Matt interviews Christiana Hale about her book, “Deeper Heaven: A Reader’s Guide to C.S. Lewis’s Ransom Trilogy”.
S6E17: “Deeper Heaven” (Download)
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Show Notes
Introduction
Drop-In
Quote-of-the-week
“What do we see and think and feel when we look up at the night sky? Does it inspire awe and wonder and joy, or fear and abhorrence? A sense of belonging, or a sense of meaninglessness? If we see the cosmos as we ought, then we will see a place teeming with life and light and love, all things moving because of the love of the great Mover. All things are joined together in the Great Dance, praising their Creator and serving Him by doing what they were created to do.
Christiana Hale, Deeper Heaven: A Reader’s Guide to C. S. Lewis’s Ransom Trilogy
Biographical Information
Christiana Hale is a writer and teacher based in Moscow, Idaho. She teaches Latin and English in Junior High at a classical Christian school, which seeks to train students with the kind of education that produces such minds like Tolkein and Lewis (we love to hear that)!
She writes nonfiction, fiction, and poetry and in January 2021 she published her first book, Deeper Heaven: A Reader’s Guide to C. S. Lewis’s Ransom Trilogy.
Biographical Information
Chit-Chat
- Christiana lives in Moscow, Idaho
Toast
- Drinks
- Christiana was drinking Earl Grey tea
- Matt was drinking Macallan 12
- Patreon toast
- Matt toasted supporter, Jake L.
Discussion
1. “Encountering Lewis”
Q. How did you first fall in love with (encounter) Lewis?
2. “Becoming an author”
Q. From your earlier study was it a foregone conclusion that you’d write a book?
3. “CSL and Sci-fi”
Q. What influence did science-fiction have on Lewis and why did he choose to write some?
- On Science-Fiction (also see Essays page)
4. “The Medieval Worldview”
Q. You mention the importance of the Medieval conception of the universe to Lewis and the trilogy. How would you describe this Medieval understanding of the cosmos?
5. “Life-changing Cosmology”
Q. In what way does the Medieval cosmology change our lives?
The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Psalm 19:1
If we could even effect in one per cent of our readers a change-over from the conception of Space to the conception of Heaven, we should have made a beginning…
C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Chapter 22)
With an appalling certainty I knew that the waterfall itself was speaking: and I saw now (though it did not cease to look like a waterfall) that it was also a bright angel who stood, like one crucified, against the rocks and poured himself perpetually down towards the forest with loud joy.
C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (Chapter 6)
6. “Talking about pleasure”
Q. What is Lewis trying to communicate in the discussion on Pleasure?
- Transposition (also see Essays page)
Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
7. “Martian influence”
Q. Finally, can you help us understand the influence of Mars? What is it like to be under the influence of Mars and why is it important to the story?
- Sublunar (within the moon’s orbit and subject to its influence)
