Tag Archives: C. S. Lewis

The Post is Here

Posted on by
Reply

Corona Chronicles IX

Yesterday and today have been pretty okay days. However, Work – Exercise – Relax and not much else so still no creativity. On that point, I downloaded Google Sheets onto my iPad last night. My hope was that I would be able to copy and paste my Excel Camino Story plan onto a G. S. file. If I could do this, I would be able to examine and amend the plan, and think a little more clearly about the story, while relaxing away from my desk.

I was keen to do this because even though I work part time, I am at my desk for a large portion of the day so it would mean a lot to be able to work a little away from it. Happily, the copy and pasting was successful. I need to change the column lengths but once that is done, I’ll be able to get going again with the story.

Over the last two days, I watched The Post while exercising. I rate this film 8/10. In 1971, The New York Times published a secret government report which showed that successive American presidents had lied about their country’s involvement in the Vietnam war. President Nixon successfully applied in court to stop the paper publishing any more documents. The Washington Post, then a failing newspaper, took the case up and published more of the report. The American government took it to court but was defeated. The film is well written and acted – especially by Meryl Streep as Katharine Graham, the owner of the Post and Tom Hanks as its editor, Ben Bradlee – and directed by Steven Spielberg. I have to say, though, for a while, I wasn’t sure what genre the film was supposed to be. It should have been a thriller but didn’t feel quite suspenseful enough. In a strange way, it felt more like a biopic of the paper at a critical moment in America’s history. The last scene of the film, when a security guard discovers the break-in at the Watergate hotel was a great way to end the film. Tomorrow, I am going to start watching Divergence.

– I read another chapter of C. S. Lewis’ Reflections on the Psalms today. In this chapter, he looks at the Old Testament attitude towards death. According to Lewis, the Jewish view was not unlike that of, say, the ancient Greeks: there was nothing after death. As he points out, if you know your New Testament, you will know that by the time of Jesus, Jewish views had diverged. Some did believe there was life after death while others still maintained the opposite.

– My father did the house shopping today. Tomorrow afternoon I will pop out for mine. I hope it goes as well as last week with everyone observing the two metre rule. I hope I remember to buy everything that I need.

– What will happen after the coronavirus fades away? Is globalisation finished? I don’t think it will – we are all just too connected now – be but we surely have lessons to learn about how we respond to medical emergencies like this. Will we do so? I imagine there will be enquiries but I fear lessons will not be learned. I say this because I don’t think we changed anything after the banking crisis just over a decade ago. Democracy just doesn’t encourage long term thinking. Not that I am advocating authoritarian rule: this pandemic spread in part due to the Chinese government covering up what was happening. All in all it is not very encouraging. We just have to hope.

Jacks

Posted on by
Reply

Corona Chronicles VII

Home – Thursday
Yesterday, I had to take a medicine that I had been putting off using for two weeks. Why? Because I read the instructions and saw that one of the possible side effects is anaphylactic shock. That pretty much scared the life out of me so I put the medicine away and said I will Only Take It If I Have To. Yesterday, I did. Afterwards, my day came to a halt: I was waiting to see if I would suffer an anaphylactoid reaction.

It’s stupid, really. Did I really think my doctor is in the business of prescribing me medicines that he thinks will be harmful? Yes, an adverse reaction was possible but surely unlikely as the medicine would hardly be on sale if it was common.

This, though, is logic, and when you are anxious, you do not think logically.

So, there I was, stewing in my fear, when I received an unexpected call from a very dear friend. Actually, she’s more than a friend – she is the person who instructed me when I joined the Catholic Church so is also a kind of spiritual mentor. I think she’s a saint, as well. Talking to her took away the anxiety and afterwards I was, in a manner of speaking, a new man. Deo Gratias.

As for the medicine, it did its job and although I could have continued taking it, I have decided not to unless the problem reoccurs.

Home – Today
Yesterday and today I did my exercise straight after my physiotherapy exercises. I think I might carry on like this as it feels quite good and doesn’t make me particularly tired. During today’s exercise, I finished Bad Boys. Oh my. It’s loud, brash, and silly; but also witty and funny. I rate it 6.5/10. I might have rated it .5 higher but the stupidness of the film is just a tad too strong. With that said, Bad Boys II is on Netflix, sooooo. Actually, I better wait for the brain cells that I destroyed watching this one to repair, though. The new film is Hook (1991): Robin Williams plays Peter Banning who is actually Peter Pan. In this film, Peter has grown up and forgotten who he is (or was). In order to rescue his children from Captain Hook, he has to try and remember.

I’m watching this film for the same reason that I hope to read J. M. Barrie’s book in the days or weeks to come: as I get older and see my parents age, a part of me wishes that I could be young again. I don’t like them getting old. I don’t like the thought of them not being there. Of course, I better get used to it because ageing is inevitable: in me. In them. Watching Hook is a stupid attempt to pretend that it doesn’t have to happen.

Abroad
This afternoon, I went to Sainsbury’s. They were only letting a limited number of people in at a time so we had to queue for a little while outside. Everyone was very good at observing the two or so metre gap. The shop was pretty well stocked, though again, some shelves were empty. Tomorrow, I have to go back to the chemist for my parents.

On the way to Sainsbury’s, I passed some firemen who were trying to break into a pub. They weren’t thirsty – its fire alarm was ringing. I thought to myself that if they have to break in, the landlord will find it hard to replace the glass or door lock afterwards. Fortunately, though, by the time I walked by on my way home, the firemen were gone and the door appeared to be in one piece.

A.O.B.
– I subscribe to the New Ways Ministry blog. I don’t like everything that they do because I don’t like the idea of being a dissenter, but I am glad they are there. This week, they quoted the traditionalist Cardinal Burke as implying that LGBT people are to blame for the coronavirus. You can read the article here. This kind of scapegoating makes me intensely angry, and I would very much like to tell him to get fucked but if I said it and meant it I would in my own way make myself no better than him. How should one respond to such an attack? Well, with love, of course. And forgiveness. 7×70. God bless, Cardinal Burke; I disagree with him and will pray for him; I get things wrong, too, so I hope he would pray for me if he read this.

What about the coronavirus? This is my view: it happened because for whatever reason the disease jumped from an animal to a human. God allowed it to do so; not because He is angry with anyone or any group but because He is not in the business of controlling our lives like that. It is part of the free will deal. If God intervened to stop the coronavirus’ ‘jump’ we might ask Him why he did not intervene to stop the movement of any other disease or ailment, and as a matter of fact, why doesn’t He intervene to stop [your issue of choice here]. Very soon, we would hand to God our free will. We may want to do that but He does not. He knows we would find it the most painful thing of all.

That’s my view. I can’t say I have thought deeply about it so if you disagree you will have to forgive me.

– Yesterday’s New Ways Ministry blog (here) was about a queer Catholic singer named Gina Chavez. I’ve been waiting to read about someone like her for a long time. I’m glad to say her music is pretty good, too (This is her You Tube channel).

– I started reading from my C. S. Lewis shelf yesterday. I read the first chapter of his Reflections on the Psalms, and then an essay based on a talk about him by a lady named Joan Murphy, who was – or is – his grandnephew. I looked her up after reading the talk and found that she was still alive in 2015. If she is alive today she’ll be 94. It was a lovely essay. Unfortunately, C. S. Lewis’ father, Albert, does not come off well in it but Lewis very much does. Murphy writes,

When I began to think about this talk and wrote down things that I wanted to say, I noticed that there were two words that became dominant in my memory, and they kept coming up and coming up again: the first was encouragement and the second was laughter. Those are two things that I remember about Jacks.

(Jacks: Lewis’ given Christian name was Clive but he hated it. While still a boy he announced to his family one day that from now on he would only answer to the name Jacks. In time, that became Jack, and the name stuck).

Encouragement and laughter. What lovely ways to be remembered.

– Boris Johnson and the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock were both diagnosed as having the coronavirus yesterday. We must pray for them, and indeed, for anyone in a position of authority who falls ill. I have thus far managed to resist the temptation to read comments about Johnson’s and Hancock’s diagnoses on Social Media (beyond the people that I follow) as I know they would be malevolent.

BVM, CSL, and more

Posted on by
Reply

Corona Chronicles VI

Home
So, yesterday I wondered if I might be able to sleep through the night as I didn’t nap during the day. Nope. And in fact, I woke up twice. And had another disagreeable dream. On the plus side, though, I did get back to sleep again pretty quickly.

This morning, I changed my routine a little and did my exercise straight after my morning physio session. I just wanted to see what effect, if any, it had on me. The answer to that is not much. I had a couple of short naps this afternoon but I might have done that, anyway. I might try it again tomorrow as I felt pretty good afterwards.

While exercising, I watched Tomb Raider to its end. I rate this film 5/10. It was a very average action film. As with so many films, the script let it down. It wasted a more than half an hour with Lara Croft’s backstory before getting her to the action. As a result, there was not enough time to do anything more than bounce her from danger to danger to showdown to end. If I had written the script, I would have obeyed the rule of In Medias Res by starting the story ‘in the middle of things’ and explained Lara’s background during the course of the main narrative (her search for the ancient queen Himiko). After all, who really cares about Lara’s background? I mean, it’s important, of course, but the really important thing about Lara Croft – the reason we care about her – is her puzzle solving and combat, not first and foremost her family history. This film, though, but it front and centre.

One thing about the film made me laugh, if grimly: Himiko was said to have been imprisoned on the deserted island of Yamatai by her generals to stop her killing people. It turned out, though, that she wasn’t evil, just carrying a fatal disease in the manner of Typhoid Mary. It all reminded me of the coronavirus a bit too much. After finishing, Tomb Raider I started watching Big Boys – an action film starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. It’s directed by Michael Bay so my brain is already mush, and I have still two days of the film to go.

This afternoon, I did a bit of book re-arranging. The desire to read C. S. Lewis has been growing on me again, recently, so I have put the books that were on my chest of drawers on the book shelf and the C. S. Lewis books that were on the shelf, on the drawers. I’m hoping that by having the books physically closer to me, I will be more likely to read them.

From whence comes this desire to read C.S.L.? Goodness knows – God, I hope, but it started when I watched a clip of Shadowlands the other day.

Speaking of C. S. Lewis, as I am sure you are aware, he was for many years good friends with J. R. R. Tolkien. Speaking of whom, 25th March is the day on which the One Ring was destroyed when Gollum fell into the lava of Mount Doom. Today is also Lady Day for Christians. Tolkien was a committed Catholic so the destruction of the Ring on the day that Gabriel announced the good news to Mary is not a coincidence. Here is one of my favourite paintings of the great event.

I love baroque art and architecture but sometimes it is good to have simplicity, and here Dante Gabriel Rossetti gives a very simple interpretation of the Annunciation. I am not much of an art critic, but things to look out for in the painting are,

– The flames at Gabriel’s feet indicating his angelic status
– Gabriel and Mary’s halos indicating their saintly rank
– The lily that Gabriel is handing Mary; this is one of her symbols (I think it is a symbol of purity). There appears to be a lily on the red stand but I’m not sure if its placement there gives it a different meaning
– The colour blue, which you can see behind Mary, is also a Marian symbol. I think it is a ‘royal’ colour, hence its association with her (Mary as Queen of Heaven)
– Mary appears to have red hair. I’m not sure how to interpret that as I’m sure red is a colour more to be associated with Mary Magdalen (being the colour of licentiousness)

This evening, I am writing this post and just muddling along. I read earlier that one of the early signs of having contracted the coronavirus is a loss of smell and taste, so naturally I am now sniffing things wondering if its lack of smell is my fault. Every time I get a twinge of a headache I wonder if this is the start of a persistent one. It’s pathetic, really.

Abroad
This morning, I visited the local chemist to pick up prescriptions for my parents. They were only letting two people in at a time. The rest of us had to queue up outside – six feet apart. I used to the time to do some more Duolingo lessons. Afterwards, I came straight back. My dodgy right leg was a bit stiff, and got stiffer later. This is a repeating thing now – it feels wonderful(ish) and loose after I have done my physio but then stiffens later. I still have a way to go in sorting those muscles out.

Camino Postcard 2: Roncesvalles to Zubiri

Posted on by
Reply

Rommel was No. 1

The monastery albergue at Roncesvalles

12th April 2019. My second day on the Camino Francés got off to an inauspicious start when I couldn’t find the token that entitled me to a cheap pilgrim’s breakfast at the Roncesvalles monastery-albergue. I later found it in my note book. On the day, however, I just went to the bar and ordered what I now rather think is Spain’s staple drink – a café con leche (coffee with milk).

How was I feeling after yesterday’s exertions? Not so bad, actually. Perhaps a bit achey – I needed ibuprofen during the day – but ready to walk 790 kilometres.

Actually, it’s a funny thing: I was walking the French Way but as far as the Spanish are concerned, the route begins in Roncesvalles. No. My start was in St. Jean Pied de Port. I had walked 25 kilometres already and was ready to walk the next 790.

After my café, I got going in damp but dry conditions. I managed to navigate my way through the narrow aisles of a small convenience store without knocking anything over with my backpack and outside passed some stone picnic tables that reminded me of the stone altar in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.

Today’s path took me through woodland without ever being too far away from the road. I also had to cross a bridge that was made of separate stone blocks: a very interesting experience when you are still getting used to your backpack!

Following the rigours of the Valcarlos route, the way to Zubiri was a lot easier. Yes, there were elevation changes but nothing like yesterday’s. The only significant difficulty came towards the end when I had to descend a broad path made of stone embedded in the ground – not by human hands, alas, so it was uneven and awkward to navigate, even with the help of my trekking poles.

Oh yes

At the end of the descent was a van-café, which I was delighted to stop at and buy a couple of drinks from. There, I met a man named Frank who was walking with a big pair of headphones. He used them and his phone to hold business meetings as he walked, which still seems to me a very pro’ activity, albeit not one I would recommend: I think it’s better to enjoy one’s surroundings than remained separated from it. Each to their own, though.

Going back to Frank, though; he was the first of a number of Germans that I met on the Way, two of whom would prove to be very important to me. If you read the first post in this series, you have actually met them already, but I’ll say no more for now.

After leaving the van-café, it was a short 3 kilometre run (no, not literally!) to Zubiri. My original intention had been to walk on to Larrasoaña but having walked 25 kilometres I was ready for a rest. There was a problem, though: when I arrived in the town, I found that the municipal albergue had closed down. Fortunately, a private albergue nearby had plenty of beds available for only a few euros more and so I checked in there.

Free advertising: This albergue was called the 2 Etape. If you stop in Zubiri on your Camino, pay it a visit; the rooms are small and the lady in charge very friendly.

In Zubiri I finally got rid of some of the weight in my backpack. It wasn’t easy. I decided to leave a pair of trousers behind, some of my medical equipment, and – most painfully of all – my favourite copy of Arrian.

Why did I ever bring it? I had another translation on my iPad (although I shouldn’t have brought that with me, tbf). So, it had to go. On Day 1, I learnt about the preciousness of water. On Day 2, the importance and necessity of letting go of anything – no matter how good – that weighed me down.

That evening, I had dinner in a local café. The previous evening, I had sat at the same table as a woman who was more interested in her phone than with talking (or maybe she couldn’t speak English). In Zubiri I was put at a table with a German father and son. For a while I just kept to myself. Then, the father very kindly offered me a glass of their wine. We got chatting and things went on from there.

Kind of. Either out of a perverse desire to ruin things for myself or because I like lobbing verbal hand grenades into peoples’ laps and seeing what happens next I ‘happened’ to mention my friends E. and T. who once got into trouble at work for creating a list of their favourite Nazis.

Before you think that you’ve strayed onto the blog of a far right lunatic, I should say that E. and T. were being dry, banterous and ironic. My favourite types of humour. Although I explained this to the father and son I have to admit I’m not sure they really appreciated the whole anecdote. To their credit, they didn’t have a go at me, order me to leave or beat me up.

As it happens, this would not be the last time I mentioned the infamous list and E. The list would get an airing again – in conversation with Germans, because of course, and they actually laughed! But more on them in the next post…

Just before dinner, I met the lady who gave me a bottle of water yesterday. We had a good chat (not about Nazis) before going our separate ways. We would meet each other again a few more times between Zubiri and Santiago. I also met a fellow who I would not see again until Finisterre. By then, I had forgotten him; he remembered me, though, and the fact I had to get rid of my favourite book!

Welcome

Posted on by
Reply

Sehnsucht and Wine isn’t my first blog but that doesn’t make writing the first post any the easier. I created the blog a few days ago and have been sitting on it since, waiting for inspiration to strike.

A few minutes ago, an idea occurred to me: instead of writing about a particular subject, why not introduce myself a little by writing about things or people that mean something to me?

So that’s what I’ll do. To give the post some sort of form, I will categorise them according to what S&W will be about: the arts, religion, and politics.

The Arts
I love reading. I have many favourite authors but the two who mean most to me are J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. One of the reasons I like Tolkien so much is the heroism and nobility of characters like Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings. I love reading about heroes. I also enjoy reading C. S. Lewis’ fiction but as it is his Christian apologetics that mean most to me, I’ll come back to CSL in the religion category. I am also very fond of Evelyn Waugh, Hilaire Belloc, G. K. Chesterton, Ernest Hemingway’s books. I don’t read nearly enough poetry, but when I do, Anglo-Saxon poetry and Sylvia Plath are my favourites.

Religion
In my youth I was a very casual Christian – the kind who went to church at Christmas and Easter; this changed in the early 90s when I went to university. That’s when I saw Shadowlands and started reading C. S. Lewis’s apologetics. Mere Christianity, The Four Loves, The Great Divorce, The Problem of Pain… they were a rich feast! In my third year at university, the Holy Spirit led me into the Catholic Church. It isn’t always easy being a Catholic but whenever I read something a disagree with or find upsetting I always remember St. Peter’s ‘where would we go?’ comment.

We have our moments, but I love the Church, and, of course, God. In just under two months, I am (Him willing) going to Spain to walk the Camino from Saint Jean Pied de Port to Santiago de Compostela. I’m doing it to say thank you to God for all his kindnesses to me. I’ll come back to the Camino in upcoming posts.

Politics
I am right-of-centre. For context, I am British, so this means my natural political home is the Conservative party. I used to be a member but after they won (kind of) the General Election in 2010 I didn’t like what they were doing enough to stay.

Last week, several Labour and Conservative MPs resigned from their respective parties to sit as independents in the House of Commons. In their various statements it was very clear what a hard wrench it was for them to leave. I was a very casual Conservative so it was no wrench at all for me.

All political parties have their various wings. As a conservatively minded person if not an actual party member, I align with the One Nation Tories. What do they believe? Here is a statement from Wikipedia:

One-nation conservatism (also known as one-nationism, or Tory democracy) is a paternalistic form of British political conservatism advocating preservation of established institutions and traditional principles combined with political democracy, and a social and economic programme designed to benefit the common man.

You can read the full article here. I have to admit, though, the way our politicians behave sometimes, I will happily admit to thinking that maybe we should reintroduce autocracy with added Divine Right of Kings for extra measure.

I can’t finish the section on politics without mentioning Brexit. I want Britain to leave the EU as I don’t like super states but not if it is going to profoundly damage the country. As I write these words, we are entering the final weeks before the 29th March 2019 leaving date. Will Britain leave them? Will it be called off? Delayed? We’ll soon find out and I will write about my thoughts here.

So, there you are. I hope telling you a little about myself hasn’t turned you off reading this blog. If it has, thank you for reading this far and I wish you all the best.

For those of you who are still here: There’s so much that I haven’t said! I haven’t mentioned sports, artists, and – most of all – the historical figure who has dominated my life for a decade now – Alexander the Great. I’ll come back to him in a future post. For now, though, let me draw this one to an end with a thank you for reading; I’ll see you next time.

Oh, and I said I would introduce myself: Hello, my name is Malcolm. Welcome to Sehnsucht and Wine!