Gary S. Selby - Pursuing an Earthy Spirituality: C. S. Lewis and Incarnational Faith

It was the kind of moment every teacher dreams of.

Earlier that day I had introduced my students, all college sophomores, to C. S. Lewiss argument about how our decisions shape our character. Lewis emphasized that every day, a hundred times a day, we are making choices, and taken together those choices determine the kind of people we become and, indeed, our eternal destiny. I gave them lots of examplesthe decision whether to share a juicy bit of gossip, say, or to put the phone down and really listen to a friend, or let our gaze rest on another person in a lustful way, or even to begin the day with gratitude or a complaint. The problem, I told them, is that these choices are usually so small, so beneath the radar of our consciousness that we dont even realize we are choosing. But we are. And if we could just be aware of them and make decisions that point our lives in a good direction, we would be on our way toward becoming the people we aspire to be.

Now, hours later, here were two students from that same class approaching me on the sidewalk. When they saw me, they both lit up, as if they couldnt wait to share some news. We were just talking about what you said in class, one said excitedly. And its true! We really are making choices all the time. The other nodded vigorously and chimed in, I just never realized it before.

More than anything else, that is the reaction I hope this book will bring. Of course, I want to shed light on Lewiss thinking about the spiritual life, adding in some small way to the immense body of scholarship on Lewis that has been building almost since he first began to write for a Christian audience. But far greater is my hope that readers will see that what Lewis said makes sense. Its true. And it works. Lewiss understanding of the spiritual life resonates with Scripture and Christian theology, and also with our own deepest longings. It offers the possibility for flourishing in this life and a vibrant hope for the life to come. For those who actually practice the spiritual disciplines he offered, life will never be the same.

I wish to express my gratitude to those who have nurtured this project along the way: to Tammy, my wife, who has shared this journey from day one; to my sons, Joel and Tyler, and their wives, Ashley and Katie, who will soon be introducing my grandchildren to Aslan and the wonders of Narnia; to my friends in the Columbia Church of Christ who welcomed the references to Lewis that seemed to show up almost weekly in my sermons; and especially to Maggie Earles and Steve Koziol, who shared and fueled my enthusiasm for Lewis.

I am also grateful to those who have been instrumental in this project in a more immediate way, especially to David McNutt and the team at InterVarsity Press who got excited about this book with me. Thanks, also, to the two anonymous reviewers for their careful and gracious reading of the manuscript. Their insights and suggestions strengthened the book immensely. I also acknowledge my debt to a brief insight offered by Professor Janet Blumberg in a lecture titled Plato and Augustine in the Writings of C. S. Lewis given at a Lewis conference almost twenty years ago (which I stumbled upon in a podcast years later). That insight was the first seed of which this book is the fruition.

Finally, I express my deep gratitude and affection to the students throughout my career whose excitement at discovering Lewis kept me coming back to him again and againthe small group who gathered around The Great Divorce in a student apartment at George Washington University, the classes and small groups at Pepperdine University, and now my graduate students at Emmanuel Christian Seminary. But especially I am thankful to Ezra Plank and Mark Barneche, directors of Pepperdines Lausanne, Switzerland, Study Abroad Program, for inviting me to teach a course on Lewis, not once but twice, and for all the students of the Maison du Lac who embraced that exploration with such eagerness. The vision for this book and most of the original manuscript grew out of our conversations. The joy I saw in you was my inspiration.