October 8th is a Theme Meeting: C.S. Lewis on Education

Theme meetings work well when everyone brings something to share on the theme.  October's theme is C.S. Lewis on Education.  As an Oxford Fellow Lewis had lots of ideas about education.  You can find some of them expressed in his letters.  CSL, the Bulletin of the New York C.S. Lewis Society rolled into my mailbox the other day and has a review of a fairly recent book by Lewis with, hard to believe, new material gathered together by Walter Hooper.  The book is titled Image and Imagination and I'm sure you can find it at the Barnes and Noble site or the Amazon site on-line.  The review by Linda Bridges in CSL indicates that it has lots of material on education so that's a possible source.  I've discovered that you can search books on your ebook reader, Nook, or Kindle or whatever and if you have the third volume of Lewis's letters you'd likely find lots of material there.  There is also the Quotable Lewis which probably has some stuff.  So dig up some things to talk about and come to the meeting on October 8th.

SCHEDULE FOR REMAINDER OF THE YEAR

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 21st a Monday in the tentative date of the Christmas Party although Stephen is planning to move down to Staunton should he find the house he desires.  I'm not sure of the status of that but we'll likely find out soon.

September 10th Will Be Stephen Leading Us In Discussion of "Surprised By Joy"

Fall is soon upon us but just before it arrives we will be having our C. S. Lewis Society of Harrisonburg meeting on September 10th at the Barnes and Noble in Harrisonburg at 7:30 p.m. Dr. Stephen Chappell will be our discussion leader.

Surprised By Joy is C.S. Lewis's autobiography which describes his own personal journey and introduces us to a number of people where were influential in his life. It's a must read for those who love Lewis and want to learn more about his life. Come and join us for a visit with Lewis as we discuss Surprised By Joy.

Joy: Poet, Seeker, and the Woman Who Captivated C.S. Lewis

SEE HERE  The first full biography of Joy Davidman brings her out from C. S. Lewis’s shadow, where she has long been hidden, to reveal a powerful writer and thinker.

Joy Davidman is known, if she is known at all, as the wife of C. S. Lewis. Their marriage was immortalized in the film Shadowlands and Lewis’s memoir, A Grief Observed.

August 13th Our Theme is C.S. Lewis And Free Will

 This is a little video about Lewis and Free Will.

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

I thought this might be a challenging theme until I looked into my Quotable C.S. Lewis and found scads of quotes relative to free will.  So don't be too daunted by the task.  Some ideas would be to check the Quotable Lewis volume, google "C.S. Lewis and free will" and there are numerous quotes and even a youtube video https://youtu.be/rH2DEOxvaWk  is interesting.  I also posted the theme on SpareOom to see what the Lewisians there might say about it.  I'll bring some of their comments to the meeting.

Our future schedule look like:

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.

July 9th We Return To Narnia

July 9th is a theme meeting and our theme: "What is your favorite book from the Chronicles of Narnia (share for 5-10 minutes)"  The reasons for a selection might be many including the story, your favorite characters, and no doubt we'll find time to debate what order the Chronicles should be read in.  For those who have never heard about it there are: Publication Order, Chronological Order In Narnia Time, Order In Which They Were Actually Written.  Our schedule for the rest of the year is below. 

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.

June 11th Will Soon Be Upon Us: How Did You Discover C.S. Lewis?

As the week begins you might reflect on how you first became interested in C.S. Lewis?  Come share your adventure with us on Thursday June 11th as we meet to discuss the appeal of C.S. Lewis.  Each of our stories is a unique experience.  Some of us are Narnians first, while others are Thulcandrians.  Still others may be Mere Christians, or discovered Greytown or Wormwood.  Speaking of Greytown I stumbled upon https://www.cslewis.com/blog/the-grey-town-community/ which might interest some of you.

Come join us.  The meeting begins at 7:30 P.M. and ends fairly promptly at 9:00 P.M.   Bring a friend and we can all enjoy the conviviality of sharing our enthusiasm for C.S. Lewis

What Drew You To C.S. Lewis? Theme for June 11th

We had a great theme meeting last evening on our favorite essay's from "God In The Dock". Our turnout was low but that meant everyone had lots of time to contribute discussion and observations about their favorite essays. I read a brief paragraph from a post by Lois Westerlund on SpareOom, a Yahoo Group I moderate. I had shared that we were having a theme meeting on this topic and lots of SpareOomians offered their favorite essays. Lois went a bit further sending a post to the group about two of hers. I read what she said about "The Trouble With X" --- see below

The trouble with "X". "X" is the person in our lives who makes our life so much harder than it would have to be. It is no use trying to talk to such a person--it won't do any good. Their pride or envy or greed or indifference or laziness is a constant irritation to us. All this God sees. But God's picture is bigger--he sees us in the picture, and we are somebody else's "X"--we, too, have a fatal flaw which we are blind to. He says more in this essay but that is the vivid image that took hold of me and has never let go. --- Lois

Great meeting. Next time our meeting will be a theme meeting as well and the theme will be:

What drew you to C.S. Lewis? (share for 5-10 minutes) See you then! sunglasses emoticon