I have come that you might have life – and have it in all
abundance. ~Jesus, in John 10:10
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| C.S. Lewis |
In preparation for a community ed class that I presented
recently, I have spent a lot of time in the last few weeks with C.S. Lewis* and
his chums – a group who playfully dubbed themselves “The Inklings.” I intend to
mine a lot of blog gold (or at least ore) out of the riches I have been exposed
to in their
fascinating company (and writings),
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| J.R.R. Tolkien |
By “good” I certainly don’t mean that their lives--or their life
together--were free of pain or discord. Both Lewis and his closest friend, J.R.R.
Tolkien, saw action in World War I, Lewis being badly wounded; and their
friendship—intimate for decades—cooled in later years (although
they remained mutually admiring and respectful of one another).
And, although they were all Christians, I am not speaking of
a narrowly pious approach to being “good.” They loved their beer, and one of
them, Lewis’s brother, Warnie, was probably an alcoholic. Lewis’s affection for
the pipe and pint gave many American evangelical Christians—now among his most devoted fans—cause for some skepticism about the genuineness of the faith
of this eccentric disciple from across the Atlantic. (And it was Tolkien’s
conservative Roman Catholicism—and a doctrinaire opposition to divorce—that
challenged his friendship with C.S. Lewis upon Lewis’s
late-in-life marriage to an American divorcee.)
I have listed what I don’t
mean – let me suggest what I do mean: That sense of a life of fulfillment and
abundance that is the product of loving relationships, meaningful purpose, and
mental challenge (perhaps even in that order). “The good life.”
Dozens of colleagues and participants came and went to and
from meetings of the Inklings over the years – it was not an exclusive circle.
The chief and most lasting among them, however, were C.S. Lewis, J.R.R.
Tolkien, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams, and Warnie Lewis. Our mind’s eye can
see them--all together, or a couple of them over pints of ale or cups of tea--deep
in conversation or light-hearted in laughter. In one way or another, their
friendship(s) had come about as a result of the kind of epiphany that C.S.
Lewis describes in The Four Loves: “Friendship
is born at that moment when one man says to another: “What! You too? I thought that no one but myself...."** Friendship for Lewis is very much a meeting of
the heart and the mind in equal proportion.
“We need friends to know anything,” says Lewis, “even ourselves.”
Heart, yes – and mind. Something to talk about. Something
that means something. Ideas. The
heart and the mind come together in Lewis’s joyous description of an Inklings
meeting: “When Warnie, Tollers (Tolkien), Williams and I meet for our pint in a
pub in Broad Street, the fun is often so fast and furious that the company
probably thinks we’re talking bawdy when in fact we’re very likely talking
theology!”
These men were, of course, “intellectuals.” I have sometimes
puzzled over the definition of that term, and have come to the conclusion that
an intellectual is anyone who cares about ideas and the words or images that
carry them. One doesn’t need a Ph.D. for that, and neither does it mean that an intellectual is pigeonholed as a dour academic. The Inklings certainly breathed the rarified air of Oxford (although Warnie
Lewis was a professional soldier who became, on his own, an expert in matters
of French royal history, and Charles Williams was educated at what amounts to a
community college and was largely self-taught – before landing an Oxford
lectureship), but they weren’t parsing the fine-points of the present
participle over pints at the Lamb & Flag (not that there would have been
anything wrong with that)—they were talking, and laughing, and interrupting one
another over what matters in life; how
could one believe this or that to be true, and occasionally
listening to Tollers read out a few of the new pages from his latest “hobbit
book” (The Lord of the Rings). Until
one of them would say, “All right, enough – enough hobbits for now. Landlord,
another round!”
(I am reminded of a comment once made by someone regarding a
weekly discussion group I attend: “Whoever takes a breath is the listener.”)
I used the word “simple” in the first paragraph, and I
suppose I mean that in a comparative sense. What I mean is that they had their
books and pens and pipes and the round table and their cups of tea and pints of
ale and walks along the banks of the Thames and one another. What they didn’t
have (here’s the comparative part) is cars (for the most part), television, the
internet, smartphones, screens, and other iDevices. This is not an anti-device
rant. I like—maybe even love—my techno-things, and value what they do for me.
But perhaps a part of me is just a little envious of an environment that was a
bit simpler even though these were far from “simple” people. (One might consider the
list of gadgets, above, another way: What contribution do these things make to “the good
life?”)
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* For those who say, "C.S. Who???" A primer: C.S. (Clive Staples) Lewis, born in Belfast in 1898, entered his adult life as a confirmed atheist. By the time he died in 1963—a highly revered professor of English Literature at Oxford and Cambridge and an internationally acclaimed author of Mere Christianity and the classic Narnia children’s series—he had become one of the most influential proponents of Christianity of the twentieth century. Fellow-professor J.R.R. Tolkien was a significant light in Lewis’s journey from atheism to faith.
**Yes, "Man." Although Lewis can be excused for being a product of his times, his writings do reveal, it must be acknowledged, a streak of masculine-centered sexism.
Good Books: C.S. Lewis: A Life, by Alister McGrath; The Inklings, by Humphrey Carpenter
The Lamb & Flag and The Eagle and Child (The Bird and Baby), two of the Inklings' favorite pubs. They stand across from each other on St. Giles Street, Oxford.
