Reader's guide for Walking On Water                                                       February 14th 2019
Selected from Reader's Guide for Walking On Water   By Lindsay Lackey 


1.  When defined as a " Christian artist, " L'Engle admits she feels rebellious against the title and is reluctant to discuss Christian creativity. Do you understand her reservations? Why or why not?


2. L' Engle argues that all artists want to be noticed and have their art recognized.  "Art is communication," she says, " and if there is no communication it is as though the work has been stillborn. "  Is this true for you? Do you desire your art to be seen and heard and understood, or are you ultimately content to create without recognition? Why is recognition important? What do you hope is being communicated through your art?


3.  The vessel of L'Engle's creativity - story - is what helped her "to learn to live." She says that story enabled her to make some sense of the difficulties of life. What helps you to learn to live?

4.  What is "wholeness" to you? Multiple times, L'Engle connects the idea of creation and wholeness. She says, "The discipline of creation, be it to paint, compose, write, is an effort towards wholeness." Do you agree? How has your creative life helped you towards wholeness?


5.  Chapter 5 is bursting with bold statements on creative living, including the following:

             "But unless we are creators, we are not fully alive."

             "Creativity is a way of living life, no matter what our vocation or how we earn our living"

             "Our freedom to be creators is far less limited than some people think"

   Discuss these quotes, and any others that strike you from the text.  What do they mean to you? Can you think of an example of someone who is living creatively, regardless of their vocation?


6.  What is the difference between wasting time and being time?  How do you take time to be?  How does being help your creativity?


7.  In chapter 7, L'Engle often talks about the importance of retaining the "quality which the world would limit to children." She argues that the artist must be like a child in his/her openness to mystery, to story, and to truth. Yet, she alsoclaims that art for children is the "most looked-down-on of all."  How do you personally feel about art that is intended for children?

8.  Of faith and doubt, L'Engle says, "I had yet to learn the faithfulness of doubt. This is often assumed by the judgmental to be faithlessness, but it is not; it is a prerequisite for a living faith". What do you think she means by "faithfulness of doubt"? How is doubt an act of faith.

9.  Consider the role of discipline in your life. To what do you apply the most discipline? Are there areas of your life that could benefit from more/less discipline?


10.  The author says that "our work should be our play" and uses the example of a child at play to illustrate this. Do you think it possible to 'be at play" in your work?


11.  Is community important to your creative life? How does community change your work? In what ways do you try to engage or disengage from your community to produce your best work?

 12.  What is the "lake" the author refers to in this chapter? How are you "feeding the lake".?

Our read to come and meet and discuss for Thursday February 14th 7:20 P.M. at Barnes & Noble is Madeleine L'Engle's "Walking on Water- Reflections on Faith & Art" This book is insightful; an encouragement, a drawing up of the incarnation of art for artists, regardless of medium or beliefs. Come be encouraged whether you are a painter, a musician, a writer or a reader(In reading we are all artists, putting our own pictures, film reel, into the writers story). This book has brought articulation to so many things about creativity and art that I was intuitively thinking heart and mind. See you then!

On Saturday January 19th 10:00 A.M. at Shenandoah Joe Harrisonburg (64 South Mason Street Suite 100-Urban Exchange Building- Harrisonburg Va 22801) 
An after Christmas meet to look forward to the coming year for the society. We will be deciding on a list of books. George MacDonald, Tolkien, Madeleline L'Engle are some of the authors along with C. S. Lewis. Also would anyone be interested in Neil Gaiman's "Norse Mythology" it's amazing, a really fun read.
Charles Williams is another idea for an author to read this year; and Dorothy Sayers of course! 
Have a beautiful week! 
Hannah Wills 

Our meet for Thursday August 9th 7:20 P.M. Barnes & Noble. 

This time each of us are reading one or two letters by C. S. Lewis of our own choice. 

Come ready to read and discuss and with any questions. No formal written out questions are necessary.  No problem if some of us chose the same letter. See you there! 

Discussion Questions for The Pilgrim's Regress            Thursday July 12th 7:20 p.m. B&N

1. What do you think is the significance of the fact that John must regress rather than progress like Bunyan’s Christian? 

2. Lewis says that this book is an “allegorical apology for Christianity, Reason and Romanticism”. How is this book a defense of each of these three entities?

3. What is the significance of the fact that John is born in the land of Puritania? How might this relate to Lewis’ own life? How do Puritanism in Bunyan’s allegory and Puritanism in Lewis’ allegory compare and contrast?

4. How does John’s experience of the primroses compare to Lewis’ first experience of “joy”? 

5. What is the meaning of the masks in Book I, chapter 3? Has your experience of religion ever been similar to John’s? How?

6. What is the meaning of the Island? Is John’s vision of the Island merely an aesthetic experience? Does reading John’s story fill you with any desire to see the Island? 

7. What is meant by the chapters entitled “Leah for Rachel”? Have you ever sought joy in a certain place only to find it wasn’t there? 

8. How does John’s desire for the Island ultimately lead him to Mother Kirk? How did Lewis’ experience of joy lead him to Christ? How about you– has desire played any role in leading you to God? 

9. What role does Reason play in leading John to Mother Kirk? What role did Reason play in leading Lewis to Christianity? What role has Reason played in leading you closer to Christ? 

10. What did you think of Mother Kirk’s Story in Book V, Chapter 2? Do you find it more or less compelling than the corresponding biblical account of the fall? Why?

11. What is the significance of the Man’s comment to John that he and Vertue will both recover only if they keep together? 

12. There is an element of fear in John that runs throughout the story, fear of the Landlord, fear of the black hole, fear of death, fear of Mother Kirk, fear of prayer. Why is John afraid and how is this fear ultimately transformed? 

13. In the chapter entitled “Caught” John expresses one of his deepest wishes. What is that wish? How does this correspond to Lewis’ own wishes before his conversion? Have you ever had this wish? 

14. The essence of The Pilgrim’s Regress is perhaps best summed up in John’s words to the hermit that he set out to find an Island and he found a Landlord instead. How are the Island and the Landlord related? How did you feel when John finally crossed the Canyon and saw the Island and realized it was the other side of the Eastern Mountains? 

15. The hermit tells John that there are two ways to the Landlord that were united in the Landlord’s Son. What are these two ways? Who travels these two different routes? What do you think of Lewis’ theology on this point? 

16. In the second chapter entitled “Archtype and Ectype” John says he is afraid the things the Landlord wants for him may be completely unlike his own desires. Have you ever had this fear? How does the hermit answer John’s fear?

17. What is the significance of the fact that John must dive into the pool to get across the Canyon? What does the dive into the pool symbolize?

18. Why does the world look different to John as he regresses? What is Lewis’ meaning here? 

19. John’s angelic guide during his regress makes the statement that if anyone really wants to damage the Landlord’s character, rather than say the Landlord is cruel he should say that the Landlord is an inveterate gambler. What do you think the angel means by this statement? How does this fit in to Lewis’ theology? What do you think?

(From "Speaking of Jack" by-Will Vaus)

Just a note! The meet for Surprised By Joy has been changed to Thursday June 14th 7:20 p.m.

Book list for the rest of the year-

Surprised By Joy -  C. S. Lewis (autobiography), June 14th
The Pilgrims Regress - C. S. Lewis, July 12th
The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis- C.S. Lewis, August 9th (chose a favorite  letter and come to discuss)
Pride And Prejudiced - Jane Austin, September 14th
Sir Gibbie - George MacDonald, October 11th
Reflections On The Psalms- C.S. Lewis, November 8th

  Our Read for Thursday June 14th is Surprised By Joy Lewis' autobiography of his early life from earliest memories until around 1922. Written in 1955, C.S. Lewis starts his book with quite a bit of autobiography but becomes beautifully focused on his spiritual and intellectual process. It is more a revelation of the effects of his conversion on his inner life than a outward detail of events. This book has a vividness of his thought and sehnsuct, that joy described as longing. In some ways a heartrending read of circumstances and tragedy that causes his story to be both helpful and relatable to the reader. In my mind I was struck by the thought while rereading his book that joy is the manifestation of hope in a fallen world. Come join us at Barnes & Noble at 7:20 P.M. :)

Discussion Questions for Surprised By Joy by C. S. Lewis  

1. In the first chapter Jack tells us of his first experiences of “joy”: seeing the toy garden, standing beside a flowering currant bush, reading Squirrel Nutkin and being entranced with the idea of autumn, reading The Saga of King Olaf and being uplifted by “Northernness”. Have you ever had experiences like this? How might such experiences lead one to belief in God?

2. Jack describes the “loss of security” which he experienced following the death of his mother. How might one describe Jack’s early life as a “search for security”? Do you think he found it?

3. Lewis says that it was during his “concentration camp” experience that he first became an effective believer. Fear played a dominant role in his early faith. How was this fear assuaged later on in Jack’s life? Have you had a similar experience? Are you more fearful of God or drawn to him in love? Why do you think so?

4. It was at Cherbourg House (Chartres) in Malvern (Wyvern), England that Jack “ceased to be a Christian.” What influenced him to become an atheist? Why was he “desperately anxious to get rid of his religion”? Have you ever had a similar experience? 

5. What do you think of the fact that Jack describes, in some detail, the homosexual practices of Malvern College without condemning them? Does this make it easier or harder for you to listen to and appreciate Jack’s journey to God? Why? 

6. Jack notes that “spiritually speaking, the deadly thing was that school life was almost wholly dominated by the social struggle.” What effect did this have on Jack’s life? Did you ever experience this “social struggle” in your school days? What effect did it have on your life?

7. Lewis states that during his time at Malvern College he was angry with God for not existing and equally angry with him for creating a world. Do you think other atheists experience this? Have you ever felt this way? Why? 

8. One of the features of Jack’s early life was a strained relationship with his father. How do you think this relationship influenced Jack’s turn to atheism and later, back to Christianity?

 9. In the middle portion of the book Jack describes two people who had a great influence upon him: his life-long friend, Arthur Greeves, and his tutor, William Kirkpatrick. How did these two people influence Jack? What role have other people played in your own spiritual journey? 

10. One of the sub-themes of Jack’s early life was his great desire to be “left alone.” His great problem with Christianity was that there was a “transcendental Interferer” at the center of it. Do you think Jack’s feelings on this subject are characteristic of many people? Why or why not?

11. Toward the end of Jack’s time at Great Bookham he faced a great conflict between “joy” and his materialistic “faith.” What was the conflict? How was this conflict eventually overcome? 

12. Do you think the “dialectic of desire” is a powerful argument for theism? Why or why not?

13. In chapter 12 Jack writes that a person who wants to maintain his atheism needs to be careful of his reading. Two of the writers who had a dramatic impact on Jack’s return to Christianity were George MacDonald and G. K. Chesterton. How did these writers affect him? What writers have been influential in your own spiritual pilgrimage?

14. How did Jack’s Oxford friends (Jenkin, Barfield, Harwood, Coghill, Dyson and Tolkien) influence him toward embracing Christianity? 

15. One of the most fascinating aspects of Jack’s conversion to theism is the fact that he did not want to become a believer in God. Why was this true? Does this make Jack’s story more or less credible to you?

16. What do you think of the fact that Jack immediately started attending his parish church once he became a theist even though churchmanship was “wholly unattractive” to him? Do you think there is anything we can learn from Jack in this regard?

17. The question which led Jack finally to accept Christianity was this: “Where has religion reached its true maturity?” Do you find Jack’s answer to this question credible? Why or why not?

Questions from Speaking of Jack by Will Vaus