Review :: The Lion, the Mouse, and the Dawn Treader :: Carl McColman

I don't know how you spent your childhood Sundays in church; I spent mine with C.S. Lewis. Our country church had a library full of faith-filled children's literature, the Ladd Family Adventures, the Sugar Creek Gang, and, best of all, The Chronicles of Narnia. Sitting in the pew next to my parents or the parents of my best friend, I read all seven of the Narnia books over and over: in order of publication, in Narnian chronology, in reverse order of publication, and I think I even tried reverse Narnian chronology. Narnia captivated me; Narnia was the world I wanted to live in, a world of adventure and magic and a depth of meaning that grade school (even grade school in Montana) just didn't seem to offer.

Of all the Narnia stories, my favorite since childhood remains The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. When I recently reread the entire Narnia series (aloud) with my wife, I found my opinion hasn't changed. Something about the travel narrative, the unique character of each island, and the mystical conclusion of the book continues to draw my thoughts into this story more deeply than any of the others (I feel the same way about Perelandra, the second of Lewis' space trilogy). When Mike Morrell alerted me to Carl McColman's new book, The Lion, the Mouse, and the Dawn Treader, that explores mysticism in Lewis' Dawn Treader, I jumped at the opportunity to reopen this story that has haunted me (in the best of ways) since childhood.

Review :: This House of Sky :: Ivan Doig

If you want to see the country, there's no advice better than that of Peter Jenkins: Go on foot, with your life strapped to your back and, hopefully, a friend and a good camera by your side.  There's no other way to get to know the breadth and depth of the land on a personal basis.

But if cross-country backpacking isn't for you, Greyhound is a good second. Maybe crowded, usually behind schedule, often hot, cramped, prone to arguments and the occasional fistfight, Greyhound pushes travel up in your face (and in your nostrils). It's a journey not simply through miles and landscape but through people, the ones who get on and off at each stop for a smoke and chance to stretch out their legs.

I've just returned from a few weeks by bus, a pilgrimage to my birthplace to help my family reroof their secondhand farmhouse. As the bus moved me from the treed hills of Wisconsin through the cornfields of Minnesota and the stark, unending sky of North Dakota, I completed another journey: Ivan Doig's memoir, This House of Sky. My dad lent me the book with a high recommendations two years ago, and I first peeled back its cover somewhere in eastern Montana, that time by car, as we drove home. Two summers later, the time had come to see Doig through to the end.

I'm glad I did. Making the rounds of White Sulphur Springs' bars and cafes with Doig, riding miles of potholed highways in the Smith River valley, fighting the windblown drifts high in the Big Belt Mountains--these are all pieces of life, memories and stories I share with Doig. These people, these places, this way of life brings me home.

Reflections on Stories

I'm going to rephrase this whole question:

A few weeks ago I fell into a hole. It was a hole called Hulu (note the phonetic resonance between the two words). While Cindy was off retreating with many of the women from our church, I stayed up until two-thirty Saturday night (er. . . . Sunday morning) watching nearly all the first season of Arrested Development.

Arrested Development is a witty show, and I'm sad that it didn't get the ratings for Fox to keep it on air. It's textured, layered, multi-referential. Plus Ron Howard is the narrator. (The Oracle tells me that Arrested Development has been off the air for a few years--I don't really keep up with TV.)

Cindy got home that Sunday afternoon, and we've pounded out the second and third season during wild binges of TV watching during the last two or three weeks. End of story.

Well, not really. Another recent development: I spend a half hour or so sitting out on our fire escape, watching my little box of herbs and tomatoes and peppers grow, watching the birds that nervously nest in a crack in the brick in over our back stairs, watching the sky. I listen to the neighbors' air conditioners, to the quick voices of their children and the rise and fall of married couples screaming at one another. Sometimes I even talk to our next door neighbor as she waters her fire escape garden.

I try to pray while I sit there. At least I try to quiet down and listen for the Spirit's voice. And this is what I've been hearing: Arrested Development, Terry Pratchett novels, my own unfolding projects, dreams about what Cindy and I will do next. This is what I haven't been hearing: God's voice.

I am caught in so many stories, so many hopes and concerns competing for a piece of my attention, so many pieces already claimed by television or private dreams. God doesn't fill up my mind, my senses, because I've crowded him out with so many cheap thrills.

See, God has a story. Jesus has a story, a kingdom story. But instead of plunging my imagination into the yet unfolding drama of Jesus' resurrection life overcoming the weight of history, I check out pulp fiction from the library, stream reruns via Hulu, repeatedly check my Google Reader, and fidget with my iTunes.

So here's the question from last post (yes, I do really want answers): When and where and from whom have you heard kingdom stories that invade your imagination?

My list would include Tom and Christine Sine at Common Root '09. Check the video I posted a few months back of their presentation. I'm also a big fan of Tom's book The New Conspirators. The Sine's tell stories of God's kingdom come, tangible as sign and foretaste of the promise for God's life to overcome the world.

Who's on your list?