February 12th Will Be Our First THEME Meeting: C.S. Lewis on Sin!

February 12: Theme:  C.S. Lewis on Sin (any Lewis source: come and share 5-10 minutes)

The idea of a "theme" meeting motivates many of our meetings scheduled for 2015.  Any Lewis source that gives a sense of C.S. Lewis on "Sin" is fine.  Each person will be expected to take 5-10 minutes to talk on their particular discoveries or findings on the topic.

Much of Lewis seems likely to apply including:

1. The Screwtape Letters
2. The Great Divorce
3. That Hideous Strength
4. Material drawn from Narnia
5. The Problem of Pain
6. Miracles
7. Mere Christianity, and
8. The Abolition of Man ...

...
and those are just for starters.  You may have some ideas based on Inklings as well or secondary sources who wrote about Lewis or little nuggets from Lewis's letters.  Whatever it is bring it along to talk about.  Hopefully the insights will spark more conversation and we'll have some robust and interesting discussions

Discussion Questions for "A Wrinkle In Time"

A Wrinkle In Time our book for January 8th Elizabeth our Discussion Leader

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (1918-2007)

Madeleine was born in New York City, at age 12 moved to the French Alps, but went to boarding school in England. Her high school years were spent back in the U.S.  She went to Smith College and graduated with honors. She married Hugh Franklin, best known for his role of Dr. Charles Tyler in All My Children.

A Wrinkle in Time was rejected by 26 publishers before it was published.  It won the 1963 Newbery Award and has has been in continuous print ever since.

Questions:

1. What word or words would you use to describe the theme of A Wrinkle in Time? Does this match any of the themes in Lewis’s Space Trilogy?
2. Does Auntie Beast play the same role as the Oyéresu? How are they the same or different?
3. What do you think of the three “gifts” given to the children in the chapter “The Happy Medium”.  What was the role of Meg’s faults?
4. What is the role of Mrs. Who, Mrs. Whatsit, and Mrs. Which?  What did they used to be?  
5. Does the section of the book dealing with the journey to Camazotz remind you of any of Lewis’s books?
6. The people on the planet Camazotz have no crime, no responsibility, and no decisions to make. What is so wrong with their society?
7. What was Meg’s expectation as to what would happen when she found her father?
8. How do #6 and #7 relate to Meg’s anger with her father?
9. Does this relate to our own expectations of our Heavenly Father and his expectations of us?
10. What is the struggle the children have to wage to not fall into the power of IT?  How are those same choices and struggles manifested in society and in history?
11. Why is Charles Wallace the key?  What got him into the power of IT? What had to change before he could be released and why was Meg the one who had to do it?
12. Questions of trust keep coming up in both Wrinkle in Time and Lewis’s  books.  In the books, and in our lives we have to decide who and what to trust and what not to trust.  How do the characters (and we) decide who to trust and who is not trustworthy?   How do we keep our moral compass?
13. Aunt Beast talks about the “help” we get in the fight against the dark.  What do you think are some of the helps she was referring to, and what are the helps you have?

January 8th We Will Be Discussing A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'Engle

Elizabeth will be our discussion leader for Madeleine L'Engle's science fantasy novel A Wrinkle In Time.  The is a book that falls into our discussion category of books influenced by C.S. Lewis.

Your mission is to read L'Engle's book not only for the sheer pleasure of reading the book itself, but also to see how she has perhaps been influenced by C.S. Lewis.

Her awareness of C.S. Lewis is clear from this answer she gave in an interview.  SEE HERE

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Has your fiction for children ever been compared with that of C. S. Lewis?
Yes, it has. I think that the main difference is that C. S. Lewis has more answers and I have more questions. I wasn't the right age to read him when he was being published. But my children grew up with him. I spent time this past summer at Oxford and Cambridge for a C. S. Lewis conference.

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Come to the meeting and share your experience of the book and the relationship you find in assessing any influence of Lewis on L'Engle.  

Merry Christmas from the C.S. Lewis Society of Harrisonburg

Image from the C.S.Lewis Foundation SEE HERE

The 2015 Schedule For The C.S. Lewis Society of Harrisonburg

The C.S. Lewis Society of Harrisonburg 
2015 Meeting Schedule

Three Kinds of Meetings:
1) Book Discussion: Discussion Leader prepares questions, everyone reads book and comes to the meeting and discusses the book using the questions as a guide.
2) Theme/Topic Meeting: A theme/topic is used as a focus and each member develops their own "take" on the theme/topic and comes prepared to talk for 5 to 10 minutes on the theme/topic and then participate in the resulting discussion.
3) Free Style:  Everyone comes to the meeting with something to talk about and we let things go the way they go while enjoying one another's company.

Meeting Dates For 2015 (Second Thursday of Each Month)
January 8: Elizabeth will be our discussion leader on A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'Engle.

February 12: Theme:  C.S. Lewis on Sin (any Lewis source: come and share 5-10 minutes)

March 12: Ray will be or discussion leader on Richard Platt's As One Devil To Another a fiendish correspondence in the tradition of C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters.

April 9: Peggy will be our discussion leader for When I Was a Child I Read Books: Essays by Marilynne Robinson.

May 14: Theme: Your favorite essay from God In The Dock (pick one and give us 5-10 minutes on why it is your favorite)

June 11: Theme:  What drew you to C.S. Lewis? (share for 5-10 minutes)

July 9: Theme:  What is your favorite book from the Chronicles of Narnia (share for 5-10 minutes)

August 13: Theme: C.S. Lewis on Free Will (any Lewis source: share 5-10 minutes)

September 10: Stephen will be our discussion leader for Surprised by Joy

October 8: Theme: C.S. Lewis on Education (any Lewis source: share 5-10 minutes)

November 12: Theme: the essay On the Reading of Old Books the introduction C.S. Lewis wrote to Sr. Penelope's translation of Athanasius: On the Incarnation available on the internet in its entirety at http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/history/ath-inc.htm  The introduction is five pages long.  Come and share on either the introduction or Sr. Penelope's translation (5-10 min. or so)

December TBD: Christmas Planning Party: Stephen has volunteered to host again.  How wonderful is that?  I don't see how he can outdo himself, but I'm up to see him try.

C.S. Lewis' Influence "Alive To Wonder" by John Piper

SEE HERE

The December Meeting

Our December meeting will be on Monday, December 15th at Stephen's house.  The festivities will begin at 6:30 p.m.  Bring your own beverages adult or otherwise and your ideas for the what we should do at the C.S. Lewis Society's meetings for 2015.  If you didn't get the email or lost it or want to make suggestions or ask questions, then please email me at rschneid@bridgewater.edu