C.S. Lewis and Me

Let's begin with
a brief experiment.

Look at me.
Look right into my soul.
By looking, come to know me
as well as you can.

What did you learn?
What have I suffered?
What do I cherish, long for,
mourn, and regret?

Looking doesn't answer
those questions for you,
so let's try something else.
Step with me back to the year 1963,
the year John Kennedy was killed.

I was just 16. Daddy drank past midnight most nights, and when momma joined him music blasted and the fights lasted 'til 3 or 4 a.m. Too often, my frail grandma, nearing eighty, entered the fray. She'd wail and sometimes faint. We kids would carry her to bed, wipe her face with cold cloths, and hope she wouldn't die.

Night after night the drinking continued: fear, fury, hate and humiliation consumed me. A newcomer in town, I had no friends; there were no grownups I could turn to.

I resolved to get a gun and put us out of our misery: first my parents, then my grandma, my brother, my sister, and then myself.

A week passed; more nights of drunkenness.
Though despair and death blocked out most
other thoughts, I still had to go to school.

Behind me in homeroom that April sat a glimmering girl, with apple-blossom hair, Jo Hodges. Her wholesome goodness and bright spirit were the antithesis of the monster I'd become.

That morning, however, as I suffered through homeroom, she leaned forward in her desk, placed her chin on my left shoulder, and whispered in my ear, "What was the math assignment?"

Jo Hodges touched me! She wasn't repulsed by my humiliating life, my murderous intentions. To this day, I'm grateful for the kindness she did me, though she did not realize it at the time.

"Page 167," I said, stumbling. "Just the even problems."

"Thanks," Jo said, lifting her head from my shoulder,
and settling back in her own desk.

*

A month later --- Memorial Day, 1963 --- while Jo Hodges was riding her bicycle, a truck came too fast around the corner, sent her over the embankment, and knocked her forehead into a large rock.

Jo died instantly.

*

Now were I a poet, or an Irishman, I might have sung
of the fever in my mind those dark days, of my encounter
with Jo, and of her loss. I might have said:

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire aflame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:

It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

For many years after Jo Hodges died, I was the only person who knew about our brief encounter. Now I've told you this secret that's been locked in my soul for forty-five years, and about the gratitude I felt then and feel even unto this moment.

I don't say that the memory is profound, but it is mine. What is profound --- what is remarkable --- is the means whereby you've come to learn this secret --- the words which in a few minutes have brought about a singular transformation.

Whereas earlier you only knew me --- and only could know me --- as a wistful-looking fellow in a photo . . .

. . . now you see a man who once toyed with murder,
a man touched by grace, a man tempered
by beauty and loss.

Language changed what you see
when you look at this picture;
and only language could have done it.

*

1963 --- a year of deaths.

Jo Hodges in May.

Then on November 22^nd the crack of three rifle shots in Dallas
--- a fearful sound that drowned all news of a man who died 5,000 miles away at nearly the same instant: the great Christian thinker and author of the Narnia Chronicles, C.S. Lewis.

In his book An Experiment in Criticism are ten words that,
like the silver apples of the moon, I could pluck
again and again, till time and times are done. Lewis says that: "language heals the wound
without destroying the privilege
of individuality."

What is the
privilege of individuality?

I am a being unto myself, spiritually my own kingdom.
I alone dwell in the realm of my thoughts and feelings;
you can't penetrate the inner sanctum of my mind, and,
if I refuse to tell you, you can't even know what goes on there. That's the privilege of individuality.

And the wound?

In this kingdom of my own self, I live apart:
my suffering is not yours and yours is not mine.
Because of the kind of beings we are --- persons ---
a gulf divides us one from another:
that's the wound of individuality.

*

Language heals
this wound.

With words, I can reveal to you the life of my soul, and you can share with me the life of yours. Through my words, you've just come to know how twisted I once was, and how I was touched by a single gesture of a wholesome girl.

By means of language, you've learned how "language heals the wound without destroying the privilege of individuality."

By means of words, God, too, reveals Himself
to us, and His love for us:

"Fear not," says the Lord,
"for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name.
You are mine."

God's promise is no less consoling today
than when He spoke them through
Jeremiah 2,500 years ago.

*

In these instances, we experience the incredible power that publishing adds to the marvel of speech: where living voices can't go --- across continents and far into the future --- printed words do, as today have the words of Jeremiah, Yeats, and C.S. Lewis.

This is the blessed power given into our hands here at
Sophia Institute Press: by means of the holy books we publish, we're able to introduce to souls in other places and other times the wisdom that has sustained us Catholics in our Faith for over 2,000 years. We've done this almost 3 million times already;
God willing, we'll do it millions of times more.

*

You've already seen that in Yeats's poem,
I found a reflection of young Jo Hodges and her loss:

. . . a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

That poem also recalls God's words to Jeremiah
("I have called you by name") and reflects
the everlasting desire of each of us finally to be healed
of the wound of individuality, to enter into full communion
with truth and beauty, with God Himself.

In the 8^th book of Proverbs, the Wisdom of God speaks,
the Wisdom of God known in the Eastern Catholic churches
by the name "Sophia":

From of old I was poured forth.
When there were no depths I was brought forth,
when there were no fountains or springs of water.
Before the mountains were settled into place,
before the hills, I was brought forth.
When he established the heavens I was there,
when he fixed fast the foundations of the earth;
when he set for the sea its limit,
then was I beside him as his craftsman,
and I was his delight day by day,
playing before him all the while,
and I found delight in the sons of men.

He who finds me finds life,
and wins favor from the LORD.

Decades ago, while despair veiled my soul and murder coursed through my veins, this is Who, without knowing it, I longed for; this is the wisdom, the Sophia, I sought when Jo Hodges died, and for decades thereafter.

This Sophia makes speech possible, healing the wound of individuality. This Wisdom guides our press and gives it its name:
Sophia Institute Press.

As Yeats pursued that glimmering girl with apple blossom in her hair, long have we here at Sophia Institute Press pursued the holy Wisdom that speaks to us in Proverbs.

Today, I recommit myself and Sophia Institute Press
to this quest for truth and beauty --- this quest for
Wisdom herself --- and I ask you, too,
to join me in this commitment. For . . .

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

John Barger, Publisher
Sophia Institute Press

P.S Five months ago, we came within days of having to abandon this quest and close our doors. Your help bought us time enough to affiliate with Thomas More College and to get almost two dozen of our key books back into print.

Then, just as things were looking up, this terrible banking crisis struck, crimping sales and drying up the contributions that were helping us recover. Worse, the large loan the College arranged for us --- the one that will assure our recovery --- has been delayed.

So despite our best efforts, and those of the College, our overdue bills have now risen past $30,000, and I have no means to pay them. Calls to our best donors yield the same answer: "We can't help right now. We don't know what tomorrow will bring."

Nor do I.

Can you help us get through this dangerous time?
Could you use this Paypal button to donate $50 today,
or more if that's possible? If you can't donate $50,
what about $25? Or even $10?

Paypal takes just a minute,
but that minute of your time buys us months
in which to grow strong again so that in the coming years, together, you and I can continue to seek that holy Wisdom
we long to find, and say together:

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

Thank you.
And please pray for
Jo Hodges . . . and for me.