Maybe a few pictures from The Eagle and Child are still appropriate today since I've been indulging in Mere Christianity in the last 24 hours. I guess it's not really connected to The Eagle and Child, but C.S. Lewis is, so...
I know I started Mere Christianity when I was a freshman in college, but I don't think I ever finished it. I know my copy I bought for my Theology of C.S. Lewis class seemed pretty unread and unmarked. It's just so, so good. I think everybody feels that way when they read Lewis, though. It's always just so good.
Late yesterday afternoon while the kids shot each other with water guns and ran through the sprinkler I read the chapters on Chastity and Christian Marriage. I don't think I've ever read Lewis on the subject of sex before. I loved this section on aiming for perfect chastity. I found it so applicable to so many areas of my life.
"...perfect chastity--like perfect charity--will not be attained by any
merely human efforts. You must ask for God's help. Even when
you have done so, it may seem to you for a long time that no help,
or less help than you need, is given. Never mind. After each failure,
ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again...For however important
chastity (or courage, or truthfulness, or any other virtue) may be, this
process trains us in habits of the soul which are more important still.
It cures our illusions about ourselves and teaches us to depend on God.
We learn, on the one hand, that we cannot trust ourselves even in our
best moments, and, on the other, that we need not despair even in
our worst, for our failures are forgiven."
Find a seat, and place your order at the bar.
That made me smile.
I fussed at KJ for taking this picture...
I loathed the idea of appearing too touristy.
He said he wanted to remember the atmosphere.
The Eagle and Child was so popular amongst Oxford students, the University now owns it.
The pub has been remodeled since the days when Lewis and the rest of the Inklings met here, I think, but they recreated the famous room of their meeting.
The place was crowded and dark, and the Rabbit Room was fully occupied, so my pictures aren't the best, but I tried to nonchalantly snap a few. You know, I wanted to fit in there, not look like the American tourist I actually was.
I love that picture of Tolkien.
We left through a side door into the alley that exited from the little black gate on the left and went racing down the cobblestone streets toward the car park and our appointment at Lewis's home. We did, however, make a quick stop in a shop to buy some Oxford gear. It's probably appropriate for me to be reading Lewis while I make my way through these pictures. The visit to his home was really special.
I'll close with a funny quote on the headship of men in marriage from yesterday's reading.
"If there must be a head, why the man? Well, firstly is there any very
serious wish that it should be the woman? As I have said, I am not
married myself, but as far as I can see, even a woman who wants to
be the head of her own house does not usually admire the same state
of things when she finds it going on next door. She is much more
likely to say, 'Poor Mr X! Why he allows that appalling woman
to boss him about the way she does is more than I can imagine.'"
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