Just wanted to update everyone on our upcoming events since we’ve just added some new information online:

Summer Seminars in Residence at The Kilns

Don’t miss this extraordinary opportunity to explore the life and works of C.S. Lewis with a small group of fellow travelers while residing in C.S. Lewis’ beloved home, The Kilns!

Join us for a week of learning, fellowship, and renewal in the world renowned “City of the Dreaming Spires”– Oxford, England.  Study with a noted Lewis scholar, who will lead you in an engaging exploration of the essential themes of Lewis’ writings and life. Experience the pleasures of new friendships, fine dining, and warm hospitality as you find respite from the hectic pace of modern day life. Whether enjoying the many cultural treasures of Oxford, venturing on a guided tour of the city of Cambridge, punting on the Cam, or having tea in the garden with your companions, you will find your stay at The Kilns to be one of life’s rare treasures.

For the Summer Seminars, we’ve just added a new program for Week III:

Week III ~ August 1-7, 2009:
Lewis Remembered: Visits with Friends of C.S. Lewis
With Walter Hooper, Laurence Harwood and Kim Gilnett

What was it like to know C.S. Lewis as a friend? A stepfather? A benefactor? Meet with those who knew him best as family and friends of Jack Lewis reminisce about a man of integrity, scholarship, and humor. Gain an insider’s glimpse into formative influences on Lewis’ life. Consider how he integrated his Christian faith with work and personal pursuits. Beginning with a biography of Lewis’ life and conversion, each day’s discussion will introduce you to another of Lewis’ closest contemporaries.

Special Guests: Aidan Mackey, Barbara Reynolds and Simon Barrington Ward *

* Speakers and special guests are subject to confirmation.

C.S. Lewis Southwest Regional Retreat - We’ve just launched the official website and added the schedule information.

From the early 1930s to the late 1940s, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and a community of their friends and fellow writers met frequently to share good fellowship and their creative works-in-progress.  Members of this small writers group, the “Inklings,” came to produce some of the most beloved works of fiction and prose of the twentieth century.

But how did the Inklings, many of them Christians working in skeptical secular environments, come to create such lasting contributions to literature and Christianity?  And what can we learn about Christian creativity, community, and fellowship from such a diverse group of writers and thinkers?

Join Diana Pavlac Glyer, author of The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis & J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community, as she invites us to discover their friendship and the influence it had on their lives, their works, and their relationships with God.

In the intimate woodland setting of the Camp Allen Conference Center, be refreshed by Ad Deum Dance Company and the music of Kemper Crabb. Explore the theme in breakout sessions with Joel Heck, George Musacchio, Andrew Lazo and Don Wood. Worship with Rev. Skip Ryan and Rev. Scott Irwin. And engage in stimulating discussion and fellowship with other conferees.

The C.S. Lewis Southwest Regional Retreat will renew your spirit, challenge your mind, and refresh your body!

DON’T MISS THIS YEAR’S SPECIAL PROGRAMS!

Writer’s Workshop

In the spirit of Lewis & Tolkien, we are also offering a special preconference Writers Workshop that will continue throughout the retreat.  Featuring author Joy Jordan-Lake, agent Steve Laube, and editor Terry Glaspey, the workshop will center on the theme More Than a Hobby: Letting Community Take Your Creativity to a New Level. To meet the needs of writers of varying areas of interest, there will be two tracks – one for fiction writers led by Joy Jordan-Lake, and one for nonfiction writers (focusing on devotionals, journals, memoirs, family histories, and church projects) led by Frank Ball.

Children’s Track

This year will also see the return of our popular children’s program, “Sailing Aboard the Dawn Treader: Learning from Lucy, Edmund, and Eustace,” which offers kids (ages 7-12) the opportunity to connect with Lewis at their level through reading aloud, discussing, acting, singing, hiking, arts & crafts and much more.

Tags: Ad Deum Dance Company, Andrew Lazo, C.S. Lewis, Camp Allen, Chronicles of Narnia, Diana Glyer, Don Wood, Frank Ball, George Musacchio, Joel Heck, Joy Jordan-Lake, Kemper Crabb, Kim Gilnett, Laurence Harwood, Narnia, Navasota, Oxford, Scott Irwin, Skip Ryan, Southwest Regional Retreat, Steve Laube, Summer Seminars, Terry Glaspey, Texas, The Kilns, The Kilns Study Centre, Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Walter Hooper, Writers Workshop

The Magician's Book

Jordan Davis recently wrote a review of Laura Miller’s Magician’s Book in the May 25th edition of The Nation.

The review, titled “Into the Wardrobe: C.S. Lewis’s Narnia,” has just been posted on line.  In it, Davis makes observations about C.S. Lewis, his writings, and Laura Miller’s book, most of them aimed at exploring Miller’s central question about how readers form strong, and even lifelong, connections to Lewis’ stories, especially Narnia.

Here are a two excerpts:

Born in 1898 to a Belfast solicitor and his mathematics-trained wife, C.S. Lewis, or Jack, as he preferred to be called, was deemed by his tutor for the Oxford entrance exams to have been “born with the literary temperament,” and “while admirably adapted for excellence and probably for distinction in literary matters, he is adapted for nothing else.” It was true. An admirer of Beatrix Potter, young Jack wrote talking-animal novels and came to have hopes of success as a poet. One thing got in the way: he was not a poet. And not, by the way, in the manner in which Ford Madox Ford wasn’t a poet–Ford in his poems lived up to his standard that poetry should be at least as well written as prose. Lewis talked down to himself in his poems; this is the fatal flaw in much of what we know as bad poetry…

…In his criticism and the Narnia books, Lewis puts a premium on lush physical description, going beyond sight and sound to emphasize smell, taste and touch whenever possible. And he has the knack for what Soviet critic Viktor Shklovsky called ostranenie, or “enstrangement”–presenting familiar objects, scenes, feelings or even religious beliefs in an unfamiliar light so that the reader can experience them as if for the first time. These are indispensable qualities of Lewis’s best work, but they do not in themselves explain the fervor with which young readers form lifelong attachments to his stories.

For the full article, please visit The Nation by clicking here.

Tags: C.S. Lewis, Chronicles of Narnia, Jordan Davis, Laura Miller, literature, Narnia, The Magician's Book

Cathy Crow, one of our friends and an alumnus of several of our conferences, including Oxbridge 2008, recently sent us an article describing her church’s creation of a Narnia themed library.  Cathy, a professional librarian, spearheaded the project, and is featured in the article.  We thank the Columbia Metropolitan magazine, author Susan Fuller Slack, and photographers Jane Ellen Moore and Lynn Greenlee, who gave us permission to repost the article and photos.

Through the Wardrobe
Northeast Presbyterian Church’s Magical Land of Books.

Once upon a time…

The Wardrobe Doors to the Library

When the church library was established at Northeast Presbyterian Church on Polo Road, it took shape through the vision and dreams of Cathy Crow, a professional librarian and wife of the church’s pastor, George Crow. One of Cathy’s goals was to give the library a unique indentify, so she decided to name it The Lamppost. It was a reflection, in part, upon the words of Psalm 119:105: “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.”

Another lamppost that influenced Cathy’s design was from The Chronicles of Narnia, a series of seven children’s books sprung from the mind of Irish-born writer C.S. Lewis. The writer penned the first volume, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, in 1950, and librarians, teachers and parents in the United Kingdom voted the timeless tale the most influential children’s book of the 20th century.

Cathy and George Crow

In the story, four British children decide to explore an old-fashioned coat wardrobe and inadvertently pass through an entryway to Narnia, a magical land of enchantment that is populated with a rich diversity of wondrous beings. The children pledge allegiance to the wise and powerful golden lion Aslan. In an epic battle they triumph over cruel Queen Jadis, the White Witch who blankets the land with endless winter.

Visitors Posed on Narnian Thrones for Photo Opportunities

Lewis’ writings influenced Cathy’s spiritual growth and ultimately the development of the church library because, she says, “They reflect the best in Christian scholarship and literature.” Scholars say that Lewis was noted equally for literary scholarship and for his intellectual and witty expositions of Christian tenets.

Cathy explains that Northeast Presbyterian Church was growing, and the library needed to grow with it. So plans were developed for a new multipurpose building with ample room in the atrium for both an adult’s library and a special children’s library. Today, the welcoming new atrium evokes a sense of openness warmed with sunlight, and the expansive floor plan offers several intimate seating areas. Pam and Andrew Grayson, a designer and an architect from Birmingham, Ala., who also happen to be family members, designed the children’s facility.
Read the rest of this entry »

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Tags: Cathy Crow, children, library, Narnia, Northeast Presbyterian Church, Oxbridge 2008, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe

A winter scene from the common room window at The Kilns, This is where Lewis' desk sat, one of the locations where Narnia and many of his other books were penned. (photo copyright 2008, Diana Glyer)

Recently, we had the pleasure of hosting our friends and conference faculty members, Malcolm Guite and Diana Glyer, at the C.S. Lewis Study Centre at The Kilns.

After their visit, Diana posted up a few photos of her stay.  Upon seeing the photo of the window behind C.S. Lewis’ desk (reprinted here), Malcolm commented:

Surely one of the most important windows in the world:

“A man that looks on glass
Onit may stay his eye
Or if he pleaseth through it pass
And then the Heavens espy”

(excerpt of George Herbert’s “The Elixir”)

Here’s the full poem:

The Elixir

George Herbert (1593-1633)

TEACH me, my God and King,
In all things Thee to see,
And what I do in anything
To do it as for Thee.

Not rudely, as a beast
To run into an action;
But still to make Thee prepossest
And give it his perfection.

A man that looks on glass
On it may stay his eye,
Or if he pleaseth, through it pass,
And then the heaven espy.

All may of Thee partake
Nothing can be so mean
Which with his tincture, ‘for Thy sake,’
Will not grow bright and clean.

A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine;
Who sweeps a room, as for Thy laws,
Makes that and the action fine.

This is the famous stone
That turneth all to gold,
For that which God doth touch and own
Cannot for less be told.

Diana Pavlac Glyer —Professor of English at Azusa Pacific University. She has been widely recognized for her work on C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Inklings, including contributions to The C.S. Lewis Readers’ Encyclopedia and C.S. Lewis: Life, Works, and Legacy. She is the recipient of the Wade Center’s Clyde S. Kilby Research Grant (1997), APU’s Chase A. Sawtell Inspirational Teaching Award (2002), and the Imperishable Flame Award for Tolkien Scholarship (2007). Her latest book is The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community.

Malcolm Guite — Chaplain and Fellow, Girton College, Cambridge, and teacher of Literature and Pastoral Theology for the Cambridge Federation of Theological Colleges. Trained for the Priesthood at Ridley Hall, Cambridge, he was ordained in 1990. His doctoral thesis focused on the links between the theology of Lancelot Andrewes and the poetry of T.S. Eliot. Guite is involved with a number of projects linking theology and the arts, and has published poetry, literary criticism and theology in various journals. His book, What do Christians Believe?, was published by Granta in 2006. As founder of the rock band, Mystery Train, Guite writes lyrics and performs on guitar and vocals.

Tags: C.S. Lewis, Narnia, The C.S. Lewis Study Centre, The Kilns