John Mark Reynolds writes about grown-up clothing, and why it’s worth making a stand for a more formal style of attire: “I noted that here on the West Coast the goal of most men my age was to dress as informally as possible. The reason for this was apparently comfort, but athletic clothing is not particularly comfortable on a non-athlete if it fits or it is simply sloppy looking if it is not. Do we really want to look like boys gone to seed instead of gentlemen?”

Gentlemen who buck the Peter Pan trend and dress like grown-ups: I salute you, and affirm that you look very nice. I thoroughly endorse jackets (or blazers, which is what I want to call them as a New Englander; not sure if that’s a widely used term), waistcoats, and hats. We need more men wearing hats.

Have you ever seen a reference to “cross-written letters” in a Jane Austen or Charles Dickens novel? Ever wondered what they look like? Here you go.

Speaking of writing, what about writing in the margins of books? This New Yorker article raises the interesting question of whether annotation-sharing online, via e-readers, fulfills the same personal and social function as writing in physical books. Is the writing of marginalia a public activity, or do “readers value annotations precisely because they are a private exchange between themselves and whatever book they happen to be talking back to”?

“There are people who love to eat food, people who love to make food, and people who love to talk about food.” I fall into the first category only, but for everyone who hits two or three out of three, this delicious short essay from Image Journal is for you.

And to sum up, seven concise, sharp, spot-on insights about writing from Kelly Belmonte.

One last note: Hieropraxis now has a Facebook page. If you ‘like’ it, you can get a small e-book collection of my poetry. More to the point, I would invite you to come visit and chat with fellow readers. It’s a lot more interactive than blog comments (although I welcome those!) Thoughts on any of these Miscellany links? Come start a conversation!

Surprised by Tolkien by Mary Mueller. In Enlivened by Lewis, Mary Mueller recounted her experience with C.S. Lewis’s writing; Lewis helped her see that “faith is no less than rational, but it is far more than merely rational.” Now in this second part, she tells the tale of how it was Lewis’s friend Tolkien who finally allowed her to “connect head and heart.”

Lady Gaga Loves Judas: What About Jesus? by Fr Doran Stambaugh. Here, Fr Doran takes a look at the popular song by Lady Gaga – and uses it as a way to think through the reality of God’s love and His forgiveness.

Faith and Fairy Tale: Practical Spirituality from the Chronicles of Narnia by Andrew Lazo. Andrew Lazo was a guest speaker at my church, St Michael’s by-the-Sea, this past spring, and did an outstanding lecture on Narnia. Here is the podcast audio of his evening lecture.

Finding a Calling: Ken Mann, a graduate student in the Biola University Science and Religion MA program, wrote an excellent series on the difficult question of vocation. I’ve linked to the sixth and final segment (they are short) as it includes links to parts 1-5.

Review: Larry Witham’s By Design by Melissa Travis, who has her own excellent blog at Hard-Core Christianity, wrote this review for me of Larry Witham’s book By Design: Science and the Search for God.

Reflecting with God: The Gift of Encouragement by Margie Donaldson. Margie has done an entire series of meditations, drawing from Scripture and inspired by her walks around the Northfield campus of the future CS Lewis College.

Is Twitter a trap? A New York Times article lays out a convincing argument for why Twitter can be very bad indeed for one’s brain, and for one’s relationships. There are some very good points here, but they’re mainly about the effects of distraction, not about social media per se. I teach college freshmen, and indeed their attention spans and ability to focus are lousy. However, I’ve come to think that it’s not that the existence of media distractions that is the problem, but rather that they have not been taught (or held to) any kind of discipline. (A useful illustration: In an end-of-semester note, one my freshman composition students wrote that she got the highest grade in my class, out of any of her classes, because, as she put it, I was the only teacher who didn’t let her text in class; oddly enough, she found herself more able to concentrate on the lectures. Go figure.)

The author writes that “The shortcomings of social media would not bother me awfully if I did not suspect that Facebook friendship and Twitter chatter are displacing real rapport and real conversation, just as Gutenberg’s device displaced remembering. The things we may be unlearning, tweet by tweet — complexity, acuity, patience, wisdom, intimacy — are things that matter.”

But, as the author also briefly recognizes (and dismisses as “earnestly obvious”), it depends how you use Twitter and other social media. This past year, my own use of social media, Facebook and Twitter in particular, has opened up dramatically, shifting from being a vaguely social activity to an intentionally and deeply social activity. I am perhaps a little atypical in that I have very dear friends in other states (and countries), whom I may see once or twice a year, if that. If I use Facebook and other media wisely and carefully, these friendships can be nourished and sustained in real ways — something I never would be able to do otherwise.

Here is an interesting essay about how to make interesting online communities. The author does an interesting analysis of how social media sites attempt to gather sufficient data to develop a ‘social graph.’ It’s an essay that is somewhat critical of Google and Facebook, and with legitimate points of concern, but I find it also interesting that the author is entirely dismissive of Facebook as a place where community is formed: after praising the communities that form around discussion boards and online games, the author comments, “Now tell me one bit of original culture that’s ever come out of Facebook.” Well… it depends what you mean by culture, but I belong to several private groups on FB, each with their own distinct community and subculture, not to mention the particular way that I interact with my close friends there.

Again, it comes down to the plain, obvious, and rather un-dramatic conclusion: a good community is formed by interesting people talking about interesting, worthwhile things, who care about each other and express that care in thought, word, and deed.

There are plenty of in-person communities that completely fail this test; and while there are some types of trouble that are easier to get into online, there are also other types of trouble that are easier to get into when hanging out with a bad group in-person. It strikes me that the simplest rule for forming a good community online is the same one that applies for an in-person community: love God and love your neighbor as yourself, and let everything else unfold from there.

And here is  an interesting article from Wired on why constraints help enhance creativity. In particular, why are the closed forms of poetry so powerful and so attractive? It’s because the form heightens the creativity:

“The artificial requirements of the sonnet are just another cognitive obstacle, a hurdle that compels the mind to think in a more holistic fashion. Unless poets are stumped by their art, unless they are forced to look beyond the obvious associations, they’ll never invent an original line. They’ll be stuck with clichés and banalities, with predictable adjectives and boring verbs. And this helps explain the stubborn endurance of poetic forms: because poets need to find a rhyming word with exactly three syllables, or an adjective that fits the iambic scheme, they end up uncovering all sorts of unexpected associations.”

Now let’s think about Twitter and Facebook… if one is so inclined, and trying to say something meaningful, the tight space limitations (140 characters on Twitter; a few lines, usually, on FB) may very well produce something different…better, perhaps?… than what one might write with an indefinite amount of space. Maybe. Maybe not.

Here’s to a new year of good words, well chosen, shared among friends in fellowship!

Malcolm Guite's new CD Dancing Through the Fire

This last week I’ve been greatly cheered by a marvelous CD: Malcolm Guite’s new album Dancing Through the Fire. I knew it would be a great folk-rock album from the outset, having heard a few tunes from previews on Malcolm’s blog, but I was unprepared for how flat-out great it is. The various songs (all written & sung & with guitar played by Malcolm Guite) show how marvelous it is when top-notch poetry and music meet and dance with each other. Perhaps what I appreciate most about it is that over the course of the album we get songs that touch on love in all its depths and textures: heart’s longing; love lost; fidelity in married love; passion; joyful love shared; and even the poet’s love for his muse!

You can get it on iTunes here, and you can read further notes about the album, and about the songs, on Malcolm’s blog.

Here is an excellent piece by Kelly Belmonte at All Nine Muses, worth reading carefully and thoughtfully, on change. I think she’s on to something important here: that change has different components; that the weight of those different components varies in different situations; and that change does not have to be linear in order to be positive and sustainable. Change is inevitable, but as Kelly wisely points out, “We choose to be active or passive in the context of change in our lives.”

Now just a little bit of fun: the origin of everyday punctuation marks. People had to invent these, after all – the exclamation point didn’t fall from the sky one day (good thing; it might have speared someone). My favorite: learning that the # symbol is really called the octothorp. (I am baffled as to why it’s called the ‘pound sign.’ If it were the symbol my British friends used for currency, I’d understand, but as it is…) Now, for a campaign to get all automated phone systems to say “When you are finished entering your account number, please press octothorp.”

Update: it seems I am not the only one who has an appreciation of punctuation (hooray!). Malcolm Guite has even written a delightful little poem about the ampersand, which happens to be one of my favorite punctuation marks (what, doesn’t everyone have favorite punctuation marks?) . Here it is, shared with permission:

“Ode to an Ampersand” by Malcolm Guite

Lovely little &
easier to type than “and”
your squiggle curls around and round
cute and curvy like the £
you belong just where you are
between the ^ & the *.

When I visited Northumbria I was delighted to find a Metro stop named after the Venerable Bede!

I have a particular love for the Anglo-Saxon period, that stretch of English history that is often ignored or considered part of the so-called ‘Dark Ages’. Dark, in some ways: but bright in many others, and much more like our own day than we may realize. The Anglo-Saxon period can be said to run from the fall of Rome in 410 AD to the Norman Conquest in 1066 AD.

What can our brothers and sisters in Christ from those days, a thousand years or more go, say to us today?

The Venerable Bede, a monk, historian, and scholar, is one of the lights of those days. He is buried in Durham Cathedral (here is a little bit of information about him, from the Cathedral website.) Bede is most famous for his history of England, the Ecclesiastical History of the English People, but (unsurprisingly) many scholars dismiss out of hand any references to the supernatural in his history.

But wait! I came across this article from the British Medical Journal on the healing miracles in Anglo-Celtic Northumbria recorded by Bede. The author concludes:

A number of case histories of “miraculous” healings in the  past 30 years have been presented in which independent corroboration is possible. [...] These cases have been paired with miracle stories recorded by Bede and his contemporaries, which up to now have not been considered historically admissible. They have normally been discarded as mere copies of New Testament incidents, or of prototype lives such as that of St Antony produced to add stature to a local saint. Their writers have been excused as being merely those who put floating tradition into shape or who provided stories which not only delighted the simple minded but filled them with awe and reverence. It is my contention that we can now treat their writings with even greater respect than has up to now been possible. They, and the saints whose lives they portray, prove to be men of greater stature than we have hitherto believed.

The article is worth reading in its entirety. As an apologist, my first thought is: evidence for the reality of miracles! But a second thought, no less valuable, is that Christians need to hear this too. We need to be reminded that God does answer prayer and work miracles, including those of healing, and we also need to be reminded of the saints of other times and places.

Life-sized sculpture in the Durham town center of the monks carrying the remains of the Venerable Bede to his final resting place in Durham Cathedral.

The Anglo-Saxon period has much in common with our own day. They lived under the shadow of terrorist attack too – for the Viking raiders may have had a different motive, but the same effect. The sack of the Holy Island of Lindisfarne in 793 was, in its own way, a kind of 9/11 for the people of northern England. And the political and religious leaders of the time were concerned about literacy, and worked to do something about it; King Alfred the Great deserves his appellation in part because of his work to promote and recover learning for his people.

It was a dark time, but with saints who shone brightly in the darkness, and who persevered. I think we would do well to know more about these distant (yet not so distant) ancestors.

GK Chesterton thought so too. His poem The Ballad of the White Horse tells the story of King Alfred in the desperate days fighting against the invading Danes; first published in 1911, it has its centenary this year, and very appropriately timed, I might add. Chesterton writes in ballad form, which at first seems anachronistic (the poetry of Alfred’s day would have been alliterative verse; the ballad is a later French form) but in fact serves to underscore the point: Alfred’s courage and faith are not just for his time, but for all times, and that includes for us, now, today.

Malcolm Guite has done a wonderful complete reading of the poem, which I thoroughly recommend. You can listen to it online, or download it. Either way, go listen to it!

There are many wonderful lines in the poem, but perhaps my favorite is this: “The men of the East may spell the stars, / And times and triumphs mark, / But the men signed of the cross of Christ / Go gaily in the dark.”

When I read that line, I am brought back in memory to the time of my baptism, when the cross was traced on my forehead with oil and I heard: “You are marked as Christ’s own for ever.” And I think of the reading of the Gospel in church, how as an Anglican I participate in the tradition of tracing a cross with my thumb, on my forehead, lips, and over my heart, as a reminder that the Gospel should always be in my thoughts, spoken from my lips, and held in my heart. And it brings me back to the various times when I have asked for prayer from one of my priest friends, for often that prayer or blessing includes the tracing of the cross on my forehead.

Ours is an incarnational faith; we are saved in body as well as soul.

The darkness is different for each one of us: mental, physical, spiritual, emotional. And for each of us, the darkness will be different at different times: the darkness of loneliness, or the darkness of carrying on when it seems that one cannot go on; the darkness of suffering, or even simply the darkness of stepping forward into the unknown. But this darkness is not the same as the darkness of being lost; it is a darkness that (as Chesterton saw, and wrote) calls us to trust in the One who is the Light in our darkness.

We are signed of the cross of Christ: we may go gaily in the dark!

Gilbert Meilaender writes about “transitional humanity” at The New Atlantis, and the possibility of achieving extreme longevity, what transhumanists optimistically call immortality. C.S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength (which is discussed in the essay) turns out to be quite prophetic. Is our finite life a problem to be fixed, a research topic to be tackled? Meilander sums up a very thoughtful article with these words:

The relentless temporality of human life means that we are always incomplete, always in viatoribus, always on the way. Hope is the virtue that sustains us on the way toward the divine beauty and goodness — protecting us against a presumption which supposes that any of us could here and now become a comprehensor, as if an indefinitely extended earthly life, whether organic or virtual, could quench our longing; protecting us also against despair, against the temptation to make of our vulnerability a virtue. It moves us to desire something more than life’s banquet, sumptuous as it may be, something other than just indefinitely more of the same life, and something more than the achievement of “longevity escape velocity.” It enables us to wait for the strength to run and not be weary, to walk and not faint — a strength no research project can produce and which can only be received as a gift.”

Part of the transhumanist ideal is a future free from death, disease, and disability. What does that look like in practice? Generally it looks like the murder in the womb of those who don’t meet contemporary standards of good-enough. In fact, people with disabilities can be considered the cultural canary in the coal mine.

Disease and disability are just the tip of the iceberg. When children are conceived of, and conceived, as consumer items – what are the consequences? One consequence is the idea that if you have made all the other decisions about a child’s existence, and how it will fit into your life, choosing whether it should live or die is just one more decision point. The New York Times has an article here on the “two-minus-one pregnancy”: women who are bearing twins but choose to abort one of them, generally because it’s just too much hassle to raise twins.

Even with the relentless determination of the article to be “pro-choice” the piece is disturbing. This is an utterly fascinating article in the way that it shines light into some very, very dark places in our culture.

One woman is quoted as saying that ““This is bad, but it’s not anywhere as bad as neglecting your child or not giving everything you can to the children you have,” she told me, referring to the reduction. She and her husband worked out this moral calculation on their own, and they intend to never tell anyone about it. Jenny is certain that no one, not even her closest friends, would understand, and she doesn’t want to be the object of their curiosity or feel the sting of their judgment.”

One might ask: not as bad for whom? One could reasonably argue that killing one’s child is the most profound form of neglect.

It is also interesting to note the effects of a culture of privacy. ‘Jenny’ and her husband hide this act, fearing that they will be the target of disapproval – so if they were not able to retreat into their private community-of-two, but instead had to face the disapproval of friends and family, perhaps that second child might be alive and not dead.

Another woman explains that her choice to abort a healthy boy out of a pair of twins was due to the fact that her husband was deployed and she did not feel able to care for twins without help. (Another failure of community, I might add.)

“Today, her daughter is 2½ years old. Shelby intends to tell her about the reduction someday, to teach her that women have choices, even if they’re sometimes difficult. “I am the mother of a very demanding toddler,” she says. “I can’t imagine this times two, and not ever knowing if I’d have another person here to help me. This is what I can handle. I’m good with this. But that’s all.”

Imagine having your own mother tell you that she chose to kill your twin brother, to make raising you a little easier. Yes, women have choices; will this be a comfort to that young woman? After all, her mother could easily have made a different choice: to have a single boy, instead of a single girl. And that choice would have meant death.

Let me close with my own reflection on being human – a sonnet.

My childhood’s future sent us to the stars,
To unknown worlds, strange and new frontiers,
To empires, strife, and interstellar wars.
Even in space we can’t outrun our fears.
We fell back to the earth, and farther still,
To inner space, where on the nano scale
We now subject our selves to our own will.
But we have seen our technomancy fail
When what we seek is not to shape but know
What kind of thing we are. We cannot chart
The fractal currents of the soul; we go
From dark to dark, and in the hidden heart
We’re searching still. For are we just machines
If worlds we’ll never see still haunt our dreams?

About Ken:

Ken Mann is a graduate student in Biola’s Science and Religion program. A software engineer by way of vocation, a physicist by way of education, and a devout follower of Jesus Christ, in his words, by necessity, Ken sees the most powerful argument for Christianity as its relevance to every facet of human existence. Studying theology, apologetics, and philosophy of science is the latest expression of that belief in his life. After Biola, Ken hopes to encourage other believers with the powerful evidence for God’s providence and presence in creation.

I’ve been involved with ACM as a speaker (at the 2010 Online Apologetics Conference and the 2011 Online Christian Writers Conference) and will now be a judge in the 2012 Poetry Contest. Hooray! I’m very glad that, through my collaboration with ACM, I can also help promote Christian writers as they develop their craft.

You can find out more about Athanatos Christian Ministries here.

And now, congratulations to Donna Austgen-Frisinger:

First place in the Poetry category for “Permanent Houseguest”

as well as

Second place in the Poetry category for “Bullets for a Hometown Hero.”

Hieropraxis also sponsored the third-place Short Story award, which went to Bill Vargo for “Fan of Disgraced Tennis Star Rescued by Lobsterman.”

You can read all the Poetry and Short Story contest winners on ACM’s site.

Writers: If you are interested in entering the 2012 contest, I encourage you to do so! Here is the link for more information.

The main building of the Camp Allen Retreat Center.

I’ve now been to two Southwest Regional Retreats (in 2009 and 2010 – read my report here), one Vacation with a Purpose, and one Summer Institute at Oxbridge (both of the latter in 2011). One of the things I’ve realized about the Foundation at this point is that their planning is brilliant, consistent, and visionary.

Every Foundation event is created around an integrated vision: creative arts, worship, the life of the mind, and fellowship, with Our Lord Jesus Christ at the center of it all. Whether the event is on the grand scale (The Summer Institute at Oxbridge, nine days split across Oxford and Cambridge, England) or the smaller, intimate scale (the Regional Retreat at Camp Allen), the vision is the same – and the results are wonderful.

The Camp Allen event is unique in its combination of two pieces, the Retreat and the Writers Workshop. You can come for one, the other, or both (as I have done the past two years). In both cases, there will be interesting speakers (more on that in a moment), a gorgeous retreat center location in the Piney Woods of Navasota, TX, the Bag End Café each night, and the chance to mingle in fellowship with like-minded people. I have made a number of lasting and treasured friends at Foundation events!

Let me tell you a few of the highlights of each event. (Just a few! I want to keep this short!)

The Retreat runs Friday, Oct 28 through Sunday, Oct. 30. The theme is “Fling Wide the Gates: C.S. Lewis & the Pursuit of Joy” and we will be celebrating the 80th anniversary of CS Lewis’ conversion to Christianity. Plenary sessions from Dr Bruce Edwards and a breakout session with Terry Glaspey and Andrew Lazo will focus on Lewis’ path to conversion, both in terms of his reason and his imagination. Other breakout sessions will focus on the arts: Louis Markos on the filming of Narnia & Middle Earth, Lancia Smith on image as story source, and yours truly on CS Lewis and the art of wordsmithing. There will also be a performance from Ad Deum Dance Company, and several performance treats from our musical guest, Pierce Pettis. The weekend will end in the best way possible: with a worship service for all participants, followed by one last meal in fellowship in the comfortable dining commons of Camp Allen.

If you are a writer, whether novice, intermediate, or experienced, then the Writers Workshop is an added treat. The Writers Workshop, which this year has the theme of “On Stories: Imagination to Incarnation”, starts on Thursday, October 27 and overlaps with the Retreat, concluding on Saturday, Oct. 29 (unless you want to stay on… of course you do!) The Writers Workshop is very hands-on, and features excellent, practical tracks from experienced writers, agents, and tech specialists. We have Angela Hunt (Novel Workshop series), Carolyn Curtis (Nonfiction Workshop series), Thomas Umstattd (Tech Sessions), Steve Laube (Agent Sessions), and Terry Glaspey (Editor Sessions). It is an incredible opportunity to be in a small class setting with such talented people, getting information and insights from professionals in the field.

There are more treats in store, but one of them that you won’t want to miss is award-winning author Kevin Belmonte’s special session on “There and Back Again: A Writer’s Life.”

Another can’t-miss event, for both the Retreat and the Writers Workshop, is Andrew Lazo‘s Bag End Café – it’s always a marvelous experience, but especially so in the company of fellow writers!

Incidentally, my breakout session (“CS Lewis and the Art of Wordsmithing”) as well as Lancia Smith’s (“CS Lewis and Image as Story Source”) are listed as Retreat breakouts, but they have been scheduled with the specific intention of allowing (and encouraging!) Writers Workshop participants, as well as Retreat participants, to attend.

I could go on at great length, but suffice it to say that wild horses couldn’t keep me from heading to Camp Allen… and the fact that the Foundation invited me to be a seminar leader this year is quite an honor. I’m looking forward to seeing old friends and making new ones, and having the chance to rest and refresh in a beautiful setting, and to be encouraged in my writing. I invite you to come too!

Sign up on the Southwest Regional Retreat website – if you register before Sept. 30, there’s an early-registration discount!

One of the most important parts of Oxbridge for me was the emphasis on music and the arts – fully integrated into each day’s program of events. In Oxford, we were treated to a classical concert in the Sheldonian – absolutely stunning. I am not generally one who listens to classical music, but I was spellbound the entire time, and I realized that in part the difference was that this was an incarnational experience – being in the company of friends, feeling the notes reverberate in my whole body, and seeing the musicians as they performed, with intensity, passion, and joy, all combined to make a whole greater than the parts. (I suspect I am not the only one who particularly enjoyed the young violinist who played with a ‘rock star’ level of enthusiasm!)

In Cambridge, we enjoyed a full choral concert by the CS Lewis Summer Institute choir – itself a testament to the way that the shared love of Christ and a commitment to excellence can lead to incredible heights. The choir was made up of people from all over the US (and one Englishman) who only came together at the start of the conference, and then rehearsed intensively to produce simply stunning beauty of song, leading to a well deserved standing ovation.

But we also had music woven into the fabric of the day: opening the day with the singing of hymns; “Whimsy” short performances in between plenary speakers, from the Choir and the extraordinarily gifted Steve Bell; impromptu song and music at the Bag End Cafe; and raising our voices together in the Doxology in the dining hall in honor of all those who served us there with such dedication and love. Music is not mere entertainment: it is a way of rejoicing in God and all that He has given us.

I’ve said a lot here about music – why not about literature or ideas, seeing as those are the areas that I’m more involved in? Actually that’s on purpose. The range and depth of events at Oxbridge meant that everyone had a chance to be pulled out of their depth, drawn into the rich experience of something new, shown a new way of seeing beauty or new ideas to think about, through the eyes of others. For me, music was the area in which I was drawn “further up and further in.” For others, it might have been literature, for instance for those who were in Michael Ward’s sessions on Narnia. Or education, for those in John Mark Reynolds’ sessions on teaching with the Great Books. Or history, for those who learned about DL Moody and William Wilberforce from Kevin Belmonte. Or… The list goes on.

Let me say a word now about prayer. Throughout the nine days of our fellowship, I found myself in prayer practically every time I turned around. In conversation with one of my brothers or sisters in Christ, after we’d been talking about our lives and work and ministries, often someone would say “let’s pray!” and quite naturally then we would do so. Or a friend would come up and ask for prayer – or vice versa. I marvel at the naturalness of it all – all this prayer came in an unforced way from our mutual love and concern, and the constant, deep awareness that we were all drawn together to this place, this work, this fellowship by our individual orientation to Christ and our desire to serve him. At home, all too often I feel that I can’t “bother” people with requests for prayer unless they are “really important” (like a serious illness). But here at Oxbridge that hesitation fell away, and I found that it was the most natural thing in the world to ask a brother to pray for me that I could sleep (after a terrible night the night before), or that I would pray with others for all our writing projects – the list could go on.

Some of the prayer requests were for protection – I’m not the only one who felt, at least at times, that the Enemy was hard at work trying to disrupt us and distract us. Take heart! That is a clear signal that we were doing good work for the Kingdom. The CS Lewis Foundation, the CS Lewis College, the work of all the plenary speakers and workshop leaders, and each and every one of us who was there and was moved to do this work of transforming culture and transcending chaos – we are on the front lines of a spiritual battle, and we should expect resistance. In the days to come, as we settle back into our routine, let us keep up this glorious discipline of prayer, and let us continue to pray for each other – because friendship and prayer know nothing of distance.

Finally, home going. We couldn’t stay here in Cambridge forever; we all have homes to go back to, work to do, often spouses and children waiting. Certainly I was too “filled up” to possibly take in any more! And so we said our farewells (Christians never say goodbye!), promised to keep in touch, and hauled our bags (often significantly heavier with books) off to the waiting cabs. We headed home, but so much richer in spirit than when we came; we headed home different from when we arrived.

Friends, it’s not easy to go back to the regular world after an experience like this. I known that when I get back to San Diego, the world is going to seem rather flat and dull. I won’t have these great conversations. I won’t have the constant presence of beauty in each day. I’ll see freeways and shopping malls instead of the inspiring architecture of Great St Mary and Kings College and Radcliffe Camera and Keble College. I know I’ll feel lonely and miss my CS Lewis friends, and that I’ll almost certainly be depressed for a while.

And that’s ok. The world will seem a little gray for a while, but that’s because we were in a brighter light for a while. The light is real; the very existence of the shadow testifies to it. Remember that: be Christ’s hands in the world, and in whatever way you can, live out some part of what inspired you here at Oxbridge. In that way, you will be letting God shine His light through you where it’s needed most: into the gray and shadowy places. You are His bearers of hope, vision, and light now – not an easy task but an honorable one indeed!

Malcolm Guite framed the Oxbridge experience for us, speaking on the first day of the conference and then preaching in the closing celebration of the Eucharist on the final day. As the Bag End folks heard, he is also in the midst of writing a sonnet cycle for the church year, one sonnet for each major day. As it happened, immediately following Oxbridge (on August 6) was the feast of the Transfiguration, in which Peter, James, and John go with Jesus to a mountaintop and see him transfigured, shining in glory, next to Moses and Elijah. It’s a glimpse of the glory of the Resurrection that is yet to come, a reminder (though the disciples of course don’t understand) that Good Friday is not the end, but the beginning, of new life.

Malcolm’s “Transfiguration” sonnet captures best what I want to say in summing up. (Go read it here on Malcolm’s page, and come back.) This has been a mountain-top experience for me; “The daily veil that covers the sublime” was pulled aside just a bit, so that I could see and feel beauty more deeply. “The Love that dances at the heart of things / Shone out upon us from a human face”: isn’t that what is happening when we find friends and kindred spirits, who express in word and deed and smiles and laughter the joy of being brothers and sisters in Christ?

But above all, hope. We have had that “sudden blaze of long-extinguished hope” here at Oxbridge these past days; hope for transforming our culture, not merely surviving it. Hope that inspires the Foundation to launch CS Lewis College, thanks be to God. Hope that we should hold on to. Pray, and work for the future, and keep up those bonds of fellowship, dear friends; make a space in your lives for beauty and creativity; because what we shared here was, as Malcolm says so well, a “glimpse of how things really are.”