Christian fantasy literature, and commentary on assorted subjects
Crikey! I’ve just been promoted to executive editorial assistant, or something like that. Byron the Quokka here–to tell you that we are snowed under with stuff today, but Lee is gonna do his level best to get to it. I told him, though, to hold onto a couple of the hymn requests for tomorrow, in case we don’t get any more.
We could wind up with ten or twelve posts today, easy–and the joke’d be on us if no one viewed them!
On to the next one!
From January 2020
About an hour ago I decided to run to the convenience store downtown for a couple of items. Not enough to do a gas-guzzling run to the market, nor enough to qualify for a delivery.
The car wouldn’t start.
After a few moments of screaming, I came in and called my neighbor, Josh, but he didn’t answer. Called the auto club and while I was on the phone with them, Josh called me back. I canceled the auto club and Josh came over and jump started my car. He recommended a new battery–but just so I could get to the store and back he told me to leave the car running while I went in the store. The mission was accomplished, Josh waiting for me here. He waited because he knew if I was not back in fifteen minutes there was trouble, so he would have come to the convenience store to solve any problems there.
It does seem like a new problem crops up every day.
I do feel rather frustrated–it sometimes feels almost impossible to get anything accomplished.
Needless to say, I feel exhausted–stress, perhaps.
Good neighbors are worth their weight in gold.
Upward and onward.
God bless everybody
Patty
Now looke waht yiu nogood dirtty repulbickans gone and Done!! i Has jist fouwned out “that” iff That stinkin “Donold Trumpp” he gets Eleckted Instid “of” Hillary, Barbra Strysand she going to leeave “the” Contry and Not come back no More!!! ( http://www.dailywire.com/news/8740/streisand-ill-leave-country-if-trump-wins-michael-qazvini )
Waht kinder contry “wil” itt bee With Out her?! it Is reely Too horryble evin To “think” abuot! And aslo A lot “of” otther Super Smart and boutifull Cellerbites thay wil “aslo” Leeve! Like Woppy Gold Berg and Revrind Al Sharptin and “evin” Brenda Bungsniffer and Chriss Fungus and a hole “bunch” of othhers whoos Names “I” cant spel. Its jist awffle! And my Prefesser “he” sayes The contry It Wil Cap Size it “wil” Flipp rihght Over then We al goin To Die!!!!
So Congrous thay shuld Quick make “it” aginst the Law Not “to” vote four Hillary and yiu get Shot iff yiu dont,, IT IS “THE” ONELY WAY TO PERTECT FREEEDOM IN THIS CONTRY!!!!
From August 30 2016
When going through the apartment, I found several items that could be sold. I carefully packed them up, and was all set to go downtown to the antique/coin/collectable store right on Main Street.
I decided to call and double check their hours of operation.
I found out they were no longer in business.
This is so typical of the Internet. It is never updated (well, hardly ever). I ended up wasting a morning trying to find other places close to me. I am leery of driving out of my comfort zone as I won’t have new glasses until after I see the ophthalmologist. Bottom line–waste of precious time. Often, online you will find a listing that is completely outdated. It is very irritating.
Second item–I have begun to notice signs in several places essentially telling people not to be rude, attack the staff, threaten, swear, spit and generally not do acts of general mayhem. I know two were in the hospital, but I don’t remember where the other one was (perhaps a doctor’s office).
Has our culture gotten so debased that people have to be reminded to act like human beings? I remember a line in Fawlty Towers where Basil asks his wife “Did you see the people in Room 10? I don’t think they ever sat on chairs before.”
The culture rot of acting like an enraged spitting cobra every time things are not going your way seems to be becoming all-pervasive. You can see any number of videos in fast food places where people are rioting because their fries were cold.
I really do not care for the way some things are going.
God bless everyb0dy
Patty
We fantasy writers are supposed to have vivid imaginations, but ours pale beside the imaginations of our public leaders and intelligentsia. Their imaginings border on the delusional.
This was very clearly demonstrated all throughout 2011. Below are some of the most lurid examples of it.
1. The government can–and should–enforce “income equality.” Where does fantasy end, and sheer madness begin? Probably here. Furthermore, politicians who try to get ahead by inciting class warfare are playing with fire.
The aims and rhetoric of Occupy Wall Street and its sponsors among the politicos and movie stars are so insanely fantastical as to be self-evident.
2. “Gender is a spectrum.” Expect to see a lot more of this movement in the near future, especially in the public schools and colleges. It’s coming down from the top, having been enthusiastically endorsed and pushed by the likes of the European Court, the National Education Association, the Canadian government, and Satan.
To sum it up in a very few words, children are to be taught, “You can be a boy one day and a girl the next–it all depends on how you feel!”
Continue Reading “The Top Real-World Wacko Fantasies of 2011”
(Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, IL: 2010)
“The [Narnia] books are much more Christian than we’ve realized.”
-Michael Ward (p. 130)
“Lewis ate and drank from the table of pagan idolatry. He slurped it in and was so full of it, that this world of idols and sorcery came out through his books.”
No author has ever succeeded at being correctly understood by all of his readers. C. S. Lewis is widely, but not universally, regarded as a great Christian thinker and apologist, best known for his seven books, The Chronicles of Narnia. These children’s books, also enjoyed by adults, are often held up as the best example of Christian fantasy literature.
Michael Ward, Chaplain of St. Peter’s College, Oxford, has studied Lewis exhaustively. He’d read everything Lewis ever wrote-including unpublished manuscripts and letters, poems, and childhood notebooks. If there is anything Mr. Ward doesn’t know about C. S. Lewis, chances are that nobody knows it.
Ward claims to have unraveled a secret code pertaining to all the Narnia books-something that Lewis put in on purpose, and which, very subtly, holds the whole series together while subconsciously working on the reader’s mind. No, it’s not like one of those “Bible codes” that tells you Leviticus 4:14 secretly predicts who will win an Oscar next year. It’s more in the nature of a hidden theme, deliberately concealed by C. S. Lewis, to heighten the impact of his art. So Ward’s title is a bit misleading.
Seven Heavens, Seven Books
“Lewis took the seven heavens that he so loved and used them as symbols of Christ … to present Christ in seven different ways,” Ward says (pp. 129-130). He is referring to the ancient cosmology which featured seven heavens circling the Earth, each ruled by its own “planet”-the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn-with each “planet” having certain influences on Earth and its inhabitants.
Each Narnia story is “ruled” by its own planet: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Jupiter; Prince Caspian, Mars; The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the Sun; The Silver Chair, the Moon; The Horse and His Boy, Mercury; The Magician’s Nephew, Venus; and The Last Battle, Saturn. The planets, says Ward, are “spiritual symbols speaking through stories” in which C. S. Lewis “translated the planets into plots” (p. 146).
It sounds complicated, but Ward does make a very strong case. Everything he says, he backs up with quotes from Lewis himself. He also does an amazingly good job of writing in a clear, simple prose style very similar to that employed by Lewis to tell his Narnia stories. Ward sounds like Lewis. He has written a book which an intelligent child would understand, but which won’t make an adult reader feel like he’s been kidnapped by Barney the Dinosaur.
Ward has convinced me that Lewis didn’t just “throw in everything” when he was writing a Narnia tale: “randomness and mishmash are not to be found” (p. 8) in these books, he says-even when it may look like mishmash. Thus there is a reason for Father Christmas appearing in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, even if it seems careless, even silly, to insert one of our own popular culture icons into the parallel universe of Narnia-an apparent anomaly which Ward says got him started in his search for C. S. Lewis’ cryptic messages. Superman wouldn’t belong there, but Father Christmas does.
It’s not necessary to go into the details of Ward’s reasoning. His book is easy to read and explains itself. It’s a clever piece of literary detective work, and those most interested in his argument should read the book.
But we cannot help asking, given that C. S. Lewis secretly followed a cosmological theme in composing his Narnia tales: Are we better off for knowing that? Mr. Ward finds his own pleasure and understanding greatly enhanced for knowing it. Then again, millions of children and adults, over more than half a century, have adored these books without ever suspecting there were any secret messages involved.
Is that because Lewis succeeded in speaking to the readers’ subconscious?
There’s no way to know; and meanwhile, there are other issues to consider.
Continue Reading “Book Review: The Narnia Code by Michael Ward”