In August of 1963, due to
his ailing health and increasing responsibilities, C.S. Lewis announced his
retirement from Cambridge
A nurse named Alec had been hired to stay up nights in case Lewis fell ill and
needed his assistance. As the men returned with the enormous load of books,
Alec laid asleep in his room on the ground floor. As the truck pulled into the
driveway, Lewis appeared, cautioning them to silence. "Where'll we store
the books?" Hooper whispered, to which Lewis responded with a wink.
Carrying each stack with tedious concern so as not to wake the sleeping victim,
the three men piled the works around the nurse's bed, sealing him in a cocoon
of manuscript and literature. When they were finished, the books were stacked
nearly to the ceiling, filling every square inch of the room where the snoring
nurse still slept.
Much to the relief of the anxious culprits who were waiting outside, Alex
finally awoke. From within the insulated tomb, first came sounds of bellowing,
and finally the tumbling of the great literary wall. An amused nurse emerged
from within the wreckage.
Over the years I have often wondered how Lewis thought up his wonderfully playful whimsical personalities of his imaginary worlds. After reading this story, I think I now understand. Such are the mirthful (new word for me)
scenes—fiction and non-fiction—that seal in my mind the many weighty lessons I
have learned from C.S. Lewis. I have a stronger belief, in my 72nd year,
that my Christian
faith has room—and reason—for laughter! I must add that my online study of a nine week course entitled: An Introduction to C.S Lewis: Writing and Significance is like an early Christmas gift. Of course, at my age I'm always looking for a bargain and it cost is nothing, offered by Hillsdale College.
Ruminating for a long period of time I have come to believe that much of C.S.
Lewis’s thought and work wrestles with the existential evidences of the
existence of God, the signals of transcendence around all of mankind. And, at least for me, it asks me to see
myself as I am: unreconciled with the universe, yet longing for home. Two decades ago, it was Lewis that first
taught me to move toward the questions that reappear though I had buried them,
and to admit the logical outworkings of the philosophies I had held loosely. It was Lewis who taught me to search after God with not only my heart, mind and energy, but with the wonder of a child who is able to be startled by
the very thing he is looking for. My Christian faith gives an explanation—and a
face—to the joy I stumble across, the joy, as Lewis writes, that "flickers
on the razor-edge of the present and is gone."
On the one hand, if life is but time and happenstance why would I laugh or
wonder, or experience a desire to play? What good is
joy, what purpose is humor or laughter or beauty, if life is but a series of
instincts to survive and the universe at a cosmic level is meaningless? But on
the other hand, if I am truly made in the image of a holy and loving God, how
wonderful that God has made me both with logic and laughter, a life of
intrinsic worth and immortal wonder.
I have had the privilege to hear an old tape of one of Lewis’s remarkable lectures:
The Weight of Glory. He spoke hauntingly
of the glory of the God and the immortality of the soul made in God's image and
toward the end added a word of warning: "This does not mean that we are to
be perpetually solemn. We must play. But, our merriment must be of that kind
(and it is, in fact the merriest kind) which exists between people who have,
from the outset, taken each other seriously."
Father, God, You have made me for joy, sending the Son of life that I might
know what that very word means. You know how I, for such a long time in my life kept
knocking at the door of my life before it was opened. Thank You for C.S. Lewis. Thank You for the light of Your precious Holy Spirit of realizing that
exploring and playing and discovery may well be among my life’s greatest
efforts. Amen
