Lewis’s Four ‘Bleats’ in the field of Cambridge

I'm only “a sheep telling other sheep what only sheep can tell them.”--"Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism”  (1959)[1]

Having spent these past two weeks in Wales, wandering through green pastures around Hawarden Castle, and reading and teaching a seminar on C. S. Lewis and Alec Vidler in the 19th century "Temple of Learning" at Gladstone’s Residential Library, I offer a tiny piece from my course on miracles in the Bible.  

Here is a hoof-print from Lewis’s ‘four fine bleats’ against modern criticism of the Bible from a lecture he gave to faculty and seminary students at Cambridge University in 1959.  He says he’s just “a sheep telling other sheep what only sheep can tell them,” and his ‘bleats” are still relevant today.

Dr. Alec Vidler, Anglican priest, former Warden of Gladstone Residential Library, and then Dean of the Chapel at Kings College, Cambridge, had delivered a sermon entitled “The Sign at Cana” in which he lifted up the spiritual significance of Jesus’s turning water into wine at a wedding—a spiritual ‘sign’ he said and not a supernatural miracle--and called for a more secular faith and demythologized form Christianity for modern times.  In response, Professor C. S. Lewis gave a Monday morning talk on modern theology and biblical criticism in the Common Room of Wescott House (the more liberal seminary community at Cambridge).  Vidler and Lewis remained friendly, but represent two quite different and opposing views of Christian faith, characterized as “modernist/liberal” and “conventional/conservative.”

During the talk, Lewis bellied out his four major bleats, summarized as follows: 

1.     Some biblical critics lack literary judgment; they read between the lines of ancient texts, reconstruct its supposed sources and shaping influences, not understanding literary genres (e.g., reading John’s Gospel as a romance rather than reportage of historical events and remembrances)

2.     Some claim without good reasons that the real teachings of Christ came rapidly to be misunderstood, and only now have been recovered by modern scholars (Vidler is an example)

3.     Some claim that miracles don’t occur in nature, based on their presupposition that belief in the supernatural is not reasonable or tenable.

4.     Critical attempts to recover the origin or pre-history of an ancient text (in Plato, Shakespeare or the Bible) are suspect, based on the fact that critics almost always get it wrong when they try to reconstruct the sources of many modern writers, including Lewis’s writings and those of his friends.

Here’ a taste in the page images below, of Lewis’s light touch and artful way of engaging his more liberal critics (most of whom were in training to become shepherds of churches):

“I find in these theologians a constant use of the principle that the miraculous does not occur, thus any statement put into our Lord’s mouth by the old texts, which, if He had really made it, would constitute a prediction of the future, is taken to have been put in after the occurrence which it seemed to predict.  This is very sensible if we start by knowing that inspired prediction can never occur.   Similarly in general, the rejection as unhistorical of all passages which narrate miracles, is sensible if we start by knowing that the miraculous in general never occurs. 

Now, I do not here want to discuss whether the miraculous is possible. I only want to point out that this is a purely philosophical question.  Scholars as scholars speak on it with no more authority than anyone else.  The canon ‘if miraculous, unhistorical’ is one they bring to their study of the texts, not one they have learned from it.  If one is speaking of authority, the united authority of all the biblical critics in the world counts here for nothing.  On this they speak simply as men, obviously influenced by and perhaps insufficiently critical of the spirit of the age they grew up in.”   But my fourth bleat which is also my loudest and longest is still to come…"

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[1] “…the proper study of shepherds is sheep not save accidentally other shepherds and woe to you if you do not evangelize. I am not trying to teach my grandmother, I am a sheep telling shepherds what only a sheep can tell them.  And now I start my bleating…”  Lewis, C. S. “Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism” in Christian Reflections, Walter Hooper, ed.

“A Light Touch, A Tad of Humor”

Lewis’s Last Interview:  “A Light Touch, A Tad of Humor”

“God has shown us that he can use any instrument.  Balaam’s ass, you remember, preached a very effective sermon in the midst of his ‘hee-haws.’” – C. S. Lewis, The Final Interview, May 7, 1963[1] 

In my research this week in prep for my course at Gladstone’s Library, I discovered C.S. Lewis’ last known interview, on May 7, 1963 (six months before he died), conducted by Sherwood Eliot Wirt for Decision Magazine (published by the Billy Graham Association. 

I remember meeting young Sherwood n 1968 or 69. He was offering a writing workshop in Pasadena for young would-be writers like myself, and I remember paying the fee and attending his workshop on “How to Publish Your Book.”  I was 15 at the time hoping to write and publish my first book on “God and Flying Saucers.”  What a surprise this week to find his name attached to Lewis's final interview.

One of Sherwood’s questions to Lewis’s was about his use of subtle satire and light humor, which comes through in his writings.

Wirt: A light touch has been characteristic of your writings, even when you are dealing with heavy theological themes. Would you say there is a key to the cultivation of such an attitude?

Lewis: “I believe this is a matter of temperament. However, I was helped in achieving this attitude by my studies of the literary men of the Middle Ages, and by the writings of G.K. Chesterton. Chesterton, for example, was not afraid to combine serious Christian themes with buffoonery. In the same way the miracle plays of the Middle Ages would deal with a sacred subject such as the nativity of Christ, yet would combine it with a farce.”

Wirt: Should Christian writers, then, in your opinion, attempt to be funny?

Lewis: “No. I think that forced jocularities on spiritual subjects are an abomination, and the attempts of some religious writers to be humorous are simply appalling. Some people write heavily, some write lightly. I prefer the light approach because I believe there is a great deal of false reverence about.... God has shown us that he can use any instrument. Balaam’s ass, you remember, preached a very effective sermon in the midst of his ‘hee-haws.’”   [See Numbers 22:21-39]

[What I would have asked him] “So, Jack, what was Balaam’s ass’s sermon about?”

Lewis:  Donkey’s Delight! he would have answered.

Lewis wrote a poem about his personal identification with Balaam’s ass entitled “Donkey’s Delight”—which is also the title and theme of my Travel Blog (see my original post).

A light touch, a tad of satire, self-effacing humor is characteristic of Lewis’s writings about heavy matters: like sex and morality, heaven and, hell, angels and demons, and, of course, the End of the World.

In the spirit of Balaam’s ass, I offer one of Lewis’s light responses when an another interviewer asked him a heavy question in 1953 about the new development of the hydrogen bomb and a possible nuclear apocalypse:

“Civilizations since the 11^th century have been expecting the world to come suddenly and painfully to an immediate end….And anyhow, when the bomb falls there will always be just that split second in which one can say ‘Pooh!  You’re only a bomb.  I’m an immortal soul.’”

More seriously, “when the end is near, how shall we then live?”

Lewis said he agreed with William Morris: “…the answer is to simply to get on with the job—to mend the sails, or launch the boat, or gather firewood.”

I love his light touch on heavy matters.   #DonkeysDelight

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[1] “The Final Interview” with C.S. Lewis, Decision Magazine, May 7, 1963.

Which Way to St. Willibrorus’s Chapel?

Henri Nouwen’s father, Laurent J. M. Nouwen, wrote a book-- St. Willibrorus: Holy Diplomat or Diplomatic Saint—in Dutch about the 7th century monk who Christianized parts of Germany, Belgiulm and the Netherlands for the Roman Catholic Church. Did Willi do so by force or by diplomacy, power or presence, I wanted to know?

Willibrorus's 6th century shrine and chapel is only a 40- minute walk from Laurent Nouwen’s house where we were staying. On Sunday we walked in the rain down a chestnut covered path under the protection of a green canopy of old trees until we came to a sacred circle in the center of a 700 hectare forest, west of the village of Geijsteren in the Dutch province of Limburg.

I counted six pilgrim pathways leading to the six-sided chapel, which unfortunately was closed on Sunday. Next to the chapel is an ancient water well from the 4th or 5th century, and a border post dating from 1551, separating the pre-christian lands of of Cuijk and Kessel. Around the medieval chapel, various pre-Christian customs have been honored, including the Thunder god’s marriages the those who became goddesses.

 I tried to imagine missionary Willibrorus in the 8th century finding the sacred pagan well, dipping his monastic staff in the water, and baptizing converts to the Christian faith. Some say he also seized pagan statues and plowed them into the ground. Whatever his method of evangelism, he was successful and soon became the first Bishop of Utrecht.

Willi seems to be remembered fondly by the Dutch, and though I had not heard of him before, I now need to add him to my book of saints.

Intrigued, I later I googled St. Willbrorus and here’s what I found in Wikipedia:

Willibrord (Latin: Villibrordus; c. 658 – 7 November AD 739) was a Northumbrian missionary saint, known as the "Apostle to the Frisians" in the modern Netherlands. He became the first Bishop of Utrecht and died at Echternach, Luxembourg. A Life was written by Alcuin and dedicated to the Abbot of Echternach. Bede also makes mention of Willibrord. Nothing written by Willibrord can be found save a marginal note in the Calendar of Echternach giving some chronological data. A copy of the Gospels under the name of Willibrord is an Irish codex no doubt brought by Willibrord from Ireland. In 752/753 Boniface wrote a letter to Pope Stephen II, in which it is said that Willibrord destroyed the Frisian pagan sanctuaries and temples. In the Life written by Alcuin are two texts about Willibrord and pagan places of worship. In one he arrived with his companions in Walcheren in the Netherlands where he smashed a sculpture of the ancient religion. In the second text passage Willibord arrived on an island called Fositesland where a pagan god named Fosite was worshipped. Here he despoiled this god of its sanctity by using the god's sacred well for baptisms and the sacred cattle for food. I will add Willi to my Notebook of Saints as well as read Laurent J.M. Nouwen’s book on St. Villibrordus in translation.

A Haunted Castle in Holland?

 Stumbled upon a medieval castle today on my bike ride to neighboring village.  

Kasteel Well is located in the historical village of Well in southeastern Holland near the German border, not far from where we are staying in Gijerstern. An ancient “sweet water” well,  within a watchtower built in 975 A.D, encased by a 14th century castle,  surrounded by a double mote, once was the domain of Duke Geldern in 1275 AD.  

Inspired by the Crusades, the Duke envisioned the castle as a place of sanctuary inspiration and personal quest. Since 1275 ten regal families have lived in the castle until 1905 when family members had to sell it.  

The German Army seized the castle during WWII, used it initially as a command center and then as a hospital for Nazi soldiers.  Allied bomber crews were imprisoned there until they could be taken to P.O.W. camps.  After the war, the castle became a refuge and temporary shelter for thousands of people who returned to the village of Well without a place to live.

Today, Kasteel Well is a Dutch National Monument and a place of learning.  Emerson College, in Boston, purchased it in 1988 as their “study abroad” campus. I saw two Emerson students walking around the castle campus mote today and I asked one of them:  “Do you like studying here?”

She said, “I’m not sure. There’s some bad vibes.  Nazis used to stay here and there’s still an old weggie board inside, so you can definitely contact the devil.”

I left it at that and rode back to the village where I’m staying, wondering if the castle was indeed haunted.     

Where is Henri Nouwen buried?

I’m currently staying in Henri Nouwen’s father’s house in Holland on a writing retreat, thanks to the generosity of Laurent Nouwen who owns the house now.  Henri’s parents—Laurent J. M. Nouwen and Maria Nouwen--lived here in Geijsteren--a small, historic, quiet Dutch village in Eastern Holland on the border with Germany—known as a pilgrimage site for St. Willbrorus, a missionary from Ireland who Christianized what is now the Netherlands.

Memorial Marker in Geijsteren

Earlier this week, on crisp autumn day amid leaves falling from the trees, I visited Henri’s parents’ gravesite in the old churchyard of St Willibrordus Church.  Inscribed below their names is Henri Nouwen’s name in memorium.  I breathed a prayer of gratitude for my beloved teacher.  Though he was born in the Netherlands and died here in this beautiful country, Holland is not where his body is buried.  There was a bit of a controversy about where best to lay him to rest.

On September 15, 1996, Henri left Daybreak, his community near Toronto, for St. Petersburg, Russia, to work with a film crew on a Dutch documentary on Rembrandt’s painting “The Return of the Prodigal Son.”  He flew through Europe, making a stopover at Schiphol Amsterdam Airport on September 16^th and checked into a nearby hotel in Hilversum for the night.  Sometime during the day, he had a cardiac arrest and somehow was able to alert the hotel management.  He was brought by ambulance to the hospital at Hilversum, east of Amsterdam. 

“It was from the hospital that we (brother Paul and I) were called with the disturbing news that Henri had suffered a heart attack,” Laurent remembers. “That same day we (Paul, sister Laurien, my father at the age of 93, and I) visited Henri at the hospital.  I stayed with him overnight and every day thereafter…“

While in recovery from the first he suffered a second sudden heart attack during the night. His family was informed by staff shortly after he died in his hospital room on September 21, 1996.  

I remember getting a distressing call from a mutual friend after his first heart seizure, and again after he had died. I was on a faculty retreat in New Jersey at which I could no longer fully participate after hearing the sad news…Henri had been my professor and mentor at Yale Divinity School, and I had kept in touch with him after my graduation and during his journey to South America, Harvard and L’Arche.   But I was unable to attend his funeral.

The first of three funeral Masses for Henri Nouwen was held on September 25th 1996 at St. Catharina Cathedral in Utrecht (the same church where Henri was ordained in 1957) with a eulogy offered by his friend and mentor, Jean Vanier. It was decided by members of his family and representatives of L’Arche Daybreak that Henri should be buried close to his community in Richmond Hill, near Toronto.

Henri’s spiritual home was with his extended family at L’Arche Daybreak.  After the funeral Mass in Holland, his brother Laurent flew Henri’s body to Toronto for a full night wake at Daybreak and the next day for a full-day wake at St. Mary Immaculate Catholic Church in Richmond Hill where more than a thousand people paid their respects.  This was followed by a second funeral Mass at the Slovak Catholic Cathedral of the Transfiguration in Markham, Ontario on September 28.  A third memorial service occurred a month later at St. James' Episcopal Church on the Upper Eastside of Manhattan (which I attended and where I met Robert Jonas, John Dear, Wendy Greer, and many others who were grieving the loss of our great teacher and friend).

Henri’s body was laid to rest in a simple pine coffin built in the Daybreak wood shop, colorfully decorated by members of the L’Arche community.  There was a dispute between the leaders of Daybreak and the Catholic Bishop of Toronto about where Henri should be buried.  The Bishop insisted that Henri as a Catholic priest should be buried at a Catholic cemetery. Indeed, Church Law requires that Roman Catholics in good standing be buried in consecrated ground, blessed by a priest in communion with the Roman Catholic Church. The nearest qualifying cemetery was one in the city of King, about a half-hour drive from Richmond Hill where Daybreak was located.

Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Cemetery 

Henri properly was buried at Sacred Heart Catholic Cemetery in King City north of Toronto on September 28 the after the second funeral Mass. The name of the cemetery--“Sacred Heart”—symbolizes Henri’s spirituality of the heartland the cause of his untimely death from cardiac arrest. However, the restrictions of Sacred Heart Cemetery do not aptly symbolize Henri’s large, open, inclusive, ecumenical heart… 

In his books and in private conversations, Henri expressed his desire to be buried with the friends he lived with at L’Arche Daybreak in Richmond Hill.  Not all of his friends and community members were Roman Catholic.  The right to burial at Sacred Heart Cemetery was restricted to members of the parish, former parishioners and their families, and other members of the Catholic faith.  As a pastoral provision, a new plot of land was purchased and donated by the Augustinian Fathers in 1996, with a plan to expand Sacred Heart Cemetery to include core members of the L’Arche community when they died.  However, the new section was neglected, the plan to expand the Sacred Heart cemetery was scrapped, and no more sites were made available to the community after Henri was buried.

Henri’s brother, Laurent, after visiting the Sacred Heart burial site in Kings, remarked to Sr. Sue Mosteller, executor of Nouwen’s literary estate:  “I just feel badly because we haven’t really done what Henri asked. ”  Namely, to be buried near his Daybreak friends and family members.  

St John's Anglican Cemetery

In July 2010, fourteen years after his death, Henri’s remains were moved from Sacred Heart Catholic Cemetery north of Toronto to St. John’s Anglican Cemetery in Richmond Hill-- closer to L’Arche Daybreak and where the community was able to buy 20 plots to accommodate the needs of an aging group of Catholic and non-Catholic members.  A simple wooden cross was planted, made by a carpenter at Daybreak and inscribed by Laurent with “Henri Nouwen 24 Jan. 1932 -- 21 Sept. 1996.”About 100 community members gathered at the new gravesite to pray, sprinkle holy water, and remember Henri. (I remember being there shortly after with other members of the Henri Nouwen Society board.  How fitting it was for him to be buried in a cemetery named after John the Beloved (the disciple Jesus loved), one of Henri’s favorites saints.

“It would be wonderful if it could have been a Catholic cemetery,” Sr. Sue Mosteller admitted after his body was moved.  “But it was Henri’s desires, and his family’s wish to honor those desires, that made St. John’s the right final resting place,” she said. Laurent Nouwen agreed:  “Indeed family members were not happy with his place at the cemetery at King.  We were very happy when Henri found a final place of rest amid his deceased friends from Daybreak at St. John’s Anglican  (Jefferson) Church Cemetery.

Pastorally motivated rather than institutionally driven, claimed by family and friends on three continents as one of their own, Henri is remembered as a "catholic" (in the sense of universal) priest.  An ecumenical pastor/priest and spiritual director with open hands and a wide heart.  In life and death, he wanted to be close to those in his community, whatever their faith experience or tradition. He now rests among four of his close friends from Daybreak--Bill, Carol, Rosie and Peter--in the south/east section of St. John’s cemetery, 12125 Yonge Street, Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada.  Time for a new Bishop to consecrate the sacred, ecumenical ground.  

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Henri's Native Netherlands

I remember what Henri once said and deeply believed:  “When I die, my spirit will be accessible to my friends…”  Staying in his father’s home, enjoying his brother Laurent, knowing that Henri was with his father, sister and brothers before he died, as well as with community members, I feel particularly close to my beloved teacher today.  In this special place, surrounded by family photographs, framed icons, many books and paintings, I am reminded of Henri. I’m grateful for his life and mission, and very glad he is finally home.--MJC  

Herni's final resting place at St. John's