CS Lewis

A couple weeks ago I had the privilege of attending a conference on CS Lewis, and the main speaker was his stepson, Douglas Gresham (the guy in my profile photo... one day Edward will appreciate having met him!) I haven't had time to post all the things I want to about what I heard and learned there. I don't know when I will... so I just wanted to throw some snippets out there that really stuck with me.

The first is from one of the other speakers, Jill Briscoe, a delightful elderly British lady who was a small girl in WWII. Her description of the gospel, as she heard it for the first time, was "God came down the stairs from heaven, put a baby on a bale of hay, and set the world on fire." This might be one of the most beautiful and powerful descriptions of the gospel I've ever heard. It will stick with me for the rest of my life. The incarnation changed everything. Another was her description of spiritual warfare and the reminder that Satan hates us, our families, our friends. Hates. Her encouragement was for us to use the spiritual weapons given to us to make Satan and his demons sorry they ever started this whole business. Both those things she said were such amazing reminders that we are at war. The Christian life is one of future peace, but of temporary violence. It's easy to get lulled into just wanting to be safe all the time and that is just what Satan wants.

In speaking of the nature of grief, Mr. Gresham put it beautifully that the grief we feel over earthly loss is a testament to how much we loved that person and what that person meant, and it's nothing to be ashamed of, and very often, it's all we have left of the person who has died. Another good reminder that "happy" isn't the only option for a Christian.

On a non-deep level, Mr. Gresham told us that his mother and stepfather had 2 Scrabble editions, and the way they played was that they combined the letters and boards and could use any word in any known language, real or fictional, as long as they could prove it existed. How awesome is that?