Lewis Mania

This past week, among other things, I found myself immersed in preparing for the C. S. Lewis Seminar hosted by the UEC this past Saturday. The seminar was a part of the "Days of C. S. Lewis" in conjunction with the Narnia film. We were most interested in promoting Lewis's writings and hoped the film would generate interest in Lewis works. We wrote a brochure and gave it to all our patrons and ran a contest where we gave away Lewis books and a few tickets to the film (it opens Dec. 29 here). The seminar was a three-hour audio-visual presentation on the life of C. S. Lewis, his conversion, how his faith informed his writing, and a lecture on The Chronicles of Narnia. At the break, I pulled out a silver box with green, silk ribbon with several pounds of Turksih delight, not unlike how the White Witch tempted Edmund! It was so much fun with such a large and enthusiastic crowd--more than 55 came. The UEC's meeting hall was packed. Thanks to Vitya Yevpak borrowing a video projector and Sergiy's work with the internet, the presentation turned out to be very appealing. Many unbelievers were there and so I was just delighted to be able to be a witness for Christ as we discussed Lewis's faith.

And the Lewis books have just flown off the shelves. We have a pretty large collection of Lewis books and many have been checked out since we began promoting Lewis. It gave me the idea to have a Great Writers Series in which we would create interesting presentations on Christian writers. I am thinking next we will consider Jane Austen. People here know her work but no one really thinks of her as a Christian writer. Many were surprised to learn Tolkien was a Christian. I guess he will have to be put on the list (thought I am personally reluctant to call him a great writer but I guess that's not really the point of this series). The Communists really stole something from Ukrainians when they were not allowed to read freely and only certain writers were printed. Jack London and Ray Bradbury are two minor literary figures that everyone here has read! I guess I want to do my part to change that--to introduce good writers who write from a Christian perspective and in doing that, not only will we enrich people's lives but hopefully help unbelievers find the Lord. I doubt many of those people would have shown up for a Bible study but they did come to hear about Lewis. May God help us to figure out how to be a witness in a very secular place!

By the way, I love Mr. and Mrs. Beaver. I haven't seen the film yet, but they are my favorite characters in the book!