Awakening Wonder

Richard Latta

Description

C.S. Lewis shows us how to rediscover wonder, live in joy, think about things that matter and bring hope to a world in pain.

This book is written for those who haven’t yet discovered the brilliance, humor, humility, and awe-filled writings of C.S. Lewis. Maybe one who has read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but no other Narnia books. Or half of Mere Christianity and got side-tracked. Or has heard their pastor quote Lewis time and again and wonders “why?” Or thought: “what is the big deal about C.S. Lewis?” The author highlights the eight or ten most meaningful Lewis ideas that have transformed his life. Ideas such as “what real joy is” and “the presence of God in everyday occurrences” and “the secret to recovery of child-like wonder” and “the startling relevance of Lewis to today” and “how believing in Christ makes the most sense.”



“I enjoyed reading this wondrous book about C.S. Lewis. It is ‘twice wondrous’ because it is a pleasure not only to read Rich Latta’s insights into C.S. Lewis’s books, but to enjoy the feeling that comes when a writer opens his heart so warmly as Rich has done. I decided I want what Rich Latta has uncovered in the second half of his life: the enjoyment of a new start in seeing and feeling the wonder of God. This enjoyment is God Himself: “more of God!” Rich writes. It is also a heartfelt awakening to all that is wondrous in the world that God made. Thank you, Rich. You have given the reader a gift of awakened wonder, theirs and yours.”

—Bob Blincoe, PhD. President Emeritus, Frontiers

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• Spiritual Growth
• Christian Living
• Philosophie et théologie
• Screwtape
• The Chronicles of Narnia
• Mere Christianity
• Joy
• Wonder
• Narnia
• C. S. Lewis

Informations

• Publié par: WestBow Press
• Date de parution: 19 septembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781664276772
• Langue: English

Extrait

AWAKENING WONDER
 
Wisdom of C.S. Lewis for today
 
 
 
 
Richard Latta
 
 
 

 
Copyright © 2022 Richard P. Latta.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
WestBow Press
A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.westbowpress.com
844-714-3454
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
Cover sketch by Seth S. Bartel
 
Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.®
 
MERE CHRISTIANITY by C.S. Lewis copyright © 1942, 1943, 1944, 1952 C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS by C.S. Lewis copyright © 1942 C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. THE WEIGHT OF GLORY by C.S. Lewis copyright © 1949 C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. SURPRISED BY JOY by C.S. Lewis copyright © 1955 C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Extracts reprinted by permission.
 
ISBN: 978-1-6642-7676-5 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6642-7678-9 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-6642-7677-2 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022916067
 
WestBow Press rev. date: 9/29/2022
CONTENTS
Dedication
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
Chapter 1Right Thinking
Chapter 2The Great Lion
Chapter 3A Little Bio
Chapter 4Think Twice
Chapter 5Praise And Enjoyment
Chapter 6God’s Fingerprints are Everywhere
Chapter 7A Way with Words
Chapter 8No Ordinary People
Chapter 9Screwtape
Chapter 10Mere Christianity
Chapter 11Joy—Glimmers Of Glory
Conclusion
Endnotes
Bibliography
DEDICATION
To Colleen, who always believes. Thank you. I love you.
“The world will never starve for want of wonders, but for want of wonder.”
~ GK Chesterton
“Plato insisted that all authentic philosophy—and we can extrapolate to theology—has its beginning in a sense of wonder. Existence is vastly beautiful, wonderfully good, majestically true. We can only get off on the right foot by beginning in adoration. All authentic anything has its beginning in a sense of wonder. And caring must begin with a sense of adoration and wonder. If we do not begin in adoration, we begin too small. If we begin by formulating a problem, by identifying a need, by tackling a necessary job, by launching a program, we reduce the reality that is before us to what we can do or get others to do.”
—Eugene Peterson
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
The Horse and His Boy (HB)
The Last Battle (LB)
Letters to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer (LM)
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (LWW)
Miracle s (M)
Mere Christianity (MC)
Prince Caspian (PC)
Present Concerns (PrCo)
The Problem of Pain (PP)
Reflections on the Psalms (RP)
Surprised by Joy (SJ)
The Screwtape Letters (SL)
Till We Have Faces (TWHF)
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (VDT)
The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (WG)
Yours, Jack: Spiritual Direction from C.S. Lewis , edited by Paul F. Ford (YJ)
Owen Barfield on C. S. Lewis , (OBCSL)
A Shiver of Wonder, (SW).
C.S. Lewis at the Breakfast Table , (CSLATBT)
Seeking the Secret Place: The Spiritual Formation of C.S. Lewis , (SSP)
The Most Reluctant Convert , (MRC)
Companion to Narnia , (CN)
C.S. Lewis: A Biography , (CSLAB)
A Hobbit, A Wardrobe, and a Great War , (HWGW)
C.S. Lewis -A Life (CSLAL)
The Soul of C.S. Lewis , (SCSL).
Jack: A Life of C. S. Lewis , (JAL)
Pursuing an Earthy Spirituality , (PES)
INTRODUCTION
As I write this the world is agonizingly watching a new war in Europe: Russia has invaded Ukraine and Vladimir Putin is doing his best to bomb it into submission. Some even think that we are teetering on the brink of a much broader war, possibly the previously unthinkable World War III. We all desperately hope and pray that is not the case. We have just lived through two years of an unprecedented world-wide pandemic. Millions have died, many of us knew some of them personally, businesses have closed, lives have been disrupted, school children have suffered greatly, and we all hope we never have to live through another one. We have become accustomed to living in an age of mass shootings, whether in schools, concerts, marketplaces or places of worship. Some say we are seeing the disintegration of society to a degree unknown in the modern world.
Just yesterday I heard a speaker at a memorial service quote a line or two from Louis L’Amour, the well-loved Western novelist: “There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. Yet that will be the beginning.” C.S. Lewis says a similar thing at the end of the Narnia books in The Last Battle . It is my very favorite of the series. Without giving away (too much of) the ending, I merely echo a recurring phrase: “Further up and further in!” The children and the animals are experiencing the mind-shattering phenomenon of entering Aslan’s country or heaven. They have just gone through a stable door and have found that its inside is bigger than its outside. Queen Lucy (the youngest and always the most spiritually attuned and insightful of the children) says, “In our world too, a Stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world.” They are all filled with wonder. Lewis concludes the book:
And as He spoke, He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page; now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before. 1
Lewis was a “big God person.” What we think of as an ending, God sees as a beginning. God is bigger than our best thoughts of him, so our ideas of God must always be enlarging. When things look impossible to us, “nothing is impossible to God.” (Mt 19:26) Whether in our personal lives or the broader scenario of the world as a whole, God is not limited by what may seem like insurmountable obstacles. “We are far too easily pleased” is Lewis’s conclusion to our too frequent settling for small measures of happiness or even counterfeit distortions of pleasure offered by T.V. commercials and the like. We watch the evening news and think our world’s problems are too big; we are too entrenched in our respective corners to listen to one another and actually find a solution that would work for all of us. The wisdom of God (and Lewis) says the story is not done; continue to work and pray and hope and love one another, trusting God that he will have his way in his good time.
And now, “Another book about C.S. Lewis?! Seriously? How many books about Lewis do we need?” “Does that pastor read anything other than C.S. Lewis?” Provide your own variation of those sentiments. Meanwhile, let me tell you a story.
I had talked with this older gentleman any number of times; we weren’t close friends, but certainly were more than casual acquaintances. Bob was a committed Christian man, active in his church, loved by his family, successful in business, and very well thought of in his community. Somehow, we had gotten to that favorite topic of many a Sunday morning attendee: roast pastor, somewhat troubling to me, a pastor at the time. He said, “If I hear one more reference to C.S. Lewis in that pastor’s sermons, I think I’ll get up and walk out of church!” I’m not sure exactly what was behind that comment. We quickly got on to other subjects, more innocuous to us both.
I’ve remembered and reflected on that man’s comment as it paralleled an attitude I’ve encountered in several other believers. In these others it usually surfaced when I’d make some remark about Mere Christianity , saying something like I thought it was the best book I had ever read. I’d get a nod of agreement, but also the real sense that they had never read the book or had tried and given up. As with Bob, we would soon jump to another topic and leave Lewis for safer waters.
As a pastor I had read more than a few of Lewis’s books and found them brilliant and challenging, but sometimes a bit dense for my taste (I just didn’t want to have to think that hard or take the time to look up that many words.) They were particularly insightful about various Christian ideas or doctrines, as well as our human condition and foibles. I would have been found guilty myself of using passages by Lewis to illustrate sermons. The Narnia books were especially useful with their enchanting characters and fanciful setting. Mr. Beaver’s response to Lucy that Aslan was “not a tame lion” has even become a kind of common parlance (similar to “E.T., phone home” or “Trust the force, Luke” or “follow the science”) for the freedom, sovereignty,