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Tiny Tim

“And how did little Tim behave?” asked Mrs Cratchit, when she had rallied Bob on his credulity and Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart’s content.

“As good as gold,” said Bob, “and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see.”

A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens

Download an audio version of A Christmas Carol free at LibriVox. You can also read A Christmas Carol online at Project Gutenberg.

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He Could Help Us

But supposing God became a man – suppose our human nature which can suffer and die was amalgamated with God’s nature in one person – then that person could help us. He could surrender His will, and suffer and die, because He was man; and He could do it perfectly because He was God. You and I can go through this process only if God does it in us; but God can only do it if He becomes man. Our attempts at this dying will succeed only if we men share in God’s dying, just as our thinking can succeed only because it is a drop out of the ocean of His intelligence: but we cannot share God’s dying unless God dies; and He cannot die except by being a man. That is the sense in which He pays our debt, and suffers for us what He Himself need not suffer at all.

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As we, who are in the Shadowlands say…

“There was a real railway accident,” said Aslan softly. “Your father and mother and all of you are – as you used to call it in the Shadowlands – dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.”

And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but
the things that began to happen after that were so great and
beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the
end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they
all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the
beginning of the real story. All their life in this world
and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover
and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter
One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which
goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the
one before.

This afternoon, my great grandmother, known to us as Grandma Neva passed away. She was 93 years old. This morning we learned that she had had a heart attack and was in the hospital. She lives in Iowa so that’s pretty far from us. My great uncle went to her, as he lives in Minnesota. I recieved no news all day, and assumed no news was good news, which turned out to be accurate. A couple of hours ago, around 6:00 maybe, my grandmother told me that Neva had passed. I hugged her and went back into my room where I cried and pulled books from my shelf. My Bible first, then a slight panic attack when I couldn’t find my copy of The Last Battle, then the pulling of my Daily C.S. Lewis book.

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Going Wild

I was just listening to my Narnia audiobooks while I was working on some things, and I noticed this passage.

“Wouldn’t it be dreadful if some day, in our own world, at home, men started going wild inside, like the animals here, and still looked like men, so you’d never know which were which?” – Lucy, Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis

It jumped out at me so, that I remembered another passage further on in the series, that is related.

What followed was rather horrible. Tirian felt quite certain (and so did the others) that the Cat was trying to say something: but nothing came out of his mouth except the ordinary, ugly cat-noises you might hear from any angry or frightened old Tom in a backyard in England. And the longer he caterwauled the less like a Talking Beast he looked. Uneasy whimperings and little sharp squeals broke out from among the other Animals.

“Look, look!” said the voice of the Bear. “It can’t talk. It has forgotten how to talk! It has gone back to being a dumb beast. Look at its face.” Everyone saw that it was true. And then the greatest terror of all fell upon those Narnians. For every one of them had been taught – when it was only a chick or a puppy or a cub – how Aslan at the beginning of the world had turned the beasts of Narnia into Talking Beasts and warned them that if they weren’t good they might one day be turned back again and be like the poor witless animals one meets in other countries. – The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis

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Dummies invade Narnia

I recently recieved this memo in refference to a book we recently became aware of.

MEMO
From: Bartholemew Wiggins
To: The Lord High Dragon
Subject: Dummies in Narnia
1. It has been reported to me by the Sheriff of Narnia that Dummies have been arriving on tourist buses carrying a guide titled “Dummies Guide to Narnia.”
2. Since the aforementioned dummies did not have the necessary Visa’s they have been put on the buses and sent back to the port of entry, Cair Paravel on the Eastern Sea.
3. Our own security forces in SpareOom, consisting of the constabulary forces: Terwilliger Turtle (chief jailer), Reginald Rat (keeper of the keys), and Constable Blishimer Bilge, a Swamprat of legendary ability (too bad he doesn’t have much real ability) have been told to standdown.
4. SpareOom Homeland Security consisting currently of a single talking Toad with an office has been forwarded this memo. We are on the lookout for the sequel which could be quite dangerous: “The Dummies’ Guide to SpareOom” — should this come out we might be receiving unwelcome visitors. On the bright side, some of them may be edible.
5. We have some notification from High Town that buses can sometimes pop right up out of the ground through pores or something. Seems unlikely but one never knows. Make a not of this Garnish. (note to dragon: Garnish is the talking Toad that you appointed to head the SpareOom Homeland Security office — I only met him last week.)
6. I await your attention to this matter and direction as to the security preparations which should be undertaken.
Yours very sincerely,
Bartholemew Wiggins
Talking Bear
Secretary to the Lord High Dragon

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Happy Thanksgiving

This is the proclamation which set the precedent for America’s national day of Thanksgiving. On November 28, 1861, he ordered government departments closed for a local day of thanksgiving.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People.
I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

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Coming to a Point

“Have you ever noticed,” said Dimble, “that the universe, and every bit of the universe is always hardening and narrowing and coming to a point?”
His wife waited as those wait who know by long experience the mental processes of the person who is talking to them.
“I mean this,” said Dimble in answer to the question she had not asked. “If you dip into any college, or school, or parish, or family – anything you like – at a given point in its history, you always find that there was a time before that point when there was more elbow room and contrasts weren’t quite so sharp; and that there’s going to be a time after that point when there is even less room for indecision and choices are even more momentous. Good is always getting better and bad is always getting worse: the possibilities of even apparent neutrality are always diminishing. The whole thing is sorting itself out all the time, coming to a point, getting sharper and harder.”

That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis

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The Way to His Own Country

“Oh, Aslan,” said Lucy. “Will you tell us how to get into your country from our world?”
“I shall be telling you all the time,” said Aslan. “But I will not tell you how long or short the way will be; only that it lies across a river. But do not fear that, for I am the great Bridge Builder.”

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis

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The Bleeding Charity

“I’m asking for nothing but my rights. You may think you can put me down because you’re dressed up like that (which you weren’t when you worked under me) and I’m only a poor man. But I got to have my rights same as you, see?”
“Oh no. It’s not so bad as that. I haven’t got my rights, or I should not be here. You will not get yours either. You’ll get something far better. Never fear.”
“That’s just what I say. I haven’t got my rights. I always done my best and I never done nothing wrong. And what I don’t see is why I should be put below a bloody murderer like you.”
“Who knows whether you will be? Only be happy and come with me.”
“What do you keep on arguing for? I’m only telling you the sort of chap I am. I only want my rights, I’m not asking for anybody’s bleeding charity.”

“Then do. At once. Ask for the Bleeding Charity. Everything is here and for the taking, and nothing can be bought.”

from The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis

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Marriage

Just a reminder. This was taken from Easton’s Bible Dictionary.

Our Lord corrected many false notions then existing on the subject of marriage (Matt. 22:23-30), and placed it as a divine institution on the highest grounds. The apostles state clearly and enforce the nuptial duties of husband and wife (Eph. 5:22-33; Col. 3:18, 19; 1 Pet. 3:1-7). Marriage is said to be “honourable” (Heb. 13:4), and the prohibition of it is noted as one of the marks of degenerate times (1 Tim. 4:3). The marriage relation is used to represent the union between God and his people (Isa. 54:5; Jer. 3:1-14; Hos. 2:9, 20). In the New Testament the same figure is employed in representing the love of Christ to his saints (Eph. 5:25-27). The Church of the redeemed is the “Bride, the Lamb’s wife” (Rev. 19:7-9).