I wasn't expecting to have the strong feelings I experienced during our time at The Kilns. We had already been in the homes of several well-known historical figures whose writing I enjoyed. But it was different here. I think it's because when you read someone's words--and then read them again and again and again--they become like a friend. You become familiar with their voice, you feel like you understand and know their perspective better each time you pick them up again. Being in the place where Lewis lived and wrote, and hearing more personal details and stories from his everyday life, added to that store of knowledge about him in my mind and was really special.
My first exposure to C.S. Lewis was (gasp!) the BBC production of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I was in 4th or 5th grade, and our class watched the movie in the school library. I'd never heard of Aslan before, but the story was so familiar because I'd been hearing it my whole life. It resonated with my little child's heart and upon finding there were books I quickly checked them out one by one and devoured them all. You don't forget your first trip into Narnia.
I visited Narnia a few more times over the years, but I think that was my only exposure to Lewis until my freshman year of college. I was registering for second-semester classes when my eye fell on the class name, The Theology of C.S. Lewis. That was too much to pass up for a bibliophile like myself, so I raced to register for it. I was so bummed when I discovered the class full but felt a little hope when the registrar told me there was a possibility of obtaining an override by the professor. My father once served in the same church as one of the professors, so I ran across the campus to the Religion Department, hoping my connection might give me a little edge. I don't know if that was what did it, but Dr. Younce easily signed an override allowing me into the class. I was over the moon. An entire class of reading books and discussing them with every professor in the Religion department.
I think everything Lewis ever wrote was on the syllabus, and I discovered that it was hard to keep up with all the reading with 15 other hours on my plate, but it gave me an introduction to the Space Trilogy and The Weight of Glory. And Lewis's autobiographical Surprised by Joy really resonated with me that year after going through a crisis of faith. I found what many others have found before me; namely, that Lewis could put into words perfectly things I thought and felt that I would never be able to say so well.
There was a small group there by appointment that afternoon, and the first thing we were told is how Lewis's house ended up in the hands of Americans, a question we had been asking ourselves. Several years ago there was an American tourist in Oxford who decided to look up where Lewis had lived. My quick summary of the story is that he found The Kilns for sale and in disrepair,
went back home and pooled resources with some friends, and bought the property. I don't think they could afford to keep it up, so they sold it to the American-formed C.S. Lewis Foundation. Here's the story told with a bit more accuracy and detail.
And here's a tidbit from my Mere Christianity reading at the beach:
If there was any idea of a sort of bargain--any idea that we could
perform our side of the contract and thus put God in our debt so
that it was up to Him, in mere justice, to perform His side--that has
to be wiped out...
...he puts all his trust in Christ: trusts that Christ will somehow share
with him the perfect human obedience which He carried out from His
birth to His crucifixion...In Christian language, He will share His 'sonship'
with us, will make us, like Himself...
If you like to put it that way, Christ offers something for nothing:
He even offers everything for nothing.
I like that phrase, everything for nothing.
