Time Displacement Activities (as Kim would say)

Well, you may be thinking that I've fallen off the face of the earth.  And I guess I kind of have.  Or, to be more accurate, the earth (in the guise of a dissertation due in 19 days) may have opened up to swallow me whole.  I do plan on eventually getting around to posting about some pre-term activities, like May Day and the Royal Wedding (which I attended =), but until the world stops turning dangerously quickly, here's a brief update on things I've been doing while I should have been locked away in the library, oblivious to a world beyond my windows:

Sitting next to Christine Baranski at the Perch (you know, that actress from Mamma Mia and The Big Bang Theory?), helping Kim celebrate completing her finals (I don't know if I can stress how big of a deal finals are here -- rather than marking the end of a semester's work, they, and they alone, are the assessing rod for one's entire Oxford degree -- think N.E.W.T.S. in Harry Potter), attending a celebratory birthday BBQ at the Kilns (C.S. Lewis's house) for Jonathan, my Jr. Dean (and Classics tutor) from my SCIO semester, going to a Low concert in London with a friend, and watching (rather than participating in) Summer VIIIs, the summer crew races (I haven't actually been rowing this term, which has probably been a good thing, but wasn't completely voluntary -- we ended up having too many women for the team, and while I would like to blame losing my seat on the fact that I was quite sick during trial week, and couldn't even complete the sprint length, much less make the time cut, the reality is that I'm not much of a speed demon anyway, so might have lost my place regardless -- a bummer, but not something I really have time to mope about).

Here are some pictures from my exciting life (that I should not be living):

 Friends waiting for Kim to exit her last exam. 

Kim emerging from the Exam Schools. 

Flowers and champagne.

What says victory better than a purple balloon?  

Flatmates.  =)

The Kilns.

Eating ice-cream while watching the division one races.

Last Things: C.S. Lewis on Hell and Heaven (and the giants I wish I knew)

There are men I wish I could meet.  Men who come across, in the pages of the books wherein I've glimpsed them, as wise, and compassionate, and humble -- with twinkles lodged deep in their eyes.  Sometimes I wonder if I was just born too late, here "at the end of all things" -- the world has grown old with television and cell phones and internet, and the Chestertons, Lewises, and MacDonalds have moved on to better realms.*

But tonight I met Bishop Kallistos Ware, and listening to the tenure of his voice in the gilded upper room used by the Oxford C.S. Lewis Society, I was reminded that maybe not all of the giants have passed.

He spoke with handwritten notes he barely used, each phrase richly textured with scores of books read and thoughts ruminated.  He made us laugh.  He made us think.  He gave us hope.

He talked of listening to Lewis debate at the Socratic Society during his [Kallistos's] years as an undergraduate.  Described him as a great thinker, and a great arguer, fast on his toes with his thoughts.

The topic was heaven and hell -- much of it grappling with ideas I wrote my "C.S. Lewis and the Bible" paper on in college.  That we are saved by God's grace, grace that gives us the ability to choose, even if our choice is a hell locked from the inside -- a hell filled still with the love of God, and obstinate rejection of that love.

We talked about animals, and how, while not immortal in themselves, our interaction with them -- knowing them, loving them -- may make them, in Lewis's mind anyway, eternal beings.  As Kallistos said, "We cannot know, but we can hope."

It was a phrase he repeated a lot.  A phrase he used when he said that believing that all must be saved is contrary to the freedom of a loving God, but still we can hope, while we cannot know, that all will be saved.

And, in phrases that resonated with Lewis and Tolkien's visions of fairy-stories and fantasy, when asked about learning from other religions, he answered that journeys are about coming home with new eyes.  In the same way, religious dialog is valuable (and beautiful) in that it helps us see new truth within our own tradition -- and exposes us to new ways of approaching the Divine through prayer.  

And apparently heaven (Lewis would be happy to know) will be like the Oxford University Walking Club -- or Felix the Cat who kept walking on ("further up, and further in").

And now it is midnight, and crew training, last minute reading, and Old Norse tutorials await me in the morning.  So to bed I must go.  

*I will admit that this passion for dead white men is problematic on many levels.  But God gives grace even to them, and their words and worlds resonate deep within my soul, calling me home to lost visions.

C.S. Lewis's godson and I

I just spent an hour and a half listening to Laurence Harwood remember his godfather, C.S. Lewis.  His father, Cecil Harwood, was one of Lewis's best friends, walking companions, and debate partners: a man C.S. Lewis literally rolled on the floor with, choked by laughter.  For those of you who've read Surprised by Joy, Cecil is the friend described as a Horatio in an age of Hamlets.

Laurence shared his personal correspondences with Lewis.  Showed us the pictures his godfather had drawn in the margins.  Pictures of Magdalen (the place "like a castle" where Lewis lived), bears and angels from That Hideous Strength, Lewis in baggy trousers that made him "look like a sailor," and the brown bunny he'd been watching from his window.

Talked of his memories of Lewis's visits to his family's home.  The boom of his voice in the mornings; the sound of his bellyflops in the pond. Shared letters written to his mother on the topic of love (and being a good godfather), to his father when his mother grew sick with cancer, to himself when he failed his Christ Church exams.

And always, always, that sense of someone wholly present.  His childlike joy.  Throwing himself onto the floor to play games with Laurence and his siblings, not patronizingly, but for the sheer delight of knowing what children were enjoying, and enjoying it himself.  The ability to be all things to all people, even children.

And, may I say, Tolkien's reputation as a walker may have been unjustly tarnished.  According to Cecil, on walking tours, Lewis's enjoyment of nature vied only with one thing: his enjoyment of conversation, most of which he carried on himself.  So much for his reputation as a "serious" walker. =)