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C.S. Lewis’s Discovery/ Recovery of Creativity, Magic and the Imagination in the Depths of Christianity

By Anita Mathias

C.S. Lewis’s Discovery/ Recovery of Creativity, Magic and the Imagination in the Depths of Christianity
Owen Barfield noted that there were three Lewises–Lewis, the scholar, whose critical books are still read today; Lewis, beloved children’s and science fiction writer;  and Lewis, the Christian writer and apologist. That is astonishing. Lewis also wrote a beloved memoir, Surprised by Joy which reveals all these aspects of his personality. 
In Surprised by Joy, we read that becoming a Christian for Lewis, was essentially a recovery of the imagination and creativity, a recovery of the child-like sense of wonder at beauty, a recovery of joy. He describes the cold wind which blew from the North, the “strange cold air” of Norse mythology that captivated him (and totally captivated me as a child.) 
 
    I had become fond of Longfellow’s “Saga of King Olaf”: fond of it in a casual, shallow way for its story and vigorous rhythms. But then, and quite different from such pleasures, and like a voice from far more distant regions, there came a moment when I idly turned the pages of the book and found the unrhymed translation of “Tegner’s Drapa”, and read:
        I heard a voice that cried
        Balder the beautiful
        Is dead, is dead,
    I knew nothing about Balder; but instantly I was uplifted into huge regions of the northern sky; I desired with almost sickening intensity something never to be described (except that it is cold, spacious, severe, pale and remote) and then…found myself at the very same moment already falling out of that desire and wishing I were back in it.
In becoming a Christian, he recovers the things which were most precious to him– imagination, creativity, wonder, beauty, poetry, literature, mythology—all enhanced.
                          All which I took from thee I did but take,
                         Not for thy harms.
                        But just that thou might’st seek it in my arms.
                       All which thy child’s mistake
                      Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home”
                                                                                Francis Thompson, The Hound of Heaven.
W.B. Yeats observes in his autobiography that when he wanted to know if a man could be trusted he watched to see if he associated with his betters (by which Yeats meant his intellectual and creative superiors). That is one yardstick I use to gauge people (do they surround themselves with people who challenge them, or those who uncritically admire them?). However, one of the things which most interests me about people is whether they believe in God—or not. And if so, to what extent and how it affects their lives. And also how they came to faith.
Lewis’s spiritual journey, as befits a bookish man, much of whose life was lived in, and mediated and refracted through books was through reading and other writers. What a melange of writers brought him to faith—Plotinius!!, Phantastes, by George Macdonald, which baptized his imagination, and introduced him to the feel of “holiness,” and G.K. Chesterton’s “The Everlasting Man” a portrait of the central position of Christ in human history, which baptized his intellect.  “In reading Chesterton, as in reading MacDonald, I did not know what I was letting myself in for. A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. . . . God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous.” Lewis comments.

And then, he was a man most blessed in his friends.  Owen Barfield, who rids him of his “chronological snobbery,” the “uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate common to our age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that count discredited;” Tolkein and Dyson convince him that Christianity had elements of the myths he loved, the God who died to redeem, except it was a true myth, the ultimate story in which alone the longings and tales of redemption in all great myths were historically realized.  “The story of Christ is simply a true myth,” he says he discovered that night, “a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened.”
As Adam Gopnik says in The New Yorker, “This was a new turn in the history of religious conversion. Where for millennia the cutting edge of faith had been the difference between pagan myth and Christian revelation, Lewis was drawn in by the likeness of the Christian revelation to pagan myth. Even Victorian conversions came, in the classic Augustinian manner, out of an overwhelming sense of sin. Cardinal Manning agonized over eating too much cake, and was eventually drawn to the Church of Rome to keep himself from doing it again. Lewis didn’t embrace Christianity because he had eaten too much cake; he embraced it because he thought that it would keep the cake coming, that the Anglican Church was God’s own bakery.”
Faith for Lewis was a recovery of the sense of childlike joy and possibility, of infinite worlds within worlds. I must say it feels the same to me. As a believer, he can go back to the magical lands of his childhood, and in a sense see them for the first time. As he writes in “Surprised by Joy” “My first taste of Oxford was comical enough. I had made no arrangements about quarters and, having no more luggage than I could carry in my hand, I sallied out of the railway station on foot to find either a lodging-house or a cheap hotel; all agog for “dreaming spires” and “last enchantments.” My first disappointment at what I saw could be dealt with. Towns always show their worst face to the railway. But as I walked on and on I became more bewildered. Could this succession of mean shops really be Oxford? But I still went on, always expecting the next turn to reveal the beauties, and reflecting that it was a much larger town than I had been led to suppose.
Only when it became obvious that there was very little town left ahead of me, that I was in fact getting to open country, did I turn round and look. There behind me, far away, never more beautiful since, was the fabled cluster of spires and towers. I had come out of the station on the wrong side and been all this time walking into what was even then the mean and sprawling suburb of Botley. I did not see to what extent this little adventure was an allegory of my whole life.  
Gopnik goes on to say that his new-found faith got Lewis “to write inspired scholarship, and then inspired fairy tales. The two sides of his mind started working at the same time and together.” And that is always how it is when one finds a voice, or finds oneself as a writer. Things one has thought, and felt, and read, and learned, and suffered and dreamed suddenly coalesce in a magical amalgam.
And in his forties, Lewis begins to work in fantasy, first science fiction, and then in his late forties, he begins to write very quickly and “almost carelessly” about the magic world of Narnia, which, as Gopnik puts it, “includes, encyclopedically, everything he feels most passionate about: the nature of redemption, the problem of pain, the Passion and the Resurrection, all set in his favored mystical English winter-and-spring landscape.”
New writing, a new thing, in one’s late forties, forged through a combination of one’s natural intelligence, gifts and interests, touched and sanctified by religious faith and love. What a very, very inspiring story!

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O. Hallesby on Prayer, and Random Thoughts on Christian Writing

By Anita Mathias

O. Hallesby on Prayer, and Other Thoughts on Christian Writing

My friend Paul Miller, also a Christian writer (“Love Walked among us,” the first drafts of which I edited, “A Praying Life” etc) told me about the Norwegian pastor, O. Hallesby’s wonderful book on prayer.

In particular, Paul pointed out a paragraph. I paraphrase–Your secret life with Christ in the secret places of prayer is a cosy, warm Norwegian cottage in a blustery winter. If you talk about your prayer life, you open the door, and cold wintry blasts enter.

I am sure Hallesby is right. Also, one cannot talk about spiritual adventuring without some degree of showing-off or putting oneself on a pedestal. Look at Paul the Apostle in this amusing passage, struggling with dual impulses,
a) to tell all–to describe his amazing spiritual experiences, probably among his most precious possessions,
b) to keep secret this sacred, precious and most dear thing.

 Although there is nothing to be gained, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord. 2I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. 3And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows— 4was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell. 5I will boast about a man like that, but I will not boast about myself, except about my weaknesses. 6Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say.


He has it both ways, doesn’t he? Both tells, and doesn’t tell. As most of us do when we war with the impulse to show off.
                                                   * * *

I have written, in another context, that if one is looking for a business niche, the best way to find it is to look for the intersection of your own deep joy (interests, abilities, talents) and the world’s deep need, to quote Frederick Buechner. http://theoxfordchristian.blogspot.com/2010/08/amazing-business-success-story-story-of.html

http://theoxfordchristian.blogspot.com/2010/08/christian-in-business-further-thoughts.html

The same is true for a writer looking for a subject. Though, of course, after a certain age, one doesn’t look for subjects any more, they come up and grab your by the throat, many of them, all at once.

I have both studied and taught Creative Writing at universities. A common writing adage goes like this, “If there is a book you would like to read, and it does not exist, why then, of course, you must write it.”

There is a blog or website I would love to bookmark, but I haven’t yet quite found it. I spend many hours at my laptop to which, I openly confess, I am somewhat addicted. I help run our family’s publishing company, Benediction Classics,  I write. And blog. All of which add up to much screen time.

“Much study is a weariness to the flesh, and of making books there is no end. ” In these times of weariness, I have often wished for a spiritual pick-me-up, an equivalent of a cappuccino and chocolate bar, to encourage and refill a weary and empty soul, something more modern than Habakkuk or Isaiah, someone wrestling with my dilemmas, but handling them better.

And since, I didn’t find a blog updated daily, an evolving diary of a soul, something like a spiritual multi-vitamin, I thought I might try to write one.

That would be a blessing to my readers.

But I have not found the answer to many of my wonderings. The spiritual life is full of highs and lows. One moment, you are with Christ on the mountain, seeing him and everything else transfigured, you behold his glory, you behold Moses and Elijah, you see reality in a different light, you are transformed.

And then you walk down the mountain, and you are now cocky and arrogant, and presume to advise Christ, and to your horror, he, who once said to you, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah” now says, “Get behind me, Satan, for you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of man.”

So how does a Christian writer chronicle her spiritual life without the appearance of showing off? Or without, in fact, showing off!  Is it even appropriate to write about a deep, sacred, intimate and precious relationship on the web? It would be like writing about the most private moments of marriage, which even I, who am always writing, would never dream of doing.

I don’t have an answer, but I think I might use the blessing test more severely. If what I am writing is, or might be a blessing to my readers, I’ll press, “Publish Post.” If not, it joins my multi-volume drafts folder!









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8 Writing Tips from C.S. Lewis

By Anita Mathias


8 Writing Tips from C.S. Lewis

Posted by Donald L. Hughes in Craft of Writing on April 20, 2010 | 21 responses
cslewisIn 1959 an American schoolgirl wrote to C. S. Lewis asking him for advice on the craft of writing. He sent her a list of eight rules, and I add my own editorial comments to each of them.
1. Turn off the radio.
Today, writers also need to turn off the TV, the iPod or the music streaming over the Internet. I know that some writers claim that background  sounds enhances their creativity, but I don’t believe it for a minute, and apparently Lewis didn’t either. Writing is a solitary activity, where words are formed in a special space of the brain, and anything that competes for that space will result in a decrease in writing quality. Good writers are able to be alone with their thoughts and don’t need filler or distractions.
2. Read good books and avoid most magazines.
If you’re interested in writing good books then you need to read good books. Feed your mind with quality material and you will be more likely to be able to reproduce it. It is very difficult to find good Christian writing today; top selling books like The Shack are inferior in literary quality, so writers end up being torn between producing something good or something that sells well. Ideally, you will want to write something of literary quality that will be popular, and a path to that goal is reading quality books.  Style is important and it is best absorbed though books that have stood the test of time. The writings of C.S. Lewis are a good place to begin reading.

3. Write with the ear, not the eye. Make every sentence sound good.
This is Lewis’ most important rule in my view. There is a cadence to good writing and it is important that you discover it for yourself. This, of course, is another good reason for shutting off the radio, TV or music as you write. Experienced writers know that all sentences do not sound good in the beginning. It is best to get thoughts on paper first and then come back to the draft and tune each sentence.

4. Write only about things that interest you. If you have no interests, you won’t ever be a writer.
There is genius in these words. Too many Christian writers compose their literary work out of a sense of divine obligation, a quest for profit or a deadline–rather than pure godly passion.  Obligation, profit or a deadline often debase passion, but of course it is nice when all three elements can be combined. Sacrifice them all if you must–except for your passion for those things which interest.

5. Be clear. Remember that readers can’t know your mind. Don’t forget to tell them exactly what they need to know to understand you.
In all my teaching and conference work, I emphasize clarity above all things to embryonic writers. There is a direct connection between clarity, elegance and quality in writing, so clarity is always the first goal.

6. Save odds and ends of writing attempts, because you may be able to use them later.
Everything is made out of something. That’s why it is so important for writers to keep a journal.  It is easy to forget thoughts, story ideas, snippets of conversations, events and experiences, so a journal is essential. Most writers have writing fragments–false starts, incomplete manuscripts or unsuccessful submissions–and Lewis is reminding us to save all these things and to use them as resources for other writing projects. I have so many odds and ends of writing that I store them in large plastic bins from Wal-Mart. This article was written from a fragment I first put in my file in 1997.

7. You need a well-trained sense of word-rhythm, and the noise of a typewriter will interfere.
Lewis emphasizes the importance of the cadence of the words again here, and it is a point well taken. Of all his suggestions, however, this one is perhaps the most outdated. Computer keyboards are far quieter than the clickity-clack of old typewriters.  I use many different methods to get my thoughts on paper, but when I want to do my best work I always revert to writing in longhand on yellow legal pads. I think C.S. Lewis probably smiles on those who connect the mind and the hand to the written word in such an elemental way. That’s the way he did it and he came up with some pretty good books.

8. Know the meaning of every word you use.
Make a hobby us learning new words and using them in your writing. The purpose is not to be circumlocutious, but to be able to communicate aptly. A wide vocabulary adds substance to your writing. Some writers use words with which they have only glancing familiarity. Be sure you completely understand the meaning of every word you use. A fat dictionary is a good thing for a writer to own, but for efficiency you may wish to type this into the Google search box– define: circumlocution — in just that format. You will get the definition for any word you input after the colon.

Writing is a craft. You start as a novice before you become an apprentice and then develop into a master like C.S. Lewis.  Since writing is a craft, not a gift, virtually anyone can acquire the skill and become a master over time. Remember, however, that the time must be invested in actually writing (not thinking about writing) and in reading the work of those who have mastered the craft.
http://www.christianwritingtoday.com/2010/04/7-writing-tips-from-c-s-lewis/

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