After the previously-planned interview fell through at the last minute, David sat down to record a solo episode to talk about his newborn son, Sidecar Day, blue flowers in Narnia, and also to make his tongue-in-cheek case as to why C.S. Lewis is better than J.R.R. Tolkien.
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Show Notes
Quote-of-the-week
There’s no sound I like better than adult male laughter.
C.S. Lewis: Companion and Guide
Drink-of-the-week
- David was drinking a cup of Mystic Monk coffee.
Alexander Bates
- Alexander Charbel Bates was born on September 9th, weighing in at 7lbs and measuring at 20.5 inches. Alexander means “Defender of the people” and Charbel means “God the king”.
- Marie is of Lebanese descent and St. Charbel was a prominent Saint among the Maronites and one whose story is quite inspiring.
- A movie about St. Charbel’s life is available here, and here’s a short summary video of his life.
Sidecar Day
Sidecar Day celebrates Lewis’ anniversary of becoming Christian:
I know very well when, but hardly how, the final step was taken. I was driven to Whipsnade one sunny morning. When we set out I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did. Yet I had not exactly spent the journey in thought. Nor in great emotion… It was more like when a man, after long sleep, still lying motionless in bed, becomes aware that he is now awake.
C.S. Lewis, Surprised By Joy
So, on September 28th, all Patreon supporters are invited to gather on a group video chat. We’ll mix a sidecar cocktail, introduce you to our son and hang out for about an hour.
- 5pm Pacific
- 7pm Central
- 8pm East Coast
…and we’ll be drinking this cocktail:
Blue Flowers
- On Tuesday, Andrew and David interviewed David Radford from The Gray Havens who are releasing their new album, Blue Flower. The title of this album is a reference to the line in Surprised By Joy where Lewis says the green hills seen from his nursery windows taught him longing and “made me for good or ill, and before I was six years old, a votary of the Blue Flower”.
- It was mentioned in that episode that the phrase “blue flower” is incredibly rare in Lewis’ corpus. However, since recording that episode we found one more. Fr. Michael Ward pointed to this passage in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe:
That ride was perhaps the most wonderful thing that happened to them in Narnia. Have you ever had a gallop on a horse? Think of that; and then take away the heavy noise of the hoofs and the jingle of the bits and imagine instead the almost noiseless padding of the great paws. Then imagine instead of the black or grey or chestnut back of the horse the soft roughness of golden fur, and the mane flying back in the wind. And then imagine you are going about twice as fast as the fastest racehorse. But this is a mount that doesn’t need to be guided and never grows tired. He rushes on and on, never missing his footing, never hesitating, threading his way with perfect skill between tree trunks, jumping over bush and briar and the smaller streams, wading the larger, swimming the largest of all. And you are riding not on a road nor in a park nor even on the downs, but right across Narnia, in spring, down solemn avenues of beech and across sunny glades of oak, through wild orchards of snow-white cherry trees, past roaring waterfalls and mossy rocks and echoing caverns, up windy slopes alight with gorse bushes, and across the shoulders of heathery mountains and along giddy ridges and down, down, down again into wild valleys and out into acres of blue flowers.
C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Debate
- David shared a fuller version of his tongue-in-cheek argument as to why he thinks C.S. Lewis is better than J.R.R. Tolkien. Here’s the original Tolkien vs. Lewis debate on Forte Catholic:
