As it's been a while since I've taken the time to update my blog, I thought I'd write a flurry of posts to give you a sense of what we've been up to on campus and what I've been up to personally as well. Happy reading!This past January, I was given the opportunity to take my first-ever seminary class through Fuller Theological Seminary. One of my favorite things about working for InterVarsity is that IV really cares about developing its staff and encourages us to further our education and training. Back in October or so, my boss let me know about an upcoming opportunity to take a week-long intensive class at Fuller's extension center in Colorado Springs, CO. She told me the class was "The Theology of C.S. Lewis." As soon as I read that title, I was pretty much in.
I'm sure I'm not alone here; C.S. Lewis has been formative for so many Christians in the past three or four generations. I remember first reading Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters in high school and feeling like Lewis was dusting off my old images and conceptions of God, the Bible, the Incarnation, Sin, and what it meant to be a follower of Jesus. His stories and analogies have lingered in my imagination for almost ten years. As I've poured deeper into his fiction (The Space Trilogy, 'Til We Have Faces, Narnia) and other theological writings (favorites include The Four Loves and The Problem of Pain), I've continued to be blessed by his incredible ability to communicate ideas and captivate the reader with vivid images and compelling prose outlining his understanding of the Triune God and His activity in the world. With all of this in mind, I signed up for the class.
A few weeks later, I received the syllabus for the class which included about 1200 pages of reading, a reading notebook to be kept as we went along (roughly 1 page for each chapter of reading), a final exam, and a research paper. Whew. On top of that, the class was happening a mere week before classes started up again for the Spring Semester, meaning that I was almost guaranteed to find it challenging to squeeze in all the time needed to do justice to the final exam and research paper. I swallowed hard and decided to stick it out, praying that God would provide the time needed to complete the classwork.
The new year came and I flew out to Colorado to begin the week-long intensive. I did not really know what to expect from the classroom time but God blessed me (and my classmates) with several good gifts during the week:
- God provided a place for four of my classmates and I to stay for free! A couple in the community opened up their home to us (the wife was in the class as well) and even allowed us to drive their cars and gave us quite the introduction to Colorado Springs. This was such an incredible gift as we were able to rest well and be blessed so abundantly by their kind hospitality!
- The weather was beautiful the entire time we were in Colorado which definitely highlighted the incredible beauty of waking up everyday to a mountain landscape. As a smalltown boy from the Midwest, I haven't exactly seen a lot of mountains in my life. The scenery itself was worth the cost of the trip.
- The four classmates I mentioned were InterVarsity staff which proved to be quite a life-giving little community while we were away from home. My boss and I came in from Saint Louis and there was a girl from Washington D.C., as well as a guy from Maine. As we were stressing out together, God made us into friends. I love these people and still feel connected to them after only spending a week together. Praise God for supportive community!
Long story short, we survived the class together and felt genuinely blessed by God to be there. The lectures (though long at times) were wonderful as the Professor opened up Lewis' theology in ways that I had never seen before. I saw the rich beauty of Lewis' trinitarian theology that illuminates so much of his writing. I was reminded of some of the historical context and details of Lewis' life that informed his understanding of his role as a writer and thinker in the mid-20th century. I was once again swept away by Aslan and the High Countries and the Weight of Glory and reminded of the sheer Joy (or Longing) that both delights and frustrates us in this life. I'll leave you with one of my favorite Lewis quotes:
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
The Four Loves
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