#107

What had happened on Earth, when Maleldil [God] was born a man at Bethlehem, had altered the universe for ever.
- from Perelandra

#106

"Always winter and never Christmas; think of that!"

from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

If you have close to 2' of snow on your sidewalk and are attempting to shovel out you can at least rest assured that Christmas will come and the snow will melt away. Until then, enjoy the beauty side of such a snowfall.

#105

Just a hurried line...to tell a story which puts the contrast between our feast of the Nativity and all this ghastly "Xmas" racket at its lowest. My brother heard a woman on a 'bus say, as the 'bus passed a church with a Crib outside it, 'Oh Lor! They bring religion into everything. Look - they're dragging it even into Christmas now!"

from a letter to Mary Willis Shelburne, dated 29 December 1958

#104

I feel exactly as you do about the horrid commercial racket they have made out of Christmas. I send no cards and give no presents except to children.

From a letter to Mary Willis Shelburne, dated 27 November 1953

#103

A letter written by J.R.R. Tolkien to his daughter Priscilla:

26 November 1963

Dearest,

Thank you so much for your letter ...... So far I have felt the normal feelings of a man of my age - like an old tree that is losing all its leaves one by one: this feels like an axe-blow near the roots. Very sad that we should have been so separated in the last years; but our time of close communion endured in memory for both of us. I had a mass said this morning, and was there, and served ... The funeral at Holy Trinity, the Headington Quarry church, which Jack attended, was quiet and attended only by a few intimates ... There will be an official memorial service in Magdalen on Saturday at 2:15 p.m.

It was very sweet of you my dearest to write.....

God bless you,

Daddy.

#102

Sunday, November 22, 2009 is Christ the King Sunday in the Roman Catholic Church and in other Western denominations. Today marks the last Sunday of ordinary time, next Sunday being the first of Advent. This date in 1963 fell on a Friday and is best known as the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. This blog is dedicated to C.S. Lewis and the same day in 1963 Lewis also died. Lewis left the Shadowlands, his "ordinary time" had ended at about 5:30pm at his home outside of Oxford - The Kilns. A new Advent began for Lewis that day. A coming home he often wrote about:

We are afraid that heaven is a bribe, and that if we make it our goal we shall no longer be disinterested. It is not so. Heaven offers nothing that a mercenary soul can desire. It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see God, for only the pure in heart want to. There are rewards that do not sully motives. A man's love for a woman is not mercenary because he wants to marry her, nor his love for poetry mercenary because he wants to read it, nor his love for exercise less disinterested because he wants to run and leap and walk. Love, by definition, seeks to enjoy its object.

from The Problem of Pain, chapter 10

#101

16th November 1963

Dear Mrs. Jones,

Many thanks for your card. There was certainly nothing unpleasant, that is to say, painful, about my spell in hospital this summer, but I learnt afterwards that it was touch and go whether I survived. But thank God I pulled through, and can now say I'm as well as I ever shall be again. I must resign myself to an invalid life for the future, coupled with a strict diet; but when I look around me and see how many worse troubles afflict others I have great cause for gratitude. I can still write, and my friends are very good about visiting me; in short, things might be very much worse.
It is like your usual kindness to offer to send me some luxuries, but if you did, they would probably turn out to be forbidden fruit; for I am allowed no meat of any kind - flesh, fowl, or good red herring! But though I am unable to take advantage of your offer, I am none the less grateful to you for making it.
From a man in my condition, what news can you expect? I rarely venture further afield than a stroll in the garden. Once a week I attend a reunion of old friends at one of the Oxford taverns. (Beer thank goodness is not on the list of things denied me). Sometimes some kind person takes me out for a run in a car. Otherwise I write, read, and answer letters; one day is like another. But you are not to think of me as unhappy or bored...

With all best wishes to you both, from us both,
yours ever,
C.S. Lewis