Frosted Walk (and Then More Reading) - Missoula, Montana

“During those long afternoon walks in nature he came to believe that one must shut the mouth and open the eyes and ears, for nature only asked of him to look, listen, and attend.

After the walks: more reading.”

 -Young C.S. “Jack” Lewis, in Once Upon. A Wardrobe, by Patti Callahan, LT p. 166

Near Mountains in Snowfall - East Missoula, Montana

I repeatedly marvel at the intimate nearness of the surrounding mountains of the Bitterroot and Missoula valleys. It brings peripherally to mind C.S. Lewis’s portals that transport from a must-get-through mindset to an entirely different perspective that stirs the soul to wonder. 

(And yes, we are still getting random snow this week…!)

Present Grace (Poppy) - Missoula, Montana

“The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received.”

-C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), from  Learning In War-Time, 1939

Faerie Cottage, Perhaps... - Greenough Park, Missoula, Montana

“ You and I who still enjoy fairy tales have less reason to wish actual childhood back. We have kept its pleasures and added some grown-up ones as well.” -C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)

Remembering - Missoula City Cemetery, Missoula, Montana

Thankful for the many who secure and defend freedom in this world, and even more for the One Who gives freedom of our soul.

"Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise ... If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world....

Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same."  

- C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), from Mere Christianity, pp. 135-137

Hatched - Missoula, Montana

“It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: 
  it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly
   while remaining an egg. 
We are like eggs at present. 
And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. 
We must be hatched or go bad. ” 
- C. S. Lewis, from Mere Christianity, (p. 198-199, or 170-171, depending on edition)

On Seeing - Missoula, Montana

"I have been so young till this moment that all my life now seems to have been a kind of sleep. I have thought that I was being carried, and behold, I was walking."

Ransom asked what she meant.

"What you have made me see," answered the Lady, "is as plain as the sky, but I never saw it before. Yet it has happened every day. One goes into the forest to pick food and already the thought of one fruit rather than another has grown up in one's mind. Then, it may be, one finds a different fruit and not the fruit one thought of. One joy was expected and another is given. 
But this I had never noticed before--that the very moment of the finding there is in the mind a kind of thrusting back, or setting aside. The picture of the fruit you have not found is still, for a moment, before you. 
And if you wished--if it were possible to wish--you could keep it there. You could send your soul after the good you had expected, instead of turning it to the good you had got. You could refuse the real good; you could make the real fruit taste insipid by thinking of the other."

- from Perelandra, Chapter Five, by C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)

Fugitive Image - Missoula, Montana

"...Yet mental images play an important part in my prayers.... 
But they seem to help me most when they are most fugitive 
and fragmentary—rising and bursting like bubbles in champagne or 
wheeling like rooks in a windy sky: contradicting one another (in logic) as the 
crowded metaphors of a swift poet may do. 

Fix on any one, and it goes dead. 

You must do as Blake would do with a joy; kiss it as it flies...."

- from Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, page 86, by C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)

On Change - Missoula, Montana

"It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. 
We are like eggs at present. 
And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. 
We must be hatched or go bad."

- C S Lewis (1898-1963), from Mere Christianity, pp 170-171

Focused Up - Missoula, Montana

"Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed." - C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), The Magician's Nephew (The Chronicles of Narnia)

I could possibly stretch the 'focus up' aspect of today's spring leaves in contrast to the quote topic, but 'stretch' would be the operative word. Today's quote doesn't really have much anything to do with the picture, but it did make me laugh out loud yesterday, while listening to the audiobook during my lunchtime walk. Laughing from a place of empathy and personal experience, of course. Lewis aptly put into plain speech the fallacy of trying to make ourselves believe less than what we know to be true. And yet, we often insist on taking the long, dusty road to learning that vulnerable honesty is so much simpler than clutching tightly to our so-called pride. May Heaven help us to persist in shortening that worthwhile journey.

Further Up - East Missoula, Montana

"A long valley opened ahead and great snow-mountains, now much nearer, stood up against the sky.

"Further up and further in," cried Jewel and instantly they were off again." - from The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)

Today is C.S. Lewis's birthday; the world is a much more intelligent place thanks to his thoughtful and entertaining contributions to literature, radio, and scholarship. When I remembered (a bit belatedly) that November is his birth and death month, I thought it fitting to use quotes from his works for the remainder of the month. Coincidentally, I've been listening to several of his audio books in recent months, so timing was perfect, as I had a little mental quote stash ready to go. Whether Narnia or otherwise focused, Lewis's books are engaging AND consistently  provoke me to question and stretch my thoughts toward the best ends. For your pondering pleasure, a list of his books available via The Gutenberg Project can be found here. Bon appetit!

Winter Trees - Corvallis, Montana

"She looked at a silver birch: it would have a soft, showery voice and would look like a slender girl, with hair blown all about her face and fond of dancing."- from Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis

Childlike Thanks For New Snow - Missoula, Montana

"How ever did you learn to do that, Mr. Denniston?" said Jane. "I don't think I should ever learn to like rain and snow."

"It's the other way round," said Denniston. "Everyone begins as a child by liking Weather. You learn the art of disliking it as you grow up. Noticed it on a snowy day? The grown-ups are all going about with long faces, but look at the children - and the dogs? They know what snow's made for." - from That Hideous Strength (Space Trilogy #3) by C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)