My very intelligent, very (self-described) un-literary father taught me all about the complexities and beauty of God. My librarian mother gave me the literature that would introduce me to the most profound descriptions of those complex beauties. As the author of Marvelous Light, numerous metaphor-dependent blog posts, and future allegorical novels, I hope to introduce each of my readers to the divine realities on which I depend daily.
People use metaphors to understand complex concepts. The most universal image used to describe profound realities is light. Light as metaphor is strewn throughout literature; poetry, novels, and non-fiction. Light is used to get at the deepest philosophical ideas. Science employs models to help us understand how physical light behaves, and those mental pictures in turn can be used to understand theological truths. And anyone who talks about divinity, from any religious tradition, will describe their god in terms of light. Light is unavoidable when revealing the character of reality.
Marvelous Light demonstrates that light is used in practically all attempts to find truth. It dives into the science, philosophy, and theology of light to reveal God’s character and the nature of reality.
Lakoff famously contends that metaphor is the crux of all human understanding. This classic academic, literary, philosophical, and sociological text suggests that at the root of what it means to be human is an absolute need to describe all experience and knowledge through comparison. Read More Than Cool Reason to begin gaining an appreciation for the theory of how metaphor makes us who we are and establishes our place in the universe.
"The authors restore metaphor to our lives by showing us that it's never gone away. We've merely been taught to talk as if it had: as though weather maps were more 'real' than the breath of autumn; as though, for that matter, Reason was really 'cool.' What we're saying whenever we say is a theme this book illumines for anyone attentive." - Hugh Kenner, Johns Hopkins University
"In this bold and powerful book, Lakoff and Turner continue their use of metaphor to show how our minds get hold of the world. They have achieved nothing less than a postmodern Understanding…
I remember reading that Lewis considered Till We Have Faces his crowning achievement in fiction, a book he published the same year he married Joy Davidman, only seven years before his death. My college roommate recommended the book, saying that he quit reading it about 3 chapters before the end because he was fed up. When I finished it (including the last 3 chapters), I told him he was an idiot. He knew it, cause the last chapters explain the metaphor that is the rest of the book. Till We Have Faces is the most beautiful depiction of faith in God and the ache in those who see it in others but don’t have it themselves.
Fascinated by the myth of Cupid and Psyche throughout his life, C. S. Lewis reimagines their story from the perspective of Psyche's sister, Orual.
'I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer . . . Why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?'
Till We Have Faces is a brilliant examination of envy, betrayal, loss, blame, grief, guilt, and conversion. In this, his final - and most mature and masterful - novel, Lewis reminds us of our…
Lewis considered George MacDonald his spiritual father, having never met the man. He said that MacDonald introduced him to the gospel through his stories before he even knew that that’s what was happening. How? Metaphor. George MacDonald knew of God’s love more than most and did his best to share it with the world, deeply hidden in fairy tales, the kind of folklore that Lewis, Tolkien, and the rest of the Inklings loved so dearly.
George MacDonald occupied a major position in the intellectual life of his Victorian contemporaries. This volume brings together all eleven of his shorter fairy stories as well as his essay "The Fantastic Imagination". The subjects are those of traditional fantasy: good and wicked fairies, children embarking on elaborate quests, and journeys into unsettling dreamworlds. Within this familiar imaginative landscape, his children's stories were profoundly experimental, questioning the association of childhood with purity and innocence, and the need to separate fairy tale wonder from adult scepticism and disbelief.
If Lewis’ Till We Have Facesis a deeply buried metaphor for religious experience, The Man Who Was Thursday requires an excavator to unearth. Both books explain their metaphors in the final pages, but Thursdaydoes this much less clearly. Unless you’re pretty familiar with Christianity, you’re probably gonna miss it. But what a wonderful surprise to get to the end of this strange story and realize that Chesterton was sneakily describing the sneakiness of God’s beauty, just like Lewis did.
Can you trust yourself when you don't know who you are? Syme uses his new acquaintance to go undercover in Europe's Central Anarchist Council and infiltrate their deadly mission, even managing to have himself voted to the position of 'Thursday'. In a park in London, secret policeman Gabriel Syme strikes up a conversation with an anarchist. Sworn to do his duty, When Syme discovers another undercover policeman on the Council, however, he starts to question his role in their operations. And as a desperate chase across Europe begins, his confusion grows, as well as his confidence in his ability to…
Sorry that Lewis made my list twice. Honestly, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to do it. But two images in this book have wheedled their way into my brain so deeply that the metaphors have become a part of me. Glimpsing that far-off paradise through the hedge as a child! Only seeing the precariousness of his path in retrospect! Wow! Read it and you’ll understand. These two metaphors will be with me until I die.
One of C. S. Lewis' works of fiction, or more specifically allegory, this book is clearly modelled upon Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, as Lewis cleverly satirizes different sections of the Church.
Written within a year of Lewis' conversion, it characterises the various theological and temperamental leanings of the time. This brilliant and biting allegory has lost none of its freshness and theological profundity, as the pilgrims pass the City of Claptrap, the tableland of the High Anglicans and the far-off marsh of the Theosophists. As ever, Lewis says memorably in brief what would otherwise have demanded a full-length philosophy of religion.
I think of myself as a listener and life in progress. As a poet and author, I’m always listening to the words that move through my heart. I’m also a spiritual seeker, always looking for the Divine in the world around me and almost always surprised by the ways it shows up when I’m paying attention. Yet, there’s another part of me that is a Jersey girl through and through, looking for humor or irreverence in the face of life’s challenges. All these aspects come together in an unusual harmony, creating an openness to being changed by the things that come into my life. Hence, a list of life-changing books.
Mood swings and insomnia are one thing, hot flash-induced psychic visions are quite another. When Olivia Wilde realizes the visions she’s experiencing in the midst of hot flashes are actually premonitions, she must learn to understand and trust what she sees in order to help a friend, preserve a piece of history, and save a life.
When Liv’s friend’s antique store in Fredericksburg, Virginia is robbed, she finds herself in the midst of a quest to find a secret cache of priceless letters written by President James Monroe and his wife Elizabeth. With the encouragement of her "Monthly" dinner party girlfriends, Liv begins to learn how to harness her newfound abilities, along with her smarts, to help catch the thief.
Mood swings and insomnia are one thing, hot flash-induced psychic visions are quite another. When Olivia Wilde realizes the visions she's been experiencing in the midst of hot flashes are actually premonitions, she has to learn to understand and trust what she sees in order to help a friend, preserve a piece of history, and save a life.
Deftly weaving together elements of history, mystery, menopause, humor, some Jersey girl attitude, a bit of salty language, and a healthy dose of female friendship, Flashes of Insight marks the start of a new "Jersey Cozy"* series sure to deliver laughter, intelligence,…
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