Year with C. S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works by C. S. Lewis, Patricia S. Klein (Editor), Patricia S. Klein (Editor)

From the Publisher

The wise writings of beloved author C. S. Lewis are our inspiring guide in this elegant book of 366 poignant and thought-provoking daily meditations.

C. S. Lewis was one of the most wise and thought-provoking writers of the last century. Generations of readers have found insight and inspiration from his uniquely articulate view of God’s interaction in the world and in our lives. This elegant collectible book provides 366 daily readings comprised of selections from Lewis’s celebrated Signature Classics that include Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, The Problem of Pain, Miracles, and A Grief Observed. It also includes excerpts from his timeless works The Weight of Glory and The Abolition of Man.

Throughout the book are brief and engaging biographical details of Lewis’s life that correspond with the daily selections and offer the reader a more intimate look at the author in the context of his writings. This attractive collection comes with a ribbon marker and makes a timeless gift filled with wisdom, compassion, insight, and camaraderie—a perfect yearlong companion for thoughtful believers of any age.

Library Journal

One of the greatest 20th-century writers, C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) has written everything from literary criticism to Christian apologetics to children's and fantasy literary works. During his lifetime, he not only wrote over 30 books but also held prestigious positions at both Oxford and Cambridge. Edited by Klein (Worship Without Words), this compendium of daily readings is a sampler of Lewis's major works and includes selections from such classics as Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Weight of Glory, and The Abolition of Man. The book also provides biographical information that neatly corresponds with the daily selections. Lewis's writing takes on a life of its own, as the more it is read, the more insight the reader gains into a mind unhampered by either style or doctrine. In his uniquely dynamic way, Lewis experiments with looking at the universe, people, and God from a variety of angles. There is a sense that, though Lewis is presenting his true inner self, he is in no way attempting to force these truisms onto others but is merely looking for others to walk the road with, in sweet converse, both listening and sharing the deep secrets of souls. Highly recommended for larger public libraries.-Kim Harris, Rochester P.L., NY Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Product Details

• Table of Contents
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Table of Contents

Read a Sample Chapter

1 January

Supposing We Really Found Him?

It is always shocking to meet life where we thought we were alone. 'Look out!' we cry, 'it's alive'. And therefore this is the very point at which so many draw back -- I would have done so myself if I could -- and proceed no further with Christianity. An 'impersonal God' -- well and good. A subjective God of beauty, truth and goodness, inside our own heads -- better still. A formless life-force surging through us, a vast power which we can tap -- best of all. But God Himself, alive, pulling at the other end of the cord, perhaps approaching at an infinite speed, the hunter, king, husband -- that is quite another matter. There comes a moment when the children who have been playing at burglars hush suddenly: was that a real footstep in the hall? There comes a moment when people who have been dabbling in religion ('Man's search for God!') suddenly draw back. Supposing we really found Him? We never meant it to come to that! Worse still, supposing He had found us?

-- from Miracles

January 1911 Lewis (age twelve) enrolls at Cherbourg Preparatory School in Malvern.

2 January

Imagine a Mystical Limpet

Why are many people prepared in advance to maintain that, whatever else God may be, He is not the concrete, living, willing, and acting God of Christian theology? I think the reason is as follows. Let us suppose a mystical limpet, a sage among limpets, who (rapt in vision) catches a glimpse of what Man is like. In reporting it to his disciples, who have some vision themselves (though less than he) he will have to use many negatives. He will have to tell them that Man has no shell, is not attached to a rock, is not surrounded by water. And his disciples, having a little vision of their own to help them, do get some idea of Man. But then there come erudite limpets, limpets who write histories of philosophy and give lectures on comparative religion, and who have never had any vision of their own. What they get out of the prophetic limpet's words is simply and solely the negatives. From these, uncorrected by any positive insight, they build up a picture of Man as a sort of amorphous jelly (he has no shell) existing nowhere in particular (he is not attached to a rock) and never taking nourishment (there is no water to drift it towards him). And having a traditional reverence for Man they conclude that to be a famished jelly in a dimensionless void is the supreme mode of existence, and reject as crude, materialistic superstition any doctrine which would attribute to Man a definite shape, a structure, and organs.

-- from Miracles

January 1914 Lewis and childhood Belfast friend Arthur Greeves begin what would be a lifelong correspondence.

3 January

Not Naked but Reclothed

Our own situation is much like that of the erudite limpets. Great prophets and saints have an intuition of God which is positive and concrete in the highest degree. Because, just touching the fringes of His being, they have seen that He is plenitude of life and energy and joy, therefore (and for no other reason) they have to pronounce that He transcends those limitations which we call personality, passion, change, materiality, and the like. The positive quality in Him which repels these limitations is their only ground for all the negatives. But when we come limping after and try to construct an intellectual or 'enlightened' religion, we take over these negatives (infinite, immaterial, impassible, immutable, etc.) and use them unchecked by any positive intuition. At each step we have to strip off from our idea of God some human attribute. But the only real reason for stripping off the human attribute is to make room for putting in some positive divine attribute. In St Paul's language, the purpose of all this unclothing is not that our idea of God should reach nakedness but that it should be reclothed. But unhappily we have no means of doing the reclothing. When we have removed from our idea of God some puny human characteristic, we (as merely erudite or intelligent enquirers) have no resources from which to supply that blindingly real and concrete attribute of Deity which ought to replace it. Thus at each step in the process of refinement our idea of God contains less, and the fatal pictures come in (an endless, silent sea, an empty sky beyond all stars, a dome of white radiance) and we reach at last mere zero and worship a nonentity.

-- from Miracles

1892 J. R. R. Tolkien, Lewis's longtime friend, colleague, and fellow Inkling (a group of friends who meet regularly from about 1930 to 1963 to share writings, good conversation, and the odd pint), is born in Bloemfontein, South Africa.