Today is the feast day of Clive Staples Lewis in the Episcopal Church. That’s C.S. Lewis, Christian apologist and spiritual writer, who died on November 22, 1963.
“Your real, new self (which is Christ’s and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. Does that sound strange? The same principle holds, you know, for more everyday matters. Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. The principle runs through all life from top to bottom, Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
Here’s an article about CSL to refresh your memory. It may be time to revisit Narnia.
Well, here we are and it is almost Thanksgiving! This weekend I will be getting my act together and the house ready for the big day next week, which won’t be such a big event this year. Still, there will be a turkey and all the fixins…How do you do Thanksgiving? Garden & Gun readers answered that question here.
Our mother served a distinctly New England version of the Thanksgiving feast (which was her mother’s version), and for years after she died, I replicated it, squash and all. Over the years, however, we changed the menu and simplified it to suit our tastes. I don’t think she’d mind. I hope she would approve of our cheesy potato casserole and green beans. She would be pleased that we use her china and set a nice table.
This past week I watched several Errol Flynn movies, prompted by the boy’s recommendation to watch Against All Flags (1952) which is on Amazon Prime.
He was right–it is good entertainment and Errol, although along in years (he was 43!) has not yet gone around the bend.
Encouraged by this, I attempted to watch The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939) which I had DVR’d. Despite the fact that Errol was in his prime, the movie for me was unwatchable, due to Bette Davis and her over-acting. Good lord, she was too much. I gave up after half an hour. 
Battered but unbowed, I started The Adventures of Don Juan (1948) a few nights later. Flynn was 39 at this point and, although the movie is derivative of every other swashbuckler he made, down to the shot of him riding across a stream with Alan Hale at night followed by a posse of angry Englishmen, with the moonlight coming through the trees, he is still in surprisingly good form and very engaging. I enjoyed the movie a lot.
So if you are looking for something to watch this weekend, try an Errol Flynn movie. They don’t make profiles like his anymore.
Have a good weekend. Take it easy. Eat some pancakes.
dual personalities 