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A Love Story: C.S. Lewis & Joy Davidman

For years I have been fascinated and enthralled by the love story of C.S. Lewis and Joy Davidman. It is not a typical one, not one that would set most young hearts a-flutter, but I’ve always found it beautiful. When they met for the first time in person in 1952, Lewis was already in his mid-fifties, a confirmed bachelor with no intention to marry, an established professor at Oxford, and a world-famous Christian author. Joy Davidman Gresham was a Jewish American, fifteen years younger than Lewis, former Communist, Christian convert, who was (unhappily) married, with two young sons. She was a poet and accomplished writer in her own right, though life circumstances perhaps prevented her from achieving the full potential of her intellect. Lewis and Joy had begun a correspondence when Joy and her first husband, Bill Gresham, converted to Christianity and were seeking guidance. This relationship in letters allowed for a depth of communication on an intellectual level that both Joy and Lewis must have been craving their entire lives, a matching of wits of two unique and brilliant minds. To severely abbreviate a story with many complicated motivations and circumstances: just a few months after returning from her first trip to England, in 1953 Joy moved to England permanently with her two boys, and it wasn’t long after that she obtained a divorce from her first husband, partly so that he could marry Joy’s cousin with whom he had been having an affair during Joy’s first trip abroad....

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Making Space to Seek

I recently had my first article published on the blog of Well-Read Mom, a national book club group whose tagline is "Read More. Read Well" which is something I can very much get behind. I've been participating in Well-Read Mom for about six years now and I absolutely love their mission and the books that I have read as part of the group, and so it was a real thrill to have one of my submissions featured on their blog. Be sure to check it out! I began attending Well-Read Mom meetings a little more than six years ago. At the time, I was contentedly single and had just entered my 30s. I was not actively pursuing marriage or family. Still, the friend who invited me to the group assured me it wasn’t “just for moms.” Upon looking at the year’s book list, my heart fluttered with interest. Some of the books I had already read but were favorites worth re-reading, some books I had heard of but never had a chance to read before, and some were unfamiliar but seemed intriguing. Though I was an English/Creative Writing major in college and have been a lifelong reader and writer, I had never belonged to a book club before. However, I was nearly a decade post-college and craved not only the stimulation of good discussions but also the guidance about what books were actually worth reading. Earlier that same year, I had begun deleting my social media accounts after recognizing the detrimental effect they had on my mental health and also my productivity as a writer. With the banishment of...

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We Become What We Behold

This article was originally published in The Catholic News Herald of the diocese of Charlotte. There are so many things clamoring for our attention these days, in all different kinds of ways. We are assaulted by advertisements, which are practically unavoidable on every video we watch, on billboards, on the radio and on our social media feeds. Our calendars are filled with appointments, obligations, and tasks that require more of our time and energy than we even have the chance to realize. We strive to live up to the expectations and standards of the culture around us, whether the culture at large or perhaps just the culture of our parish or our family. We take in what we see around us, and that shapes how we live our lives and how our minds are formed. The poet William Blake is credited with the phrase “We become what we behold,” but it’s an idea that echoes throughout Scripture, as well. What are today’s idols? In Psalm 115, while describing the idols made by human hands, the psalmist says, “Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.”We make idols out of lifeless things and then give ourselves over to them as if they had real power, but all we achieve is to become lifeless and malleable like those very things we made. This doesn’t apply just to idols like the Golden Calf in the Exodus story, because even today we fall into worshiping the various technologies that were invented and built by ordinary men and women. We worship institutions, political...

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Poets for the Kingdom: The Sacramental Writings of Tolkien and Lewis

I recently attended a week-long conference through the Theology of the Body Institute, titled "Poets for the Kingdom: The Sacramental Writings of Tolkien and Lewis".   The "Theology of the Body" is a term and teaching that comes from Pope St. John Paul II, and it's about seeing how God teaches us about Himself and His plan for creation through our own bodies, through nature, and through everything He created in the natural world. The Theology of the Body Institute was founded by Christopher West to spread these teachings through various graduate-level week-long courses, as well as numerous other resources such as books, videos, and speaking events. I attended my first conference through the Institute earlier this year and had such an incredible experience that now I plan to just keep going back.   "Poets for the Kingdom" is their newest course, and I feel quite privileged to have been able to attend the inaugural session. We spent five glorious days nerding out about Middle Earth, Narnia, Catholic Theology, and the value of beauty, nature, and good stories. And we couldn't have asked for a more beautiful setting or time of year, as we were at a retreat center in Pennsylvania, set in the heart of woods that seemed on fire with fall colors, a true testament to God's love of beauty. Even the retreat center's kitchen staff were nerding out with us, and every meal was comprised of recipes from either a Middle Earth or Narnia themed cookbook. We definitely ate like fat happy...

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The Bend in the Road

The gift of good fiction, of good literature, is its ability to articulate and illuminate different emotions and experiences in our own lives. Books and stories can show us that we are not alone, that others have experienced similar situations and feelings and have not only survived but have overcome and grown from adversity. A good book can be a friend to us in trials, giving comfort as well as sharing wisdom.  Earlier this year, my mother passed away after a brief and unexpected bout with cancer. It was not something any of us saw coming and it is a loss that left a hole in the lives of our whole family. In particular, I was very close to my mother, having lived with her for many years after I returned home from college. She was my closest friend, my spiritual director, and my greatest cheerleader in everything that I did. I am grateful that in the end her death was very peaceful and holy, and there is no doubt in my mind that she was ready and eager to go home to our Heavenly Lord. However, that does not always lessen the ache of those of us who have been left behind. As I’ve spent the rest of this year walking through the grief and adjusting to a new world without her, my greatest refuge, as always, has been in books. In particular, I’ve been immersed in classic Children’s and Young Adult Literature. I was dealing enough with the grown-up world in my daily life; I didn’t need any more of it in my fiction. I could write a whole post on the value of well-written “Children’s”...

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