imagination

“For me, reason is the natural organ of truth;
but imagination is the organ of meaning.
Imagination, producing new metaphors or revivifying old,
is not the cause of truth, but its condition.
It is, I confess, undeniable that such a view indirectly
implies a kind of truth or rightness in the imagination itself.”

~ C.S. Lewis, Bluspels and Flalansferes

Giving lectures and reading to audiences have evolved into very comfortable and pleasant experiences. My teaching background certainly helps, but knowing my topics frees me from excessive rigidity. Obviously, it all depends upon the audience, and no two groups are ever alike. A recent presentation about archives lent itself especially well to some storytelling. On that particular afternoon, during a dreary winter day, I had brought out examples of treasures such as rare books, maps, prints, and city directories. These types of artifacts are especially conducive to time-traveling musings. I’m surely with the patrons, students, and all the curious- as we all marvel at photographs of specific places then-and-now, noticing the changes.

To do justice to my occupation, I taught myself about when certain various prominent buildings were built, extended, or demolished. Such facts continue to be invaluable for identifying undated imagery and supporting researchers. Years ago while sleuthing out the sites of extinct streets, writing narrative essays with an expression I coined: “ghost streets.” This is to say buried thoroughfares that are gone without a trace. These have been very popular. In a juxtaposition of past and present, cheering an audience on an especially damp day, I made reference to how the local art college is currently in a former department store building constructed in 1904. The store was called Porteous, Mitchell, and Braun (that first name is pronounced “POHR-tchuss”).

now that's a proper pen department

“Now imagine,” I offered to the group, pointing to my left, “walking up Congress Street, stepping inside that big building at number 522, and suddenly noticing bright chandeliers, colorful merchandise, the din of chatting salespeople and customers above the muffled piano music, and the aromas of cosmetics and perfumes.” There followed memories of people among my audience, chiming in with their own recollections. I held up a Porteous ad for Esterbrook fountain pens, printed from a 1952 Christmas season issue of the Portland Evening Express (which gave me a chance to explain the microfilmed newspaper collection). I am often in the role of informing patrons about what was, en route to explaining what is.

somehow, all I needed was the advertisement, and look what I brought back from my time travel errand.

Early 20th century archival theorist Sir Hilary Jenkinson taught that archivists do best to read the documents in their care, and to be acquainted with the contents. I’ve personally seen this to be an extremely useful idea, especially when it comes to the level of service I can provide, and how I draw together sources and researchers. It’s really about recognition and making connections. Like compassion, these are uniquely human abilities. I’ve been studying the materials, making notes, and committing many things to practical memory. Indeed, this has become the less-traveled road, but the relational touch is surely the most meaningful. Just as people are souls, archives are recorded activities that attest. Through the years of preserving and providing public access to archival material, by default I’ve also had innumerable occasions to be acquainted with many of the people who inquire and use these artifacts. Often, there are patrons who will show up daily for a stretch of time, feverishly nibbling away pursuing evidence of parts of their personal histories. I witness all ages seeking the past, looking for understanding and purpose. I’m no different. Each request is respected, never derided. So many among us simply want to know, then let the witnessing archivist be an eloquent accompanist. With the philosopher Blaise Pascal who pondered in writing: “I am astonished at being here rather than there; for there is no reason why here rather than there, why now rather than then.” Inevitably, archives are facts that can enchant the imagination. Once again, and along with my students and patrons, I’m affected, too. Frankly, I could never figure out why other archivists don’t write about their metaphysical experiences. Manuscripts, images, maps, ships’ logs, and even ledgers present much more than what superficially meets the eye. And then there are the interactive discoveries for researchers interpreting the records.

The preservation of the documental record is meant to inform the panoramas between planning ahead, as well as the fleshing out of historiography. Narratives abound in manuscripts, revealing human activities and communications. Indeed, we can understand the popularity of historic novels! And then there is reverie. Serving the public for many years, once in a while I’m asked by patrons marveling over century-old photographs of streets crowded with pedestrians and trolley cars, “Why can’t things go back to the way they were?” Many, many more people wish this without admitting so much. We imagine with our hopes; speaking as a New Englander in the local parlance: “So don’t I.”

From pinched and barricaded confines, imagination insistently pries at the horizons. Ambition is vital. Don’t expect anyone to remind you to flex your hopeful imaginings; we must know to exhort ourselves. Speaking for myself, I write my wishes and prayers as journal entries, often scribing them amidst woeful environments. Remember to dream forward: observe and read between the lines. What we see is not all there is. Our conditioned and compromised cultures reduce our palates to bland, surface bluntness. It is for us to challenge ourselves to think beyond what is “at face,” and cultivate our intellects. We navigate societies of documented hard numbers and literal databases, but the human-voiced manuscripts invite us into the poetry of metaphor. When I managed and facilitated the reference library in a Catholic college, I read the memoir of St. John XXIII in which he wrote of himself, “I am a songbird perched in thorns.” Such a powerful metaphor has never left my thoughts, and I’ve invoked it numerous times since.

The spheres of metaphor and allegory have always provided places of habitation for me, though perceiving through these lexicons can be a two-edged sword when I have to creatively translate for those who cannot interpret subtlety. Fulton Sheen once said, “Introspection requires a lot of humility;” helpful words for speaker and listener alike. I’ll occasionally use archives as metaphor with my philosophy students. Wonderfully diverse as they’ve always been, they refreshingly think and speak at multiple levels. Archival work is entwined with axiological applications- as principles of origin, function, and value are integral to stewardship. Examples help provide crossroads for abstraction and practicality to meet. These also provide runways for metaphysical flights of fancy. Pointing to historic maps and photographs, I’ll ask, “Do places have intrinsic memories?” We’d like to think so. In my helpless insomnia, I imagine being cradled on the waves, aboard a peaceful vessel. In my curatorial adventures, I found documentation from 1948 about a Friend Ship that was sponsored by the Maine Rotary, which brought 107 cargo tons of food and clothing to France. The ship, built in Maine, was called the Saint Patrick, and it crossed the Atlantic in eleven days. Pleasant thoughts of calm seas and noble ambitions. Keep on visualizing better times. As confining situations constrict, my imaginings of comforts, vastness, and possibilities intensify as antidotes. I’d like to think there is still time for improvement.

the Saint Patrick sailing from Portland, Maine to Nantes, France

distractions

“If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work.
The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable.”

~ C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

I chose the Lewis quotation, because my experience has come to be something of its opposite. In these times, work has become an awaited distraction. The days are difficult to distinguish from each other. “Remote-work” from my apartment, along with journaling, helps me to know one day from the previous, or the next. But I surely agree with the second sentence in the Lewis quote. For me it is a combination of pursuing knowledge, along with distracting myself from intensely unfavorable conditions. Certainly, I much prefer studying in pleasant circumstances; but as things are presently, the intensity of my continuing pursuits in philosophy amount to an escape portal.

Rather than pound away at all matters obstructive, I’ll continue attempting at the healthier diversions. Under the constraints of quarantining, it’s even more important to think about open ended ideas and to look forward. Journaling daily, I keep up my commitment to honest writing, and that has to mean plenty of venting. Even throughout life before March 16th, my journal has been the safest place for complaints and criticisms. That in itself is healthy diversion. The pages of grousing become launch surfaces for my written ambitions. And writing my hopes is the foundation of my healthier brand of diversion. These times combine an erosion of horizons, with a closing-in of community and mobility channels. I try to force these things back open again, by studying and by writing letters. These are humble and subtle endeavors, but these are movements toward the times beyond this crucible. Investments that strengthen others and self anticipate the sunrise.

Based on persisting conditions, it looks as though curfews and lockdowns are being prematurely lifted. Though I still keep those out-of-my-apartment excursions to the barest minimum errands, behind a mask, I do make sure to walk and look up to the skies. Looking to the nearby ocean, looking upward and outward, I’m trying to remember the vast world. Finding good things to ponder takes a lot of effort. It means seeking very intently. It also means being content with modest blessings, as long they are positive. Just as I’m finding myself fed anew by my numerous years of studies and careful notes, I’m also unexpectedly rewarded by the depth of my spiritual formation through monastic life. The Divine Hours are always part of my days- though not slavishly. So are vigils, meditations, times of silence, and my appreciation for simplicity. Though I did not learn this easily, solitude can indeed be savoured and has its own healthful sense of completeness. The quiet caused by the pandemic is not a peaceful silence: it is tense, anxious, and with a strange void prevailing. By contrast the inward life, founded upon silence, becomes a healthy distraction. At times, quarantining wavers into hermitage, into inviting contemplation.

This time last year, I was at Weston Priory for eight days of unstructured retreat. The monastic community has taught me much about appreciating simple pleasures. Simple, yet eloquent. Notice the progress of the natural elements- how the light, air, and trees evolve and transform with time. Taste the victuals and beverages unhurriedly, and know what they are. Observe the marks produced when writing. Meditate upon the words sent to friends, and even in business correspondence. These times have dropped barricades across so many turns, making diversions necessary.

Through social outlets, many among us refer to things they miss. We can each make interesting lists, and I certainly have. That is itself a diversion. For this moment, I’ll just mention how I greatly miss my usual outlet of making plans for travels and visits- near and far. The action of planning sojourns and assembling provisions has been one of my best healthy distractions through many years of difficult situations. Forward-looking has now taken an entirely spiritual dimension. My reflex continues to be one that reaches toward open ends. Try as I might, life has been forced into a much more humbled state of affairs. In an earlier essay, I wrote about my self-coined daily mantra, that “I’m fine; Stay the course.” Another phrase I hear myself frequently say is: “Everything has to wait.” This is how I address all those desired and postponed plans. It’s how I console myself about what cannot happen for the undetermined time being, thus distracting myself from staring at the barricades. Everything has to wait. No mountain trails in Vermont this summer. Instead, the trails are nearby, circuitous, and labyrinthine. My instinct is to soothe, as it is also to continue pursuing improvement. Faith says that conditions will not always be unfavorable, and also that my studies will generate future sources.

oxford postscriptum

“I am a wanderer:
I remember well one journey,
how I feared the track was missed,
So long the city I desired to reach lay hid;
when suddenly its spires afar
Flashed through the circling clouds;
you may conceive my transport.
Soon the vapors closed again,
But I had seen the city, and one such glance
No darkness could obscure.”

~ Robert Browning, Paracelsus Aspires, from Paracelsus.

places and artifacts

As the mild weather returns, drawing a long winter to its conclusion, I am drawing my afterthoughts together from my time at Oxford. This is my tenth theme essay in reflection of this profound life experience. Previous essays have described portions of my adventures as a C. S. Lewis Scholar-in-Residence, living at The Kilns, studying at the University, immersing in Lewis’ archives, and absorbing the ambience of the city. My steps covered many, many miles of streets, paths, steep tower stairs, tunnels, and alleys, meeting literary footprints from across centuries. In any place with a deep and ancient past, strata that meet the light of today are merely atop countless layers of the steps of others. This impression was especially felt as I traversed stone slab steps that sag at their centers. Such pavers, stairs, and cathedral aisles seemed weighted and rounded by the passages of time. Indeed I have made contributions of my own, especially across Radcliffe Square, the Bodleian Quad, and Saint Giles Street. But now, looking back, the time since has subsumed even the most sublime episodes into memory.

With Browning’s Paracelsus, I can say that I had seen the city, and one such glance no darkness could obscure. There is much to continue cherishing, having lived and studied in a place of such academic depth and historicity. The experience continues to live within; Oxford goes with me now. My recollections join my collected artifacts and pictures. Musing about places and material objects, as I revisit the many, many photographs I’ve made there, the locations and events become artifacts themselves. Photographs serve as a form of iconography. The libraries and museums, filled with brilliant and life-giving resources, are enshrined in my memory as composite treasures alongside the cafes, pubs, and streets.

Places are always inclusive of their contents and activities. My previous nine essays have described The Kilns, the University and its libraries, and some related landmarks in detail. But the in-between places are the passages that provide context and roots to the landmarks. My guess is that your favorite sites are treasured in your thoughts at least partly due to where they are. Places and their physical situations are inextricable: the monastery on the mountaintop, the café along the tiny cobbled street, the reading room in the elegant library, the seashore along the craggy coast, the plant within good soil, learning in harvests of ideas.

Above: Haydn's harpsichord.
Below: Einstein's blackboard

Oxford’s Bate Museum presents historic collections of musical instruments. Included in their interpretive displays are short recordings of the respective instruments’ sounds. The curator proudly described how the museum pieces are actually used in concert recitals. Playing the instruments is part of how they are preserved. The displays are configured to show the evolvement of such instruments as violins, flutes, clarinets, trumpets, pianos, among many others. The museum provides context for these musical artifacts. Because of my daily experience, and the environments through which I travelled, I saw a similar collocation of humanity in the cafés, shops, and reading rooms. Context can broadly encompass populations, structures, and regions- yet indeed context may also be intimately defined. Oxford preserves Albert Einstein’s blackboard, in the University’s science museum. An artifact, from one context to another. Much, much more humbly, yet still more intimately to me, I now treasure my used call slips from the inner sancta of the Bodleian Library, and among many other ephemeral things, my well-used pencil stubs from all my note-taking.

moments as places

Spans of time, at any length or brevity, also become treasured places. Both physical and spiritual landmarks are capable of recalling time. Therefore, moments join locations as our inner geographies deepen and increase. Of Oxford, I gratefully recall sun-filled courtyards, and the contrasts between the yellow-reddish stone and bright green lawns. A tea shop near the Bodleian quad has grape vines growing in its back garden; I enjoyed writing near these. On many early mornings, with long stretches of study ahead, I would stock up on chocolate bars, on my way to Radcliffe- either at the Covered Market or the Tuck Shop. The newsagents got used to me, with my expressions of gratitude in what must have seemed a funny overseas accent. At the Market, the man would say, “It’s a good day, and now you’re ready!”

I was recipient of many gifts in the shapes of moments provided by wonderful people. Between many generous conversations with the warden of The Kilns, the Bodleian staff, and a variety of professors and students, I had the honor of meeting Aidan Mackey. Mr. Mackey is a retired teacher and bookseller as well as the world’s foremost authority on the life and works of G. K. Chesterton. We enjoyed two evenings together, during which we exchanged ideas and observations about literature and the works of Lewis and Chesterton. On one of these occasions, Mackey read some of his own work, as well as Chesterton’s to me, in the parlor of The Kilns. What I remember best was his recitation of Chesterton’s mystical epic The Ballad of the White Horse- entirely by heart- pronouncing the words as though the unseen book was speaking through him. An enduring moment of a gift.

Above: Aidan Mackey reads G. K. Chesterton, in the parlor at The Kilns.
_________________________________________
"May Their Memory be Blessed."
Placing seashells from Maine on the memorial for the expulsion of the Jewish people from England, near Magdalen College, Oxford.

During one of many pleasant chats with the superintendent of the Special Collections reading room, I mentioned my ongoing project of studying Quaker journals and essays at the Boston Athenaeum. He encouraged me to explore Oxford’s collections on this topic, which are located in Duke Humfrey’s Reading Room. Through these additional studies, I opened a 300 year old volume with a sweet surprise staring up at me: the English Quaker Benjamin Holme’s An Epistle to Friends and Tender-minded People in America. The Quaker apostle addresses the Colonial Americans to “be encouraged, whoever you are,” and hold fast to faith that speaks of “God’s merciful Visitation, which is extended to your Souls.” And here I am, three centuries later, visiting his book with my new Oxford lapel pin, positioned next to the one I wore with me from the University of Southern Maine, marveling at how time can cross its own mysteriously meandering paths. Indeed, my mind’s “reading voice” is of this time, the same one that gleefully expressed gratitude for those Cadbury chocolate bars from across town.

Quaker Meeting House, Saint Giles Street, Oxford.




ideas and place

At last, we come to the setting-forth from this place and time of learning. I certainly hope to return before too long, but that will be yet another, different adventure. Here the postscript begins with the obvious, noticeable to those who have read all ten of these essays, and that is gratitude. Now in retrospect, I see the ideas gathered during my time at Oxford as an abiding postscriptum. Surely there are the material treasures and photo images that attest to the experience, and are held close. But equally tangible, standing alongside study notes, portions of discussions, and written observations in journals, are ideas. By ideas, in this sense, I refer to ways of perceiving. Firstly, there is there is the inspiring prospect that a willing learner will never run out of sources. Heartfelt seekers will find, and I am merely one example. Vastness may be viewed as intimidating, but when it comes to oceans of knowledge and insight there is assurance in knowing the elements are deep and wide and rich. Consider the last sentence in Saint John’s gospel, as he concluded his account of his life experience with Christ. Of all things, he wrote:

    “there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they could be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.” 

To which I am brought to add, not even all the Bodleian Libraries, plus everything in Boston combined! In this continuum of learning, as I begin to transcribe and index my reams of notes from these studies, I’ve also begun to notice changes in my perception. Beyond some techniques derived from the archives and conservation areas that I’ve brought to my work, there are subtleties yet to articulate. I already notice how reading and writing are accompanied by a much stronger awareness of place. The experience further encourages me to allow my thoughts and aspirations to expand. Potential is to be explored. What is possible and not possible cannot always be pre-determined. Perseverance is challenged by venturing out, while being reconciled with the unfathomable. Perseverance embraces learning in majestic surroundings and humble circumstances alike. Now I see gratitude at the foundation of perseverance and growth.

In my earlier essay, called "Scriptura et Scriptum," I wrote about the wonderful Oxford stationer Scriptum. Recently, I sent the photo (immediately below) to them, asking about the dip-pens (at the lower right corner), and with this photo as a guide, I purchased them, with a few more custom-made journals (second photo below).








Boarding the train at Oxford station, for the long travel to North Wales.

spirit of saint lewis

“Humanity does not pass through phases
as a train passes through stations;
being alive, it has the privilege of always moving
yet never leaving anything behind.
Whatever we have been, in some sort we are still.”

~ C. S. Lewis, The Allegory of Love.

lewis’ environment



The Kilns, with C.S. Lewis' bedroom (below).

During the winter, I’ve had some time to digest and reflect upon this past late-summer and early-autumn’s residency in Oxford. There will likely be one more essay on the topic. This occasion permits for some reflection as a participant in C. S. Lewis’ world. With the Scholar-in-Residence fellowship, I lived at The Kilns, which is the Lewis home. From the house and its grounds, to neighboring Headington Quarry, to Oxford’s streets, paths, canals, and colleges (with their libraries), to the breadth of greater Oxfordshire, the experience exceeded that of an invitee: I was an inhabitant in a broad and colorful sphere.

High Street, Oxford. Below: University College, Oxford.

Walking was the best mode for observation, though public transport was essential for traversing the city to my various appointments. Covering the smaller distances on foot provided opportunities to look closely at memorials, shop displays, and to try various vantage points with my camera. Aboard the buses, I chose upper-deck perches, and the higher-angle views were ideal for viewing architecture as well as the scurrying humanity along the sidewalks. Lewis did not drive, and he either walked or used public transportation to connect The Kilns with Magdalen College. I learned about how he loved to walk, no matter the distance. Long strolls on footpaths become places of meditation as well as that of conversation with friends. Walking chats, and walking to air my thoughts, were integral experiences to my Oxford sojourn. Assimilating the Oxford of C. S. Lewis, I gradually found my “own” Oxford. Inhabiting the places of importance to Lewis, these places also became important to me. Places and paths complemented all I was learning about his life and about the people closest to him.

Joy Davidman Gresham's home, Headington,
prior to her marriage to C. S. Lewis.




places



Bury Knowle Park's garden, which features Narnia-themed carved sculptures. Aslan the Lion (above), and a wardrobe-shaped entrance.

Through the ages, writers have known the value of place as source and conduit of inspiration. My comprehension and appreciation for Henri David Thoreau was significantly enhanced, after having spent time at Walden Pond. My lifelong admiration for Dylan Thomas ultimately brought me to the parts of Wales that are illustrated by his words. I had the great fortune of being able to live in the Thomas family home, which is also the poet’s birthplace, in Swansea.

Mindfully ascending the carpeted wooden stairs each night, the same steps walked by Thomas as a child and as an adult, found parallels when I also walked the cliff walk to his rockperched boat house in Laugharne. These thoughts returned to me, as I’d daily climb and descend the steep steps of C. S. Lewis’ at The Kilns, then around the garden, the verdant length of Addison’s Walk, and to his rooms at the cloistered Magdalen College and University College. Lewis may not have considered his notebooks and manuscripts as “places,” but I did. The texts themselves, upon their original paper substrata, are places of learning. My daily studies, comprising close readings and note-taking, amounted to a month of habitation in the spaces created by his written words. The lines and pages of insights were subtexts and themes to my days of exploration.

Studying Lewis' manuscripts.

By comparison with the fantastical worlds vividly described in the Space Trilogy books, and the Chronicles of Narnia, the earthly geography of C. S. Lewis did not cover much territory. But his imagination was surely boundless. He was able to invent complex and elaborate lands while amidst the sedate landscape of the English Midlands, the stone streets of Oxford city, as well as drawing from his upbringing in north Ireland. As well, the community life cultivated by Lewis, among friends and associates in Oxford, brought voices and stories into the places of his spirit.

sacred spaces






Views of Saint Mary's, Oxford.

Becoming acquainted with the places Lewis valued brought me to several beautiful sacred sites. Although the individual colleges have chapels within their enclosures, the university church is the centrally-situated Saint Mary’s, dating back to the 13th century. Among the addresses Lewis preached at Saint Mary’s was his celebrated Weight of Glory, in 1941. Closer to The Kilns is Lewis’ home parish, Holy Trinity Church, in Headington Quarry. On Sundays, during my time in Oxford, I had the honor of sitting in the Lewis pew, which is marked by a small brass plaque. The favorite church perch for Lewis and his brother was purposely chosen because it’s at the left (northerly) edge of the nave, partly obscured by a thick stone pillar. Jack and Warnie were able to make early and discreet departures after communion, in order to reach the Masons Arms pub in time for an after-church pint!

Holy Trinity, Headington

Holy Trinity was indeed dear to them, having been their place of worship for more than thirty years, and the churchyard is their final earthly resting place. The Lewis brothers’ grave is marked by a flat stone marker. I was sure to visit the grave to pay my respects, and brought seashells from Maine with me to place upon the stone (and I tucked some underneath it). Inside Holy Trinity, right next to the Lewis pew, are the Narnia Windows. The windows memorialize C. S. Lewis, with characters from the Narnia stories engraved into plain glass. The images have the effect of relief sculpture, and beautifully catch the ambient light.

The Narnia Windows, Holy Trinity Church.






The Lewis grave, with seashells I brought from Maine.





gathered places

Assembling my materials at The Kilns and preparing to continue my travels, I was already aware of having gathered experiences of places along the paths of C. S. Lewis. In my momentary context, these places have become mine, too. The two journals and one memo book I filled are joined by my well-worn street map, postcards, my university ID card, bus pass, several significant stones, and various accumulated mementoes from this extraordinary sojourn. The dozens and dozens of pages of notes I made at the Bodleian Libraries were graciously scanned into electronic files for me by the staff at Radcliffe Science. Sifting through the nearly 2500 photos I took helps me relive the journey’s chronology. In my attentiveness to the places of importance in the life of Lewis, I invariably found my favorites- such as the Bodleian Lower Reading Room, Duke Humfrey’s Library, the Golden Cross Café, the Covered Market, and the Friends Meeting House.

Walking along Saint Mary's Passage, en route to the Bodleian Library, Lewis noticed the juxtaposed faun and lamp-post which influenced some of the symbols which appear in the "Chronicles of Narnia."

C. S. Lewis was one among a great many souls whose cultivation found fertile ground at Oxford. Paths crossed depends very much upon a researcher’s area of study. My interests brought my steps to the Oxford of not only Lewis, but also of Tyndale, Wycliffe, Shakespeare, Shelley, Newman, Wesley, as well as that of the Inklings. A sense of past and present juxtaposed in these places is strongly evident. Contrary to the sentiments of much of our popular culture, that which is past is not necessarily dead and gone. Places and manuscripts from eras long ago become ever new as they are discovered and rediscovered. Realized knowledge is always current. Even Lewis, who drew from ancient literature as easily as he comprehended his own times, was well aware of the timelessness of wisdom.

Saint Paul reminded his readers in Rome about how the Spirit of God “quickens the dead, and calls those things which be not as though they were.” The breath, the pneuma, of spirit, infuses our being; it converts the static into the dynamic. When I consider having gathered glimpses of the spirit of Lewis, one encompassing attribute comes to mind, and that is perseverance. Studying his manuscripts while immersed at Oxford, I recognized a thread of individual tenacity and valor connecting the character and many-faceted works of C. S. Lewis. The spirit of Lewis testifies that learning and living must not cease- even at precipices of desolation. Perseverance in education is to be accompanied by continuity in the craft of synthesis: being harmoniously eclectic; being able to see present-day relevance in ancient wisdom, and vice-versa. Alongside skills in synthetic thinking, Lewis exercised his adventurous imagination. I must remember to do the same, to always remain open to the stirring of the Holy Spirit, available to the miraculous, the serendipitous.

Above: Strolling along Addison's Walk. Magdalen College in background.
Below: Magdalen College Chapel.

Lastly, Lewis articulated and lived an admirable form of facing fears- indeed, as any of us, having to improvise along the way. In the throes of grief, his faith was shaken, as it might happen to any of the best of us. We wonder at the tangible value of blind belief and whether our faithfulness is requited. Lewis created a subtly sinister character called Screwtape, who knew something of human pliability in times of vulnerability. In The Screwtape Letters, the character warns an evil henchman that “The worst possible thing that can happen to us, and that which glorifies our enemy the most (namely God) is when a man looks around and sees no reason to go on believing in God’s love and still believes anyway.” This phrase, spoken by Lewis through a fictional character, exemplifies the spirit of perseverance. There we find the spirit of saint Lewis.

I saved a last Maine seashell for the pond at the C. S. Lewis Nature Reserve.
After throwing in the shell, it was impossible not to notice the shadows' shape in the pond.




Writing in the same room, near the same hearth, about 55 years apart.