malcolm Muggeridge\u2019s autobiography was entitled Chronicles of Lost Time<\/em>) and perhaps prompted by last week\u2019s quotation, my friend and I rented and watched. It was profoundly moving, one of the best motion pictures I have beheld.<\/p>\n Readers might recall that last year I described staying a night in the delightful Old Inn at Crawfordsburn in Bangor, County Down, outside Belfast, Northern Ireland. The sprawling, creeky, artifacts-crowded ancient inn had numerous charms of its own, not the least of which was a plaque modestly stating that C S Lewis and his bride Joy Gresham had spent their honeymoon (\u201ca perfect fortnight\u201d) there. Not very odd in itself \u2013 though a delightful surprise for me \u2013 because Lewis was born in nearby Belfast. Through the years he and his famous literary circle convened there.<\/p>\n Lewis had been an atheist and had traveled the same path to faith, or back to faith, that those literary fellows like J R R Tolkien, G K Chesterton, and Muggeridge did. Fallen-away, agnostic, skeptical, Socialist, atheist… all became not merely orthodox Christians but fervent believers, uniquely sharing the gospel with the world in ways that we categorize as \u201capologetics.\u201d<\/p>\n Joy Gresham was an American Jewess who also converted to Christianity. During their short marriage she contracted and died of cancer. The agonizingly brief love story, their marriage of blossoming awareness, lasted from 1956 to 1960.<\/p>\n After Joy\u2019s death, Lewis wrote a tender and thoughtful book on spiritual confrontations with death. Pain, grief, and suffering ironically had been major themes of his early lectures. After Joy\u2019s death he wrote A Grief Observed<\/em>, but he published it under a pen name, so as not to traffic in his loss. It was such a meaningful and profound book that on its publication, many of Lewis\u2019 friends sent him the book as perfect reading to assuage his grief… not knowing he was the author.<\/p>\n The movie takes a few liberties, as movies do. For instance, the glorious and significant irony of that book about grief \u201ccast upon the waters\u201d and returning to him is not mentioned. Their movie-honeymoon was not to Crawfordsburn, but to a Lewis scene of fond childhood memory (imagine the eagerness to see the places of last year\u2019s visit!)<\/p>\n Shadowlands<\/em> had my memory race back in time, but not only to favorite books or a tourist spot. I hope it would have the same effect on you\u2026 even if, as I have pleaded guilty, you might not have not watched it either! When we confront the things that C S Lewis contemplated \u2013 the simplicity of Christianity; the overwhelming love of God; the profundity of grief; the essence of love \u2013 we savor the unique wisdom provided by those sensitive souls who know how to translate the Gospel from English to English.<\/p>\n That is, to bring us the blessings of seeing better, hearing more clearly, understanding in a richer manner, and feeling<\/em> in ways you never thought were available to us. What life holds\u2026 what God offers. Things that were always there, of course; but somehow we miss. And by seizing them at the late moments of life, they are appreciated not as \u201clast chances\u201d but as sweet rewards.<\/p>\n Lewis had known Christianity, but ultimately came to know Christ: his head met his heart when Joy entered his life. Joy had known about religion, but when she taught her husband how to hold hands (literally), they found their way to the cross.<\/p>\n + + +<\/p>\n