"Those Were the Days!"

My sabbatical started yesterday, kind of, last official day of the semester and all, but I have a box of hermeneutics final projects awaiting my attention, plus a myriad of grading details. My "sabbatical" isn't official until I've entered final grades.

In any case, as many of you know, I've been studying The Book of Common Prayer for several months now, and have even begun attending an Episcopal church on Sunday mornings (after I teach SS and attend "our" morning service). I have much to think and write about on that score, but not now.

Last night I picked up a copy of C.S. Lewis's Prayer: Letters to Malcolm, which I haven't read for at least 15 years, but which I remember being a very stimulating read, the last of Lewis's books. I remember him writing a bit about Anglicanism, so I thought I would indulge myself.

(I've pasted in a copy of my favorite picture of Lewis, him lighting up. He couldn't have taught where I teach!)

Several things: First, I was surprised at how much of my thinking about church/prayer was influenced by just the first letter or two in that book. Sometimes when we read things, we internalize major points, then forget where we got those ideas. Someone once said, "Creativity is the art of forgetting your sources." True enough in my case.

Second, having read a letter or two last night, then a few more this morning, I began to recall affectionately how "internal" my life used to be, how "reflective." I used to spend my weekends, and even weeknights, reading in quiet and then conversing with friends about what I/we had been reading.

How life has changed! Now my life consists of "putting out fires," and the "immediate." No wonder I don't listen to classical music anymore; it takes TIME! Oh, well, "complain, complain, complain," right? I'm not sure these are complaints, just observations. Life has brought new blessings, talking with Matthew about girls at his High School, having lunch from McDonald's with Andrew while sitting in the Jeep: all great things, just very different than reading C.S. Lewis.

Third, have we lost the art of correspondence? Do emails really count? I know, I know - Letters to Malcolm is a fictional correspondence, but still, people really did used to write intentional, well-thought letters like this. Even I did! Again - back in college - I used to write deep, reflective letters to a small cadre of friends. I can remember how I used to watch the mail with eagerness (I just saw the mail truck stop at our house), and how my heart would leap in excitement at the sight of a letter from ole so-and-so. I would go somewhere in the sunny cool breeze, sit on bench and read with joy the continuation of our literary conversation. Could I recognize all the literary allusions (was that Milton or Donne)? Who could quote from Luther, Calvin, and Lewis the fastest? Could I recall the Biblical references without looking them up? I could picture the particular friend in question saying what he/she had written, and I would laugh. And of course, those letters were handwritten. Sometimes there would be smudges of mud, a blade of grass or two, a coffee stain, a smeared drop of blood from where the author had cut herself trimming hedges or had raked his knuckles while laying brick (remember those college jobs?). Sometimes the handwriting would clearly be different because the letter had been started, then stopped, then resumed at a later date. All that is lost on emails and blogs.

I must be getting old.