My good friend Kirk Brooks called to tell me that he was listening to a Wendell Berry interview on the radio, and I might want to listen to it, too. I did; and turned the radio on right away, not knowing how far into the interview he was, and what I might have already missed.
It turned out that the radio program was the sound portion of a very recent and very rare video interview that was done by Bill Moyers. Rare, because Mr. Berry does television interviews only rarely; and recent, because the video has apparently just been released to the internet. One quick on-line search, and I found it. And so, as it turned out, I got to both hear and watch the entire presentation.
I think that people who are familiar with Wendell Berry's life and writings will enjoy watching this interview; and for those who have not yet made his acquaintance, this might be a good time. The presentation runs for a little less than an hour.
Here is the link to the Bill Moyers interview with Wendell Berry.
* * *
Your comments are most welcome.
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Monday, December 2, 2013
What's Wrong With The World
About a century ago, some organ of the British press raised the question, "What's Wrong With The World?", and invited comment. All things considered (such as, who were doing the asking, and of whom they were asking it), I think it was both an appropriate and a necessary question. After all, the Brits had conquered and controlled -- forgive me, I meant to say developed and civilized -- a pretty good chunk of the world and exercised H. M. 's authority over all living things that dwelt upon the face of the same; so, if there was a perceived wrong, they were good candidates to deal with the question.
G. K. Chesterton famously answered the question in two words: "What's wrong with the world? I am." And then he proceeded to write a fine book which addressed the question, which I heartily recommend to any and all.
I might have suggested to him (had I been living at the time) that an equally good alternative would have been to box up a few hundred cheap hand mirrors and mail them in to the newspaper, for distribution around the City of London as they saw fit, beginning at the sanctuary, so that they could have reflected upon the question, and the answer, at their leisure. But that suggestion might not have accorded with Chesterton's sense of charity, so I withdraw the suggestion. He said that he was the problem, and so I will defer to him on that.
Nevertheless, for whatever may have been true in his time and place, he is long gone. And God is still in His heaven, and all is still not quite right with the world, so I am casting about for other answers than putting all the responsibility upon Chesterton's broad (but absent) shoulders.
Before I go too far afield here, I want to say that I think that there is much that is right with the world, very much in fact, and all that is right with the world should be acknowledged, understood, loved, admired, encouraged, preserved, cultivated, left alone, and so forth. The world has lots of good and beautiful places, and good, generous, loving and true-hearted people, and a still abundant joy of life and living things. This must be said, and said repeatedly.
Still, the more I actually like the world and the good folks in it, the more I notice that very, very much is wrong.
Take world cultures, for example. The more I like England, the less I like the City-of-London establishment. The more I find to like about the Russians, the less I like the Bolsheviks who imposed mass violence upon them in the name of some "historical imperative." The more I personally interact with good people from China, the less respect I have for the policies of the Party that governs them.
As for America? The more I like what the Constitution says (even if it is flawed, as it may be), the less I like what Washington, D.C. says either for it or against it. The more I think about the real virtues of "free enterprise" (and I think they are many), the less I find to like about those "entrepreneurs" who are all about starting some big deal, but with the intent to quickly "cash out" and live on the proceeds. Nor am I impressed by the much-touted "daring venture capitalists" who courageously finance them with other people's money. (And given the Fed and the World Bank, it is all other people's money, and Monopoly money at that.)
I could go on, but you get the idea.
Now I know I might be fairly charged with being merely "another idealist who has been mugged by reality," -- you know, like the guy who says, "I like the human race, it's just people I can't stand" -- but I don't think that this is true in my case. And I doubt that it is true in your case, either.
I think that what is disturbing me about the world is the prevalence of "Spider Consciousness," if I may call it that.
Not that I have anything against natural spiders and how they think, either the beautiful garden spiders who weave their predatory webs across trails, or the dangerous fiddle-backs, or even the black widows who are said to devour their husbands on their wedding day. No doubt they all have their necessary place in the natural order.
But I have something against people who imitate spiders, spinning webs of deceit, and paralyzing and devouring their prey. Anyone who manages to get caught in their web is seen as a lower life form, a perfectly legitimate victim, to have the life sucked out. And when it is to their personal advantage, they will readily devour their own.
Spider Consciousness thinks something like this:
1. There is no such thing as cooperation, except as an expedient to further my Spider-Self-Interest. And healthy competition is a dangerous enemy. In fact, healthy anything is a threat, except as it serves as a meal for me.
2. I'll buy up a company, strip it of assets, and bankrupt it. I'll pay my employees less than a full wage for the value of their work; then take the "legitimate profits" and sock them away in the Cayman Islands.
3. In fact, not only will I not pay a full wage, I won't even pay a minimum wage. I'll smuggle poor "illegals" into the country, pay them a pittance, and keep them hostage to the fact that I might stop "protecting" them. Then, I'll even fight the "amnesty laws," since my hold over them requires that they be considered "illegal."
4. Since I can see that mutual greed might be even more profitable than my own solitary version, I will bargain with my fellow Spiders on matters of mutual interest. In certain circumstances, several webs carefully arranged may be more productive of . . . food . . . than if they were in isolation. So let us invent, and play, and sell, The Corporate Spider Game.
5. We will create and staff government agencies charged to perform some real or imagined "social good," like building urban housing. Offer good bureaucratic jobs to our people. Have them contract with our companies to do the work, and then we won't do it. We'll just take the money. If there is an investigation (unlikely), we will obstruct it. If there are "whistleblowers" (unlikely) we will intimidate them with threats from "higher up" -- and they know that we can and will deliver on our threats. If they are too stupid, or principled, to understand this, then we will frame and prosecute them.
6. We will make a web out of the law, and then use it to entrap people. Forbid drug dealing and then run "sting" operations. We will forbid "illegal plants" (like marijuana); and then run aerial surveillance and ground searches on private property, so we can confiscate the property of people -- even if we have to plant the "evidence" ourselves.
7. We will use special ops to corner the drug production market at the production end, as in Colombia or Afghanistan; use Air America and "national security" protection to ship the drugs into the "Homeland"; once there, we will (using the government, which we have made permanently schizoid) selectively carry out our well-funded "drug war" in order to eliminate our rivals and protect our monopoly.
8. We will buy up friends and contacts in law enforcement, and run our child prostitution and slavery rings with impunity.
9. We will create internet sites for sexual solicitations. We will lure people onto these sites. If they take our bait, we will turn them over to our secret police and prosecutors and judges to be dealt with.
We will make sure that looking at pornography (the kind that is certified and distributed by the movie industry) is greatly advertised and encouraged and widespread; while possession of homemade or downloaded porn is an extremely serious prosecutable offense; a felony, in fact. We may produce and sell it to the masses; but if they are caught possessing it, it is a grave crime.
10. We will subvert the rest of the world with loan-sharking, illicit favors, and economic hit men. We will shamelessly take from their poor -- their land, their natural resources, their way of life. If their governments resist us, we will engineer coups d'etat. We will sell their governments arms to put down "internal subversion" and "domestic terrorism" that we will incite. We will endlessly play two or three sides against each other. The rich elites who are trying to run impoverished countries will be encouraged to run up enormous debts to us; they will default; and we will demand repayment from their poor.
11. We will infiltrate enemy countries and governments with FBI and CIA men, forcing our contemptuous (and contemptible) notions on their people, their liberties, and their governments. We will train their police to use our methods, and sell them on our standards of crime and punishment.
12. In fact, we will develop our own complete agenda:
If our enemies hunger, we will sell them genetically damaged food and patented seeds;
if they thirst, we will regulate, fluoridate, and poison their drink with nuclear wastes;
if they are naked, we will arrest them for public nudity;
if they are sick, we will regulate and ration their healthcare;
if they are in prison, we will overcrowd them, rape them, deny them decent medical care, confine them in harsh conditions, suicide them, and "privatize" them to some prison-industrial corporation that will provide the cheapest possible "service" to the prisoners, while maximally charging the state.
And if the Lord tries to come back, on our watch, to call us to account for what we do, we will kill Him -- watch.
With all due respect to G. K. Chesterton, I don't think that he was ever "what's wrong with the world."
G. K. Chesterton famously answered the question in two words: "What's wrong with the world? I am." And then he proceeded to write a fine book which addressed the question, which I heartily recommend to any and all.
I might have suggested to him (had I been living at the time) that an equally good alternative would have been to box up a few hundred cheap hand mirrors and mail them in to the newspaper, for distribution around the City of London as they saw fit, beginning at the sanctuary, so that they could have reflected upon the question, and the answer, at their leisure. But that suggestion might not have accorded with Chesterton's sense of charity, so I withdraw the suggestion. He said that he was the problem, and so I will defer to him on that.
Nevertheless, for whatever may have been true in his time and place, he is long gone. And God is still in His heaven, and all is still not quite right with the world, so I am casting about for other answers than putting all the responsibility upon Chesterton's broad (but absent) shoulders.
Before I go too far afield here, I want to say that I think that there is much that is right with the world, very much in fact, and all that is right with the world should be acknowledged, understood, loved, admired, encouraged, preserved, cultivated, left alone, and so forth. The world has lots of good and beautiful places, and good, generous, loving and true-hearted people, and a still abundant joy of life and living things. This must be said, and said repeatedly.
Still, the more I actually like the world and the good folks in it, the more I notice that very, very much is wrong.
Take world cultures, for example. The more I like England, the less I like the City-of-London establishment. The more I find to like about the Russians, the less I like the Bolsheviks who imposed mass violence upon them in the name of some "historical imperative." The more I personally interact with good people from China, the less respect I have for the policies of the Party that governs them.
As for America? The more I like what the Constitution says (even if it is flawed, as it may be), the less I like what Washington, D.C. says either for it or against it. The more I think about the real virtues of "free enterprise" (and I think they are many), the less I find to like about those "entrepreneurs" who are all about starting some big deal, but with the intent to quickly "cash out" and live on the proceeds. Nor am I impressed by the much-touted "daring venture capitalists" who courageously finance them with other people's money. (And given the Fed and the World Bank, it is all other people's money, and Monopoly money at that.)
I could go on, but you get the idea.
Now I know I might be fairly charged with being merely "another idealist who has been mugged by reality," -- you know, like the guy who says, "I like the human race, it's just people I can't stand" -- but I don't think that this is true in my case. And I doubt that it is true in your case, either.
I think that what is disturbing me about the world is the prevalence of "Spider Consciousness," if I may call it that.
Not that I have anything against natural spiders and how they think, either the beautiful garden spiders who weave their predatory webs across trails, or the dangerous fiddle-backs, or even the black widows who are said to devour their husbands on their wedding day. No doubt they all have their necessary place in the natural order.
But I have something against people who imitate spiders, spinning webs of deceit, and paralyzing and devouring their prey. Anyone who manages to get caught in their web is seen as a lower life form, a perfectly legitimate victim, to have the life sucked out. And when it is to their personal advantage, they will readily devour their own.
Spider Consciousness thinks something like this:
1. There is no such thing as cooperation, except as an expedient to further my Spider-Self-Interest. And healthy competition is a dangerous enemy. In fact, healthy anything is a threat, except as it serves as a meal for me.
2. I'll buy up a company, strip it of assets, and bankrupt it. I'll pay my employees less than a full wage for the value of their work; then take the "legitimate profits" and sock them away in the Cayman Islands.
3. In fact, not only will I not pay a full wage, I won't even pay a minimum wage. I'll smuggle poor "illegals" into the country, pay them a pittance, and keep them hostage to the fact that I might stop "protecting" them. Then, I'll even fight the "amnesty laws," since my hold over them requires that they be considered "illegal."
4. Since I can see that mutual greed might be even more profitable than my own solitary version, I will bargain with my fellow Spiders on matters of mutual interest. In certain circumstances, several webs carefully arranged may be more productive of . . . food . . . than if they were in isolation. So let us invent, and play, and sell, The Corporate Spider Game.
5. We will create and staff government agencies charged to perform some real or imagined "social good," like building urban housing. Offer good bureaucratic jobs to our people. Have them contract with our companies to do the work, and then we won't do it. We'll just take the money. If there is an investigation (unlikely), we will obstruct it. If there are "whistleblowers" (unlikely) we will intimidate them with threats from "higher up" -- and they know that we can and will deliver on our threats. If they are too stupid, or principled, to understand this, then we will frame and prosecute them.
6. We will make a web out of the law, and then use it to entrap people. Forbid drug dealing and then run "sting" operations. We will forbid "illegal plants" (like marijuana); and then run aerial surveillance and ground searches on private property, so we can confiscate the property of people -- even if we have to plant the "evidence" ourselves.
7. We will use special ops to corner the drug production market at the production end, as in Colombia or Afghanistan; use Air America and "national security" protection to ship the drugs into the "Homeland"; once there, we will (using the government, which we have made permanently schizoid) selectively carry out our well-funded "drug war" in order to eliminate our rivals and protect our monopoly.
8. We will buy up friends and contacts in law enforcement, and run our child prostitution and slavery rings with impunity.
9. We will create internet sites for sexual solicitations. We will lure people onto these sites. If they take our bait, we will turn them over to our secret police and prosecutors and judges to be dealt with.
We will make sure that looking at pornography (the kind that is certified and distributed by the movie industry) is greatly advertised and encouraged and widespread; while possession of homemade or downloaded porn is an extremely serious prosecutable offense; a felony, in fact. We may produce and sell it to the masses; but if they are caught possessing it, it is a grave crime.
10. We will subvert the rest of the world with loan-sharking, illicit favors, and economic hit men. We will shamelessly take from their poor -- their land, their natural resources, their way of life. If their governments resist us, we will engineer coups d'etat. We will sell their governments arms to put down "internal subversion" and "domestic terrorism" that we will incite. We will endlessly play two or three sides against each other. The rich elites who are trying to run impoverished countries will be encouraged to run up enormous debts to us; they will default; and we will demand repayment from their poor.
11. We will infiltrate enemy countries and governments with FBI and CIA men, forcing our contemptuous (and contemptible) notions on their people, their liberties, and their governments. We will train their police to use our methods, and sell them on our standards of crime and punishment.
12. In fact, we will develop our own complete agenda:
If our enemies hunger, we will sell them genetically damaged food and patented seeds;
if they thirst, we will regulate, fluoridate, and poison their drink with nuclear wastes;
if they are naked, we will arrest them for public nudity;
if they are sick, we will regulate and ration their healthcare;
if they are in prison, we will overcrowd them, rape them, deny them decent medical care, confine them in harsh conditions, suicide them, and "privatize" them to some prison-industrial corporation that will provide the cheapest possible "service" to the prisoners, while maximally charging the state.
And if the Lord tries to come back, on our watch, to call us to account for what we do, we will kill Him -- watch.
With all due respect to G. K. Chesterton, I don't think that he was ever "what's wrong with the world."
Thursday, November 28, 2013
Briefly On The Assassination
Friday, November 22, 1963. The circumstances surrounding the death of President Kennedy, fifty years ago, gives rise to a couple of brief thoughts.
There are two separately interesting things to me -- the crime and the cover-up. The crime was committed in a few seconds; the cover-up has lasted for fifty years.
The crime was plotted in secret, but committed in the open air, in broad daylight, with a hundred witnesses, and yet we still can't be sure who did it.
The cover-up has been orchestrated behind closed doors, but necessarily performed across the media and across the world, by highly visible speakers and writers and actors; there are a billion witnesses to this, and we can watch them do it, still doing it after fifty years.
Amazing. How do they pull these things off?
There are two separately interesting things to me -- the crime and the cover-up. The crime was committed in a few seconds; the cover-up has lasted for fifty years.
The crime was plotted in secret, but committed in the open air, in broad daylight, with a hundred witnesses, and yet we still can't be sure who did it.
The cover-up has been orchestrated behind closed doors, but necessarily performed across the media and across the world, by highly visible speakers and writers and actors; there are a billion witnesses to this, and we can watch them do it, still doing it after fifty years.
Amazing. How do they pull these things off?
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Fred Reed Considers Complexity
I almost always enjoy reading Reed. (Not always: he is capable of laying the occasional bad egg: but not too often.)
Why do I enjoy him? you ask. I reply, "I give you the following reasons.
"1. His point of view is very much his own. I think that the word I am looking for is, 'idiosyncratic.'
"2. He comes up with great turns of phrase, usually witty, and sometimes downright wise.
"3. I can think of a bunch more reasons. In fact, I was just writing them down; but by the magic of word processing, I succeeded in intentionally deleting them. (No need to thank me.)"
So, having done with replies, I direct you to a recent post of his -- uncharacteristically long, and uncharacteristically serious -- entitled, with a certain flightiness, "The Bugs Of Darwin."
Read it through, and you will come upon these bon mots:
"Stupidity beyond a certain point is intractable."
"We are not as wise as we think. I reiterate Fred´s Principle: The smartest of a large number of hamsters is still a hamster."
"When people become accustomed to things that make no sense, they begin to seem to."
"I can perhaps imagine an Airbus 380 assembling itself. I cannot begin to imagine the foregoing evolving on its own."
"Descartes famously said, 'Cogito ergo sum.' Ambrose Bierce less famously but more insightfully said, 'Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum. Cogito.'"
Ah, you say, now that I have served up the bon-bons, there is no need for eating the rest of what is on the plate, the meat and potatoes of the thing. If that is what you think, I give you this one of Fred's radishes:
"You have to be smoking Drano."
Why do I enjoy him? you ask. I reply, "I give you the following reasons.
"1. His point of view is very much his own. I think that the word I am looking for is, 'idiosyncratic.'
"2. He comes up with great turns of phrase, usually witty, and sometimes downright wise.
"3. I can think of a bunch more reasons. In fact, I was just writing them down; but by the magic of word processing, I succeeded in intentionally deleting them. (No need to thank me.)"
So, having done with replies, I direct you to a recent post of his -- uncharacteristically long, and uncharacteristically serious -- entitled, with a certain flightiness, "The Bugs Of Darwin."
Read it through, and you will come upon these bon mots:
"Stupidity beyond a certain point is intractable."
"We are not as wise as we think. I reiterate Fred´s Principle: The smartest of a large number of hamsters is still a hamster."
"When people become accustomed to things that make no sense, they begin to seem to."
"I can perhaps imagine an Airbus 380 assembling itself. I cannot begin to imagine the foregoing evolving on its own."
"Descartes famously said, 'Cogito ergo sum.' Ambrose Bierce less famously but more insightfully said, 'Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum. Cogito.'"
Ah, you say, now that I have served up the bon-bons, there is no need for eating the rest of what is on the plate, the meat and potatoes of the thing. If that is what you think, I give you this one of Fred's radishes:
"You have to be smoking Drano."
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
C. M. Sturges: Woe To The Little Boys
Some of you know about John Taylor Gatto, the highly regarded, highly experienced, highly qualified educator who is also very outspoken about what is deeply wrong in the American educational system today. Mr. Gatto did not write the link that is referenced below, but he is quoted prominently — I think his opinions are very much worth paying attention to.
The further discussion by the writer of the post -- C. M. Sturges -- includes, but is not limited to, the use of Ritalin to control the behavior of school boys.
The link was recommended by a reader. I urge that it be carefully read by fathers, educators, and church leaders (and anyone else). It's title, “Woe To The Little Boys,” is more truth than hype. Our young boys in America are in a very bad situation, and I for one don't see a workable way out for many of them.
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Christians, Drug Use, And Death
A few years ago, I attended the funeral of a friend who died in a single-car accident. The accident took place in the middle of the night -- about 3 a.m. -- on a quiet highway in the country. His vehicle was traveling at a high rate of speed, he missed the tight turn, he hit the trees. He survived for an hour or two.
He was familiar with the road; he had driven it his entire life, and he was long since retired. His beloved wife of over forty years had died a couple of years earlier. He was known to be grieving her loss. He was, himself, seriously ill. Suicide, perhaps?
Perhaps. Perhaps not. Because of his own illness, he was on several strong medications -- doctor's prescriptions, doctor's orders -- that were, among other things, "mood altering." Who could blame the doctor for what he thought was in the patient's best interests? Perhaps those prescriptions were the very best that "modern research" can provide. At least, they were government-approved.
The man had complained to his children, a few days before, that the medicines, or their interactions, were affecting his mind, his judgment. He had been having strange thoughts, and he didn't like that. He wasn't sure that he ought to be taking them. But he was the kind of old fellow who "follows doctors' orders," after all.
And then, suddenly, he was gone. Thankfully, no one else was injured in the accident. He received a Christian burial, as of course he should.
This is not meant to be a blame game: I am entirely unwilling to assign any blame to anyone, in this case. Doctors certainly know more about serious illnesses than I do, and face hard questions in difficult cases.
But I would like to raise a question about other cases, where "blaming" is already quite intense, not only in the mainstream media, but in the conversations I hear among Christian people. I have observed that both groups, the media people and the Christian people, are famously sure that they have all the answers, not only for themselves, but also for the rest of "society." They have answers regarding drug use, and death, that include lawsuits, prison terms, public condemnations, and anticipations of the Final Judgment. (I said, "they," as if I were speaking of others than myself -- I readily grant that I am a member of both groups. I have been a practicing Christian, and a practicing writer and speaker, for the greater part of my life; so I might as well have said, "we.")
What do we think, then, when we find out that young men who break into schools, theaters, and army bases -- and kill dozens of people -- are on strong (prescription) medications -- medications that have, and are sometimes intended to have, known, severe mood-altering effects?
What, when on the other hand, we impose felony-class prison sentences on people for mild drug use, in which no real crime has been committed?
What, when we treat drug use and drug addictions as crimes in and of themselves, rather than as obligating us, as caring people -- let alone Christians who are under a strict command to heal the sick, forgive sins, and practice charity in all cases -- to act in ways that ameliorate tragedies and avoid the perpetuation of injustices, rather than making matters worse, and casting burdens, punishments, and sanctions upon relatively ordinary, relatively harmless people and their families?
But I think that I am speaking into the wind. A strong wind that is blowing in the opposite direction.
He was familiar with the road; he had driven it his entire life, and he was long since retired. His beloved wife of over forty years had died a couple of years earlier. He was known to be grieving her loss. He was, himself, seriously ill. Suicide, perhaps?
Perhaps. Perhaps not. Because of his own illness, he was on several strong medications -- doctor's prescriptions, doctor's orders -- that were, among other things, "mood altering." Who could blame the doctor for what he thought was in the patient's best interests? Perhaps those prescriptions were the very best that "modern research" can provide. At least, they were government-approved.
The man had complained to his children, a few days before, that the medicines, or their interactions, were affecting his mind, his judgment. He had been having strange thoughts, and he didn't like that. He wasn't sure that he ought to be taking them. But he was the kind of old fellow who "follows doctors' orders," after all.
And then, suddenly, he was gone. Thankfully, no one else was injured in the accident. He received a Christian burial, as of course he should.
This is not meant to be a blame game: I am entirely unwilling to assign any blame to anyone, in this case. Doctors certainly know more about serious illnesses than I do, and face hard questions in difficult cases.
But I would like to raise a question about other cases, where "blaming" is already quite intense, not only in the mainstream media, but in the conversations I hear among Christian people. I have observed that both groups, the media people and the Christian people, are famously sure that they have all the answers, not only for themselves, but also for the rest of "society." They have answers regarding drug use, and death, that include lawsuits, prison terms, public condemnations, and anticipations of the Final Judgment. (I said, "they," as if I were speaking of others than myself -- I readily grant that I am a member of both groups. I have been a practicing Christian, and a practicing writer and speaker, for the greater part of my life; so I might as well have said, "we.")
What do we think, then, when we find out that young men who break into schools, theaters, and army bases -- and kill dozens of people -- are on strong (prescription) medications -- medications that have, and are sometimes intended to have, known, severe mood-altering effects?
What, when on the other hand, we impose felony-class prison sentences on people for mild drug use, in which no real crime has been committed?
What, when we treat drug use and drug addictions as crimes in and of themselves, rather than as obligating us, as caring people -- let alone Christians who are under a strict command to heal the sick, forgive sins, and practice charity in all cases -- to act in ways that ameliorate tragedies and avoid the perpetuation of injustices, rather than making matters worse, and casting burdens, punishments, and sanctions upon relatively ordinary, relatively harmless people and their families?
But I think that I am speaking into the wind. A strong wind that is blowing in the opposite direction.
Sunday, October 20, 2013
Devin Brown: A Life Observed
A book review
Devin Brown, a professor of English at Asbury University, has just published (2013) A Life Observed: A Spiritual Biography Of C. S. Lewis. He was in town last month, along with Lewis' stepson, Douglas Gresham (now in his late sixties), to talk about the famous Christian writer, and his life, and the new book. I went to the presentation, enjoyed listening to both Brown and Gresham, and bought the book. It is good.
The book lives up to its title, and exceeded my expectations: it is, indeed, a spiritual biography, weaving Lewis's life experiences, the development of his personality, his long and indirect journey to faith, his imaginative and spiritual insights, his friendships, and his feelings, from his birth in Ireland in 1898 to his death in England in 1963. I have read several other biographies, or commentaries, on the life of Lewis, and they have been pretty good; but I would rate Dr. Brown's recent book as the best.
I am one of many thousands of Christians who have been decisively influenced by C. S. Lewis. I remember discovering him when I was about nineteen. I picked up two of his books on the same day: Screwtape Letters, and Miracles. It was Miracles that did it for me; it was as if Lewis had awakened my mind; and from then on I would see things differently, and think differently. In the years following, I read just about everything that Lewis had written; and I would venture to say that there have been very few years since then that I have not re-read one or two of his books. Like anything by G. K. Chesterton, J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, Wendell Berry, and a handful of others, they can always be counted upon to be a benefit and blessing to the mind.
Brown's biography of Lewis avoids the temptation to be a hagiography, and it avoids the opposite temptation to "reassess" Lewis or "reinterpret" him. It is simply a well-written history of his life and the development of his thinking. Here is a paragraph where he quotes Austin Farrer, speaking at Lewis' funeral:
"Farrer commented that, as a writer, Lewis had a unique way of integrating his thoughts, emotions, and imagination -- not compartmentalizing them -- and that it was this 'feeling intellect' and 'intellectual imagination' that gave power to the many works Lewis had left behind. 'There lived in his writings,' Farrer told those who had come to honor their friend, teacher, and colleague, 'a Christian universe which could be both thought and felt, in which he was at home, and in which he made his reader at home.' "
At the book-signing, I said to Douglas Gresham that I hoped that one day I would get to read his biography. He immediately replied that I could: it is called Lenten Lands, and he wrote it many years ago. I was able to get hold of a copy, and enjoyed it, too. His focus is on his childhood and teenage years in the Lewis household, but he goes on to talk about his own later life, travels, marriage, and family. His stories are interesting, insightful, and well told.
In times like our own, when George Orwell's prophetic warnings about our society's nature are especially and immediately troubling, remembering C. S. Lewis is a good thing.
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