Monday Morning Music Ministry

2-26-24

I am going to take you on a brief tour of some surprising places. I have had the wanderlust all my life, and have discovered that some legendary places (the “Room with a View”) can be mundane; and some very memorable sites greet us unannounced.

For instance, strolling around Venice (yes, one can walk around that city), I once turned a corner and came face-to-face with a plaque identifying a modest building as the birthplace of composer Antonio Vivaldi. It seemed to me like holy ground.

In Rome I stood in the plaza in front of the meticulously preserved Pantheon, where once stood the Temple Agrippa. Inside are the tombs of the artist Raphael and the composer Arcangelo Corelli (I think one of the most beautiful names ever borne by a person) but the plaza is where St Paul, having arrived in Rome by foot along the Appian Way, first shared the Gospel in the seat of the Roman Empire. I stood where he stood. Holier ground.

In Ireland, at a roadside stop by a modest chapel, I saw in its even more modest cemetery the gravestone of the great poet William Butler Yeats… revealed by no special markers nor arrows. By pure serendipity I found myself on holy ground, as it felt to me; secular – but you may know what I mean.

I had a similar experience at the other corner of Ireland, so to speak. A friend and I had traversed, roughly, the perimeter of that wonderful island over two weeks. Near the vacation’s end we sought lodgings outside Belfast. Rather by chance – without, that is, any premonition of another “holy ground” experience in the offing – we found ourselves in a little village called Crawfordsburn in County Down. There was an ancient Old Inn (it calls itself), rambling and half-timbered. It had charms and, most importantly, a room to rent and a restaurant.

I was startled to read an unpretentious plaque on the wall when I registered. It stated that decades ago members of the legendary Inklings group occasionally met there (otherwise, more famously, in Oxford, in England). That was the famous circle of literary friends that included C S Lewis and J R R Tolkien. Moreover, since its establishment in 1614 the Old Inn had been a meeting place for writers including Swift, Tennyson, Thackeray, and Dickens. Holy ground, of sorts, for me, a writer.

Most pertinent, or compelling, according to the plaque, was that the Old Inn was where C S Lewis and his wife Joy Davidman spent their honeymoon.

Most readers will be quite familiar with Lewis’s classic stories in the Chronicles of Narnia books. I had not read them (almost alone among my friends and my own children). I hope that you readers are familiar with Lewis’s life and his tragically short marriage to Joy; there have been books and movies about them. Married late in life, Lewis was a former atheist who came to a saving, and influential, relationship with Christ. He fell in love with Joy, an American Jewess who died of cancer only four years into their marriage. Shadowlands is one telling of their remarkable and bittersweet life together.

The feeling of a presence on “Holy Ground” was scarcely related, I have said, to The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe or such classics. But C S Lewis was also known for his writing (and BBC broadcasts) as one of the greatest of all Christian apologists of any era; he was gifted to explain the Gospel in logical, layman’s terms. (By the way, Lewis’s favorite poet was Yeats; what a trip of “coincidences” that was for me!)

I am only one of millions whose faith has been awakened, challenged, informed, illuminated, inspired, and fortified by the simple truths C S Lewis powerfully explained and gently shared. Of his many works in the field (The Screwtape Letters; A Grief Observed; Surprised by Joy) the thin collection of essays Mere Christianity is the enduring classic.

I can paraphrase his powerful refutation of the common human tendency to acknowledge (really, dismiss) Jesus as “merely” a great teacher:

I want to prevent anyone from saying, “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.” That is the one thing you cannot say! A man who was merely a man but made the claims Jesus did would not be a great moral teacher; he would either be a lunatic – like a man who says he is a poached egg – or evil. Or the biggest of all liars.

You must make your choice. Either this Man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon… or you can fall at His feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher.

He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

Such is the beginning – perhaps, even, the culmination – of arguments you can make about this Jesus with atheists, agnostics, skeptics, scoffers, and, actually, your own self when you have moments of doubt.

C S Lewis brilliantly allowed us to relate to the Incarnation of God Almighty. Mighty? Yes. Distant, unapproachable? No. We can know Him as the Lover of our souls.

And, knowing Him… we can stand on holy ground.

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Click: Jesus Lover of My Soul

4-30-18

I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God. It changes me.

This is a line written by C S Lewis, the preeminent Christian apologist; and spoken by Anthony Hopkins’ portrayal of Lewis in the motion picture Shadowlands.

The movie observes its 25th anniversary this year. It is also the 25th anniversary of me being an idiot for never having watched Shadowlands. I revere the Oxford don Lewis and frequently quote him (for instance, in last week’s blog essay); I pass out copies of his humble but monumental Christian books (Mere Christianity; The Screwtape Letters); I had never read his children’s classics (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; others of the Chronicles of Narnia series) but my children did, and loved them. My daughter urged the movie Shadowlands on me.

But I never saw it. Sloppy and neglectful. I heard only good things about the biopic, as it were, of a hero.

I made up for lost time (reminding me that his friend Malcolm Muggeridge’s autobiography was entitled Chronicles of Lost Time) and perhaps prompted by last week’s quotation, my friend and I rented and watched. It was profoundly moving, one of the best motion pictures I have beheld.

Readers might recall that last year I described staying a night in the delightful Old Inn at Crawfordsburn in Bangor, County Down, outside Belfast, Northern Ireland. The sprawling, creeky, artifacts-crowded ancient inn had numerous charms of its own, not the least of which was a plaque modestly stating that C S Lewis and his bride Joy Gresham had spent their honeymoon (“a perfect fortnight”) there. Not very odd in itself – though a delightful surprise for me – because Lewis was born in nearby Belfast. Through the years he and his famous literary circle convened there.

Lewis had been an atheist and had traveled the same path to faith, or back to faith, that those literary fellows like J R R Tolkien, G K Chesterton, and Muggeridge did. Fallen-away, agnostic, skeptical, Socialist, atheist… all became not merely orthodox Christians but fervent believers, uniquely sharing the gospel with the world in ways that we categorize as “apologetics.”

Joy Gresham was an American Jewess who also converted to Christianity. During their short marriage she contracted and died of cancer. The agonizingly brief love story, their marriage of blossoming awareness, lasted from 1956 to 1960.

After Joy’s death, Lewis wrote a tender and thoughtful book on spiritual confrontations with death. Pain, grief, and suffering ironically had been major themes of his early lectures. After Joy’s death he wrote A Grief Observed, but he published it under a pen name, so as not to traffic in his loss. It was such a meaningful and profound book that on its publication, many of Lewis’ friends sent him the book as perfect reading to assuage his grief… not knowing he was the author.

The movie takes a few liberties, as movies do. For instance, the glorious and significant irony of that book about grief “cast upon the waters” and returning to him is not mentioned. Their movie-honeymoon was not to Crawfordsburn, but to a Lewis scene of fond childhood memory (imagine the eagerness to see the places of last year’s visit!)

Shadowlands had my memory race back in time, but not only to favorite books or a tourist spot. I hope it would have the same effect on you… even if, as I have pleaded guilty, you might not have not watched it either! When we confront the things that C S Lewis contemplated – the simplicity of Christianity; the overwhelming love of God; the profundity of grief; the essence of love – we savor the unique wisdom provided by those sensitive souls who know how to translate the Gospel from English to English.

That is, to bring us the blessings of seeing better, hearing more clearly, understanding in a richer manner, and feeling in ways you never thought were available to us. What life holds… what God offers. Things that were always there, of course; but somehow we miss. And by seizing them at the late moments of life, they are appreciated not as “last chances” but as sweet rewards.

Lewis had known Christianity, but ultimately came to know Christ: his head met his heart when Joy entered his life. Joy had known about religion, but when she taught her husband how to hold hands (literally), they found their way to the cross.

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Click: Miserere Mei Deus

7-31-17

I recently returned from two weeks in Ireland, a fact that might be wearying “news” to my readers and correspondents, but I am one of those people who experience new things, or visit a place for the first time, and come away with delight, enthusiasms, and a desire to share. (For instance, I invariably return from overseas and try to replicate dishes or cuisine methods in my own kitchen. This week I made fish and chips – with major variations – having been not tired of them but challenged.)

All of which is a justification for one more Irish reference.

There were many coincidences and random discoveries while traversing the Emerald Isle. To digress again, briefly, the joy – and hallmark – of a seasoned traveler is to program your itinerary, and your mind, in such ways that “coincidences” and “discoveries” will meet you at almost every turn.

Near the end of the trip, having circumtraversed the island’s two countries, we spent a night in the delightful Old Inn at Crawfordsburn in Bangor, County Down, outside Belfast. It was a random booking suggested by friends because there was no room in the other inn, so to speak – the nearby Hotel Culloden Estate and Spa of Holywood, a magnificent ancient five-star wonderland so exclusive that Room Service has an unlisted number. (That is a travel joke.)

The sprawling, creeky, artifacts-crowded ancient in Crawfordsburn had numerous charms of its own, not the least of which was a plaque modestly stating that C S Lewis and his bride Joy had spent their honeymoon (“a perfect fortnight”) there, before an eventual trip to Greece; and through the years he and his literary circle would convene there. Not Shadowlands but Crawfordsburn.

For generations of children, the association with “Chronicles of Narnia” and “Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe” is compelling. For generations of Christians, and surely generations to come, his simple classics of Apologetics and lay theology will continue to touch uncountable souls. “Mere Christianity,” “The Screwtape Letters,” “The Problem of Pain,” “Miracles,” “The Pilgrim’s Regress,” and other books by Lewis explained the tenets of faith to believers (and non-believers, as he once was) second only to the parables of Jesus, in some people’s opinion.

Lewis had been an atheist and had traveled the same path to faith, or back to faith, that his literary fellows (some of them the fraternal members of the “Inklings”) like J R R Tolkien, G K Chesterton, and Malcolm Muggeridge. Fallen-away, agnostic, skeptical, Socialist, atheist… all became not merely orthodox Christians but fervent believers, uniquely sharing the gospel in ways that we categorize as “apologetics.” The young Lewis even met the brilliant Irish poet William Butler Yeats – whose modest gravesite, again “coincidentally,” we stumbled across when stopping for a photo-op at a picturesque old church ruin on a country road! – and whose own relationship to Christianity was complicated but thought-provoking.

Lewis’ marriage was to an American Jewess who also converted to Christianity. After a short marriage (there IS a touchstone: Crawfordsburn; I have not forgotten!) she died of cancer. Lewis wrote a tender and thoughtful book on spiritual confrontations with death – but published it under a pen name, not to traffic in his loss.

It was such a meaningful and profound book that on its publication, many of Lewis’ friends sent him the book as perfect reading to assuage his grief, not knowing he was the author.

It is more than these coincidences – except the coincident result of my contemplating the great man since the trip – that inspires this essay. One of C S Lewis’ great books about faith is the modest yet intense “The Weight of Glory.”

Literary-minded people always are  impressed by phrases or titles that immediately capture an argument, or augur compelling thoughts. I suggest that “the weight of glory,” as a proposition, is pregnant with implications and challenges. I will briefly (you’re welcome) and feebly recommend its contemplation in a few rehashed words.

Glory. God’s glory. Salvation. When someone comes to “saving knowledge of God” – a personal relationship with Jesus – they have joy unspeakable, the greatest experience of this life. Or, naturally, eternity.

Christianity. The Bible, and C S Lewis among other exegetes, tell us how simply “mere” Christianity can be achieved in our lives. But the Bible, and relatively few evangelists through the centuries, remind of of how difficult it is – even weighty and sometimes burdensome – to be a Christian, to receive the glory of the Lord.

When you are a Christian, you must share Christ. If you knew the cure for someone’s fatal illness, you would share that information. Well… you do.

When you are a Christian, you cannot get enough of Him; you will have insatiable thirst. Your passion does not end when you swear an oath.

When you are a Christian, you pray without ceasing – praise and requests; desires and confessions.

When you are a Christian, it is because you are a Christ-follower in all ways; not merely Not a Jew, Not a Muslim, when people ask.

When you are a Christian, you will not only “put away childish things” of belief; you will BE renewed in mind and spirit – and feel it, and show it, and live it.

When you are a Christian, you will have charitable impulses you never felt. You will sacrifice. You will tend to the sick and hurting; you will ache to have your family join you in Glory.

These impulses are not simple membership rules. They will be the “fruit” you bear. And you will be “convicted” in your spirit if they do not become part of your conscious DNA.

Are they worth it? Oh, yes. But salvation will involve more than a refreshing moment and a spiritual “Get Out of Jail Free” card. It is what C S Lewis called “The Unspeakable Burden of Salvation.”

I do not believe in ghosts, but the lobbies and halls of the Old Inn at Crawfordsburn reminded me of C S Lewis’s life and career and writings: his clarity and his impact. Worthwhile remembrance! Christianity is “merely” simple, and profoundly transformative.

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Mo Pitney sings:

Click: Give Me Jesus

11-18-13

The late Malcolm Muggeridge was an iconic figure in British life and English letters. An essayist and critic, soldier and spy, journalist and satirist – he served as editor of Punch, the venerable humor magazine – he was, until his death at age 87 (1990) a thinker who was forever interested, and always interesting. He walked a path that similar intellectuals walked: an early interest in Socialism or Communism (his wife’s aunt was Beatrice Webb, the famous Fabian Socialist), then a roughly simultaneous conversion to conservatism and Christianity.

Those others include G. K. Chesterton; C. S. Lewis; Hilaire Belloc; in America, Whittaker Chambers – literary men whose early views were either Marxist or atheist or both (Lewis’ friend J. R. R. Tolkien wound up his journey as a profound Christian, but did not commence from a radical origin). Like these persuasive apologists, Muggeridge not only came to understand the gospel’s relevance to the contemporary world, but he was an extraordinarily gifted apostle, a missionary to his own people.

I recently came across Muggeridge’s thoughts inspired by, of all things, a caterpillar: “Quite often, waking up in the night as the old do, and feeling… like a butterfly released from its chrysalis stage and ready to fly away. Are caterpillars told of their impending resurrection? How in dying they will be transformed from poor earth-crawlers into creatures of the air, with exquisitely painted wings? If told, do they believe it? Is it conceivable to them that so constricted an existence as theirs should burgeon into so gay and lightsome a one as a butterfly’s? I imagine the wise old caterpillars shaking their heads – no, it can’t be; it’s a fantasy, self-deception, a dream.”

These are reflections not so much on the miracles of resurrection and of new life in Eternity – or, indeed, new life on earth after accepting Jesus – but upon humankind’s congenital disinclination to accept supernatural gifts of God. Deliverance? Healing? Forgiveness? Salvation? Eternal life with God? Available to ME? “No, it can’t be; it’s a fantasy, self-deception, a dream.”

At another time, perhaps inspired by the same encounter with a caterpillar, Muggeridge was challenged by his friend William F Buckley, on the latter’s television program “Firing Line,” to invent a parable whose meaning was unambiguous.

“I was actually watching a caterpillar in the path of my garden, a furry caterpillar. And I thought to myself: Now, supposing the caterpillars have an annual meeting, the local society of caterpillars. And my caterpillar, an older caterpillar, addressing them, says: ‘You know, it’s an extraordinary thing, but we are all going to be butterflies.’

“‘Okay,’ the caterpillars say. ‘You poor fool, you are just like an old man who is frightened of dying, you’re inventing something to comfort yourself.’ [But] these are all the things that people say to me when I say I am looking forward to dying because I know that I am going to go into eternity. You see?”

Buckley asked, “Please explain.”

“And so he – the caterpillar – abashed, draws back, but in a short time he is in his chrysalis, and, sure enough, he’s right. He extricates himself from the chrysalis, and he is no longer a creeper, which is what caterpillars are; he is flying away.”

As before, the lesson I derive is not – I should say not ONLY – that there is a New Life. Because we know that truth from God’s word; from examples of uncountable transformed sinners; and because some of us have experienced profound inner, spiritual changes. And in terms less prosaic but no less miraculous, we see examples of amorphous tadpoles become distinctive bullfrogs, and, indeed, creepy caterpillars become beautiful butterflies.

But in the parable of Muggeridge there are, once again, the other factors as old as humankind’s sentience: doubt, skepticism, ridicule, denial, and the old “scientific proofs” against the miracles of God Almighty. These attacks, and myriad attackers, can be daunting to a lonely believer.

Yet that scenario does not affect, at all, the Truth. Yes, it is the case that we can be (and, as Christians, are in the process of being) transformed from ugly and common, to precious and unique. The Truth does not rely on people’s opinions of it. Neither do God’s promises wait for the world’s vote on whether He will keep them.

Muggeridge’s predecessor C. S. Lewis wrote of the night his frankly intense devotion to atheism was transformed, melting (kicking and screaming at first?) to a realization of the Fact of God’s existence: “You must picture me alone in that room… night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. … I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most… reluctant convert in all England.”

And the rest of his days were glorious. The author of “Mere Christianity” and “The Screwtape Letters,” as Malcolm Muggeridge was to do a generation later – and as you and I may do this week – spread his new and colorful wings in splendor, affirming God’s transformative power… as a new creation in Christ.

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I have taken us back a century or so, visiting names of great converts, great exegetes. We can also visit the 1970s, when the Jesus Movement and other manifestations of “Born-Again” Christianity swept the nation. A children’s song that was savored by adults too – still, to today, as we all are a little grayer or (in the case of singer-songwriter Barry McGuire) balder. But still appreciating the joy, and the truth, of “Bull Frogs and Butterflies.” From a backstage interview in Australia recently:

Click: Bullfrogs and Butterflies