S7E5 – LAL 3 – “The other American Lady…”

As the team continue to move through Lewis’ letters to Mary, another American lady enters into the story…

S7E5 – LAL 3 – “The other American Lady…” (Download)

Show Notes

Introduction

Quote-of-the-week

Why should I make a mystery of my own affairs?… I am likely to be, in the near future, both a husband and a widower. That is, I am marrying a very sick, and perhaps a dying, woman.

C. S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

Chit-Chat

Matt is preparing for a Christmas with the girlfriend.

Andrew has been working on a Joy Davidman timeline, also tracking down the origin of various repeated mistakes regarding her biography.

The hosts received this email from a listener, correcting a comment in a previous episode:

Great beginning to Letters season. I haven’t read Letters to an American Lady since I was so young that being in your fifties sounded quite old.

A quick correction to Andrew on vice-gerent not making sense: Merriam-Webster definition of vicegerent: “an administrative deputy of a king or magistrate.” From Medieval Latin vicegerent, gerent>gerens, present participle of gerere meaning to carry, carry on.

Thanks for your podcast!

Email from Ellen Fielding

In such matters to find an opponent is almost to find a friend.

C. S. Lewis, The Personal Heresy (Chapter 3)

David’s mother is visiting him in the United States.

Toast

• David: Best Day Brewing (non-alcoholic) Kölsch
• Matt: FÜL Feel Better Blonde Ale
• Andrew: Coffee

Discussion

01. “Time Magazine”

Later in this episode, Andrew discovers that the Time magazine mentioned in this section was published on Feburary 6th, 1956. A few days after the episode was recorded, his copy arrived in the mail:

[The article is…] a tissue of muddles and direct falsehoods… To call them liars would be as undeserved a compliment as to say that a dog was bad at arithmetic.

C.S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

To abstain from reading – and a fortiori from buying – a paper which you have once caught telling lies seems a very moderate form of asceticism. Yet how few practise it!”

C.S. Lewis, “After Priggery, What?”

02. “Till We Have Faces”

• Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis

I believe I’ve done what no mere male author has done before, talked thro’ the mouth of, and lived in the mind of, an ugly woman for a whole book… No masculine note intrudes…

C.S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

03. “Intemperance in Work”

Remember that a belief in the virtues of doing for doing’s sake is characteristically feminine, characteristically American, and characteristically modern…there can be intemperance in work just as drink…by doing what one’s station and its duties does not demand, one can make oneself less fit for the duties it does demand and so commit some injustice… Just you give Mary a little chance as well as Martha!

C.S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

04. “Misconceptions”

In fact, you misunderstood my letter…

C. S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

05. “Keep it shut!”

Except when speaking to one’s Confessor, Doctor, or Lawyer… I suppose the rule is “When in doubt, don’t tell”. At least I have nearly always regretted doing the opposite and never once regretted holding my tongue.

C.S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

Many times have I repented of having spoken, but never have I repented of having remained silent.

Abba Arsenius via The Way of the Heart by Henri Nouwen

“Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?”

Attributed to Henry II of England preceding the death of Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1170

06. “Offering up suffering”

One of the many reasons for wishing to be a better Christian is that if one were[,] one’s prayers for others might be more effectual…Of course we have all been taught what to do with suffering – offer it in Christ to God as our little, little share of Christ’s sufferings – but it so so hard to do…I suppose that if one loves a person enough one would actually wish to share every part of his life; and I suppose the great saints thus really want to share the divine sufferings and that is how they can actually desire pain.

C.S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects. Eli′jah was a man of like nature with ourselves and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth its fruit.

James 5:16-18

07. “Anger and Lost job”

There will come a moment that will change all this. Nightmares don’t last.

C.S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

• Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

Isaiah 53:5 (KJV)

For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.

2 Corinthians 1:5

08. “Receiving charity”

We are all members of one another and must all learn to receive as well as to give… Isn’t the spiritual value of having to accept money just this, that it makes palpable the total dependence in which we always live anyway.

C.S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

• Enneagram

If it were really true that to receive money or money’s worth degraded the recipient, then every act of alms we have done in our lives would be wicked

C.S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

For by the grace given to me I bid every one among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith which God has assigned him. For as in one body we have many members, and all the members do not have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.

Romans 12:3-5

09. “Present, not future”

The great thing with unhappy times is to take them bit by bit, hour by hour, like an illness. It is seldom the present, the exact present, that is unbearable.

C.S Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

• The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

I am sure God never teaches us the fear of anything but himself.

C.S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

We want him to be in the maximum uncertainty, so that his mind will be filled with contradictory pictures of the future, every one of which arouses hope or fear.

C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (Letter #6)

[God] would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity (which means being concerned with Him) or with the Present — either meditating on their eternal union with, or separation from, Himself, or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.

C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (Letter #15)

How horrid it all is, these troubles that you’re going through. We have no resources but our prayers.

C.S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

…poverty and every other ill, lovingly accepted, has all the spiritual value of voluntary poverty or penance

C. S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

10. “Animal love”

Fanda, Mary’s cat, was sick and had to be put down.

• The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis

11. “Monks and Nuns”

Problem: why are nuns nicer than monks and schoolgirls nicer than schoolboys, when women are not in general nicer than men? But perhaps you deny all three statements!

C. S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

12. “Bridegroom & Widower”

[Your letter]…comes to me on a day when I am all embroiled with affairs arising out of a friend’s sudden illness, and very much distressed…

C.S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

…I may soon be, in rapid succession, a bridegroom and a widower. There may, in fact, be a deathbed marriage. I can hardly describe to you the state of mind I live in at present – except that all emotion, with me, is periodically drowned in sheer tiredness, deep lakes of stupor. Perhaps a very heavy cold in the head helps this…

C.S Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

• A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis

13. “Struggle & Hope”

I must try to not let my own present unhappiness harden my heart against the woes of others! You too are going through a dreadful time. Ah well, it will not last forever. There will come a day for all of us when ‘it is finished…

C.S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

14. “Instant Family”

I have married a woman…

I think she will weather it this time: after that, life under the sword of Damocles. Very little chance (not exactly none) of a permanent escape. I acquire two schoolboy stepsons. My brother and I have been coping with them for their Christmas holidays. Nice boys, but gruelling work for 2 old bachelors! I’m dead tired now.

C.S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

…no one can mark the exact moment at which friendship becomes love.

C.S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

When the two people who thus discover that they are on the same secret road are of different sexes, the friendship which arises between them will very easily pass – may pass in the first half hour – into erotic love. Indeed, unless they are physically repulsive to each other or unless one or both already loves elsewhere, it is almost certain to do so sooner or later.

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

15. “Living day-to-day”

Clearly He who feeds the sparrows has you in His care

C.S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

Ah well, we shall all be out of it in a comparatively few years

C.S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

“…I have said this to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

John 16:33

My wife is now home, bed-ridden, and dying…. I lead the life of a hospital orderly, and have hardly time to say my prayers or eat my meals

C.S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

…[Joy is] in no pain and in wonderful (apparent) health and spirits…

C.S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

What on earth is the trouble about there being a rumour of my death? There’s nothing discreditable in dying: I’ve known the most respectable people do it!

C.S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

I’m wearing a Surgical Belt – very like one’s grandmother’s corsets. It gives me a wonderfully youthful figure

C.S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

God is already giving you new spiritual strength with which to meet this terrible affliction…but pain is pain…the great thing, as you obviously seen, is to live from day to day and hour to hour not adding the past or future to the present.

C.S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

16. “Joy says ‘Hi’…”

[Joy came with me to work…] It sounds like a small thing, but it would have been incredible even a month ago

C.S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

• Puppy named after Guppy from Bleak House

Joy (who thanks you for your most kind message) tells me I am writing to you on George Washington’s birthday, so “there’s glory for you” as Humpty Dumpty would say.

C.S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

Yes, we must not fret about not doing God those supposed services which He in fact does not allow us to do.

C.S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

• Shall we lose God in outer space?

17. “Empty hands”

Do our prayers sometimes go wrong because we insist on trying to talk to God when He wants to talk to us.

C. S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

St. Augustine says: God gives where he finds empty hands. A man whose hands are full of parcels can’t receive a gift. Perhaps these parcels are not always sins or earthly cares, but sometimes our own fussy attempts to worship him in our way.

C. S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

• The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis
• He Leadeth Me by Fr. Walter Ciszek
• Mark 11:15-16

18. “Women Fade Away”

I’m such a confirmed old bachelor that I couldn’t help feeling I was being rather naughty (“Staying with a woman at a hotel!” Just like people in the newspapers!)

C. S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

PS – By the way, you are one of the minority of my numerous female correspondents who didn’t gradually fade away as soon as they heard I was married!

C.S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

19. “A woman who definitely doesn’t fade away!”

If there is a particular sin on your conscience, repent and confess it. If there isn’t, tell the despondent devil not to be silly…. What the devil loves is that vague cloud of unspecified guilt feeling or unspecified virtue by which he lures us into despair or presumption. “Details, please?” is the answer.

C.S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

• Reflections on the Psalms by C.S. Lewis

We must both, I’m afraid, recognise that, as we grow older, we become like old cars – more and more repairs and replacements are necessary. We must just look forward to the fine new machines (latest Resurrection model) which are waiting for us, we hope, in the Divine garage!

C.S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

If you are a poor creature poisoned by a wretched upbringing, and in some house full of vulgar jealousies and senseless quarrels, nagged day-in and day-out by an inferiority complex that makes you snap at your best friends, do not despair. He knows all about it. You are one of the poor whom he blessed. He knows what a wretched machine you are trying to drive. Keep on. Do what you can. One day, he will fling it on the scrap heap and give you a new one, and then you may astonish us all, not least yourself, for you have learned your driving in a hard school.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

As for wrinkles – pshaw! Why shouldn’t we have wrinkles? Honourable insignia of long service in this warfare

C.S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

I’m a barbarously early riser and have usually got my breakfast and dealt with my letters before the rest of the house is astir. One result is that I often enjoy the only fine hours of the day – at this time of the year lovely, still, cool sunshine from 7 till 10, followed by rain from then on, is common. I love the empty, silent, dewy, cobwebby hours…

C.S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady

• Studies in Words by C. S. Lewis

On Andrew’s birthday, December 29th…

“Oh Lor’! They bring religion into everything. Look – they’re dragging it even into Christmas now!”

C.S. Lewis, Collected letters

20. “A gift in the mail…”

• Letters of Jack, edited by Dr. Diana Glyer will be sent to Platinum and Gold level Patreon supporters, as well as the longer-term Silver tier. We will be selling the remaining copies at cost. Although David expected them to already be in the mail, at the time of episode publication they are still being printed…

Wrap-Up

Concluding Thoughts

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