If you’re a member of The Bird and Baby, the CS Lewis Reading Group in San Diego, you’ll have heard me talk about The Lamp-post Listener before. Whereas in the The Eagle and Child, Matt and I work through Mere Christianity chapter-by-chapter, in The Lamp-post Listener, Daniel and Phil are working through the Chronicles of Narnia a chapter at a time…
Daniel and Phil recently launched a telephone number where listeners can leave them voicemail (406-646-6733). Since I love the show, I left them a message and shared with them Lewis’ thoughts on the child who was afraid he loved Aslan more than Jesus:
Laurence can’t really love Aslan more than Jesus, even if he feels that’s what he is doing. For the things he loves Aslan for doing or saying are simply the things Jesus really did and said. So that when Laurence thinks he is loving Aslan, he is really loving Jesus: and perhaps loving Him more than he ever did before.
C. S. Lewis: Letters to Children, pp. 52-53
If I were Laurence I’d just say in my prayers something like this: “Dear God, if the things I’ve been thinking and feeling about those books are things You don’t like and are bad for me, please take away those feelings and thoughts. But if they are not bad, then please stop me from worrying about them. . . . And if Mr. Lewis has worried any other children by his books or done them any harm, then please forgive him and help him never to do it again.”
To my delight, my voicemail was included in the most recent episode of the podcast, at about the 44 minute mark. You can listen to the whole episode below:
