On October 26, 1963 Lewis writes to Jane Douglass:
“I too hope that moderate health will remain to me so that I
shall be able to go on writing and do all the things I’ve wanted to do, but
been too busy to tackle…I’m encouraged by my doctor’s latest report; he tells
me he is quite satisfied with my condition.”
Also on October 26 Lewis writes to Ruth Broady:
“Many thanks for your kind letter, and it was very good of
you to write and tell me that you like my books; and what a very good letter
you write for your age!
“If you continue to love Jesus, nothing much can go wrong
with you, and I hope you may always do so. I’m so thankful that you realized
[the] ‘hidden story’ in the Narnian books. It is odd, children nearly always do, grown ups hardly ever.”
[All excerpts are from The
Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, 3Volumes, Walter Hopper, editor. Harper San Francisco.]
I include the letter to Jane
Douglass because it shows Lewis’s understanding of his medical condition; he is
encouraged…he doesn’t know he has less than a month to live.
As I’ve written previously, I
love Lewis’s letters to children, hence the letter to Ruth Broady. Here is this
world-renown thinker and writer, able to engage the finest minds of his day,
writing gently to children. What joy it must have given him seeing children recognizing who Aslan really is, how it must have warmed his heart.
“If you continue to love Jesus,
nothing much can go wrong with you…” This is discipleship in a nutshell, and it
is parenting and pastoring and the core of koinonia condensed to its “ground”
and foundation – love Jesus. The
professing church needs this admonition – love Jesus.
As a pastor I’ve said to
parents over and over again, “Teach your children to love Jesus.” As a brother
in Christ I want to say to my brothers and sisters, “Teach your children to
love Jesus. Teach your teenagers to love Jesus. Demonstrate a joyful love for
Jesus in your marriages so that your family will see love for Jesus.”
I love the Narniad for many
reasons; one reason is that Jesus is the never-changing focus – the appearing
of Aslan is the “Ah ha!” moment of every book. Adults may not see this just as
they don’t see this in the Bible or in daily life. We talk about politics or
economics or sports or business or self-improvement or music or church growth
or world events; it seems we talk about everything and everyone but Jesus. How
can this be? The Early
Church told the story of
Jesus, it shared the Good News of Jesus – it was so in love with Jesus that it
couldn’t help telling others, even in the midst of severe opposition.
Lately I’ve been writing about language
on this blog, about purity versus profanity; we’d have a lot less profanity if
we loved Jesus, a lot less spin, a lot less passivity. How can one be profane, deceptive, or passive
in language and in life if one loves Jesus?
How is this for an epithet? “C.S.
Lewis – he taught children to love Jesus.”
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