Note: the following blog post is a repost from our 2009 Southwest Regional Retreat Writers Workshop blog page. Click here for the main 2009 C.S. Lewis Southwest Regional Retreat page.

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Inklings & Intentness (the only “I” word I could find for passion)

A Passion for Books, By Terry Glaspey: Editor Harvest House

Book Review by Nan Rinella

Terry Glaspey is having an affair-with books. He has a passion for them.

“I came late to a love for books,” Glaspey writes. As a child, he was addicted to TV but it left him empty. What was missing was a sense of wonder that could best be met by books. This love, when it came, came with a passion.

They say that the most precious things are found in the smallest of boxes. This wee tome is a grand treasure in a tiny package-a sprinkling of gems from the Great Books. I savored every moment of my read. It was like indulging in a box of gourmet chocolates, tasting each morsel, letting it melt in my mouth, and wanting more.

I can only describe this book in terms of feasting on it-not devouring but relishing. Like a rich chocolate (can you tell I’m a chocoholic?) mousse sprinkled with luscious nuts and dried fruits, and presented like a work of art. It’s a beautiful gift book artfully designed with prints, portraits, and chuck full of delicious quotes from the greats.

C.S. Lewis: “No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which in not equally (and often far more) worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond.”

Glaspey refutes computers doing away with printed volumes. He cannot imagine climbing into bed with a computer or languishing in the tub with one. This is my type of person. I was very careful not to let his book fall into my bath.

Tags: A Passion for Books, Camp Allen, Nan Rinella, Southwest Regional Retreat, Terry Glaspey

Note: the following blog post is a repost from our 2009 Southwest Regional Retreat Writers Workshop blog. Click here for the main 2009 C.S. Lewis Southwest Regional Retreat page.

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Review of The Company They Keep:
C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community by Dr. Diana Pavlac Glyer

“No man is an island, entire of itself,” John Donne wrote in the 17^th century, “Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main . . .”

Everyone needs others. If God had meant us to do this life solo, He would have stopped with Adam.

In The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community, Dr. Diana Pavlac Glyer has written about the community shared by the Inklings and the influence it had on the lives and works of individual members - C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, Hugo Dyson, R.E. Havard, David Cecil, Nevill Coghill, Warren Lewis, and others.

Charles Williams thought we should live by the principle that, everyone, all the time, owes his life to the lives and labor of others. He believed in co-inherence-the unity within the Trinity, of all Christian believers, and of divine and human in the Incarnation.

The story of the Inklings gives us an exceptional example of the elements of influence and encouragement. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: C.S. Lewis, Camp Allen, Charles Williams, Diana Glyer, J.R.R. Tolkien, Nan Rinella, Southwest Regional Retreat, The Company They Keep

Note: the following blog post is a repost from our 2009 Southwest Regional Retreat Writers Workshop blog page. Click here for the main 2009 C.S. Lewis Southwest Regional Retreat page.

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This is the first of my reviews of the Southwest Regional Retreat and Writers Workshop speakers’ books. I hope they motivate you to run out and get them (through this website’s bookstore, of course) and read them.

Nan Rinella

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Book Review:

Blue Hole Back Home by Joy Jordan-Lake

BLUE HOLE BACK HOME tugs at the heart like that big swimming hole drew the young people of the Appalachian mountain town to its frigid waters in that hot summer of 1979.

A tale so haunting in its realness, its earthiness, its foreshadowing of tragedy from the moment Farsanna, “the new girl lifted her brown legs up over the tailgate of the truck” and the mangy pack introduced her to the Blue Hole and the all-white community of teens. Shelby Lenoir Maynard and the other four teens of the pack welcomed the new girl from Sri Lanka.

The story begins with the narrator, Shelby Lenoir Maynard, grown and living in Boston. A chance encounter triggers her memory of the events that happen when she was sixteen-years-old and “skinny and awkward and carried whatever smarts I had then like a warning.” In the telling she sheds her constructed shell to face the guilt her past brings her: “Maybe some parts of your past don’t stay just where you thought your life left them all shredded in pieces.” Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Blue Hole Back Home, Camp Allen, Joy Jordan-Lake, Nan Rinella, Southwest Regional Retreat, Writers Workshop

Note: the following blog post is a repost from our 2009 Southwest Regional Retreat Writers Workshop blog page. Click here for the main 2009 C.S. Lewis Southwest Regional Retreat page.

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Please excuse the pause in this blog. I’ve been on holiday, and, of all places, to The Kilns. Yes, C.S. Lewis’s home just outside Oxbridge, England. What a thrill and what a blessing the visit was.

I went as a participant of the Summer Seminars-in-Residence for the August 1-7 session. The Kilns was bought and restored by the C.S. Lewis Foundation. See “Programs” on this site for more information. If you are interested in my tales of The Kilns, click here to view the main C.S. Lewis Foundation Blog.  I wrote one post on-site and will continue with The Kilns Chronicles soon.

Meanwhile, “back at the ranch,” the plans go forward to our Texas retreat and writers workshop coming up just about two months from now. There is so much to share about this one-of-a-kind workshop. Keep visiting this blog for more.

Inklings & Inspiration

THE COMPANY THEY KEEP: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community by Dr. Diana Pavlac Glyer was the inspiration for this writers workshop. Lewis, Tolkien, and the other men who made up the Inklings were all writers. In her book, Diana tells their fascinating story-of the influence they had on each other, their lives and their work. So, it was a natural fit to include a focus on writing at this retreat.

I believe that it’s fairly common for writers - when we discover authors whose words sink right to the heart, settle into the soul, and stimulate the mind - to devour their every work and learn all we can about them. Of course, meeting them in person is a special treat. But for those no longer in this world, second best is learning from those who knew or studied them. Diana has thrown open the wardrobe door and invited us Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: C.S. Lewis, C.S. Lewis Foundation, Camp Allen, Diana Glyer, Inklings, J.R.R. Tolkien, Joy Jordan-Lake, Nan Rinella, Southwest Regional Retreat, Texas