Today I do the last Truth class--the one about joy and the Savior and His love. You all know that listening to those things makes you feel good but preparing them and teaching them makes you feel even better. I've had a wonderful morning reading and pondering and preparing.
In the Lewis class I'm teaching the Chronicles of Narnia--again the preparation has been wonderful but at the same time frustrating. How do you capture the essence of the Chronicles in 55 minutes? I'm struggling with what to put in and what to leave out. I guess I can only hope to instill in people a desire to read the books for themselves so they can experience it.
Lewis came under a lot of criticism for what some claimed was a degrading thing--writing for children. But I love how he defended himself. He said, "Critics who treat adult as a term of approval instead of a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. … When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”
I love it! The child in me (the child I embrace with whole-hardheartedness) loves it! The Chronicles are wonderful reading when a child, but no child can fully comprehend the eternal truths hidden in the symbols and metaphors. The books are for adults as well as for children.
If you haven't read them, you should.
Posts
1 comment:
I read them when I was a teenager, but plan to re-read them in the next year. I also have "Narnia for Dummies", which I plan to read. :)
Post a Comment