10 Unusual Words found in C S Lewis's "The Great Divorce"

1. Trousered. Drunk, slang (They were both so trousered, slender, giggly and falsetto that I could be sure of the sex of neither, but it was clear that each for the moment preferred the other to the chance of a place in the bus.)
2. Dindle. Tingle, vibrate, shake ("Then only one expedient remains," said the Spirit, and to my great surprise he set a horn to his lips and blew. I put my hands over my ears. The earth seemed to shake: the whole wood trembled and dindled at the sound. … Suddenly I started back, rubbing my eyes. What stood before me was the greatest stallion I have ever seen, silvery white but with mane and tail of gold. It was smooth and shining, rippled with swells of flesh and muscle, whinneying and stamping with its hoofs. At each stamp the land shook and the trees dindled.)
3. Fash. Feel uset or worried ("They're both right, maybe. Do not fash yourself with such questions. Ye cannot fully understand the relations of choice and Time till you are beyond both. And ye were not brought here to study such curiosities. What concerns you is the nature of the choice itself: and that ye can watch them making.")
4. Bilked. Got money from someone by deceit (I heard the clink of money and then a scream in the female voice, mixed with roars of laughter from the rest of the crowd. The cheated woman leaped out of her place to fly at the man who had bilked her, but the others immediately closed up and flung her out. ...)
5. Tousle-headed. Having haor that is untidy or unkempt (But a tousle-headed youth at once came and sat down beside me. As he did so we moved off. … I was not left very long at the mercy of the Tousle-Headed Poet, because another passenger interrupted our conversation: but before that happened I had learned a good deal about him.)
6. Lackey. Wait upn or serve obsequiously ("Haven't ye read your Milton? A thousand livened angels lackey her,")
7. Vitiated. SPoled or impaired (Capitalism did not merely enslave the workers, it also vitiated taste and vulgarised intellect: hence our educational system and hence the lack of "Recognition" for new genius.)
8. Bourgeois. Belonging to or characteristic of the middle class, typically with reference to its perceived materialistic values or conventional attitudes (He had thought her a really civilised and adult personality, and then she had unexpectedly revealed that she was a mass of bourgeois prejudices and monogamic instincts.)
9. Monogamic. Having only one spouse, one sexual partner, or (in the case of animals) one mate. (He had thought her a really civilised and adult personality, and then she had unexpectedly revealed that she was a mass of bourgeois prejudices and monogamic instincts.)
10. Tragedian. An actor specialising on tragic roles (He was watching the Tragedian out of the corner of his eyes. Then he gave a jerk to the chain: and it was the Tragedian, not he, who answered the Lady. "There, there," said the Tragedian. Etc.)

[Whinnying. Making a soft, high sound like a horse (I can still remember the squelching noise of the soft wet turf under their hoofs, the breaking of the undergrowth, the snorting and the whinneyings; how their hind legs went up and their horned heads down in mimic battle. … It was smooth and shining, rippled with swells of flesh and muscle, whinneying and stamping with its hoofs.)]

Midweek Meeting May 14 2025

Seven of us gathered last Wednesday. I ran through the material I hope to give at the Grace Assembly next week on John Fawcett. I did it as its designed to encourage small churches and we are one. We also spent time in prayer and then at the end heard a report of the testimony of a potential new member which was received amd agreed.

Day Off Week 20 2025

Much more of a traditional day off this week. It was very sunny so I put on my summer t-shirt and enjoyed myself. Oddly I didn't do much walking but I did go out for a coffee and did some tidying up here. I also read a good chunk of Mere Christianity which I've never read. Also two more amazing chapters of David Copperfield. Almost at the end now. There was also some work on the computer getting ready for Sunday, etc.

The Great Divorce and Miracles C S Lewis

We had another book session at the seminary on Monday (May 12 2025). Every third book we choose is supposed to be a classic and so we went this time for C S Lewis. For some reason we went for two - the brief Great Divorce and the longer Miracles.

I was given a copy of TGD when I was younger and a bit more literalistic. Lewis says clearly it is a fantasy not a cosmology of heaven and hell but I couldn't cope, especially with the apparent to-ing and fro-ing between the two. Hopefully, I am more mature now and could see the points being made. The title is a deliberate play on words and ideas, referencing William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. For Blake good and evil, Heaven and Hell, are ultimately reconciled or intertwined. Lewis strongly rejects such ideas. Hence divorce, a total and eternal separation between good and evil, Heaven and Hell. For Lewis, there can be no blending of the two; souls must ultimately choose one or the other. There is a final, irreconcilable break between those who accept joy, truth,and God (Heaven) and those who cling to self-deception, pride or sin (Hell).

Miracles is a more demanding read and takes a long time to get to the main subject, though those final two chapters are helpful. (Sadly, Lewis was unprepared to defend Old Testament miracles in the same way that he does NT ones).

I guess our group reponse was a typical evangelical one. Wow, what insights but how dangerous he can be at times. I Bought my copies in a slip case with five others at a bargain price. Next time in September, it is John Mak Comer's popular Practicing the Way.

Focus - No Hang Ups - (Live on Danish TV 1974 RMHD)

10 The Lives

There are some well known collections of Lives (and some less well known)

1. The Lives of the Caesars by Suetonius
2. The Lives of the Artists by Vasari
3. The Lives of the most eminent English Poets by Samuel Johnson (Milton, Swift, Dryden, etc)
4. Parallel Lives by Plutarch (23 paired lives of Greeks and Romans)
5. The Lives of the Saints by the Venerable Bede (ie "The Voyage of St Brendan", Bede's "Life of Cuthbert" and Eddius's Life of Wilfred)
6. The Lives of Early Methodist Preachers: Chiefly Written by Themselves.(Six volume 19th century work)
7. The Lives of the Kings and Queens of England by Antonia Fraser
8. The Lives of the prime ministers of England from the Restoration to the present time Volume 1 by J Houston Browne (1858)
9. American Caesars: Lives of the US Presidents, from Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush by Nigel Hamilton
10. The Lives of the Novelists by John Sutherland (294 lives)

Lord's Day May 11 2025

Numbers were down again last Lord's Day although we were 14 in the evening. We're all very different, however. Glad to hear that an Iranian couple now have asylum. Two men still waiting. I preached the next bits in Ephesians and 2 Chronicles and got on okay, I hope. Hard to be encouraged after wht was a difficult week in some ways.

Funeral Sheena Tresidder

A strange phenomenon of our situation here is that you can walk just over 1200 yards from our Baptist church in Childs Hill, and if headed in the right direction, you will come to quite a different neighbourhood and another church, an Anglican one, St Luke's, Kidderpore Avenue, West Hampstead. In some ways quite different, St Luke's is robustly evangelical. I know the vicar, Alistair Tresidder, to speak to but not more than that. We were very sorry to hear that his wife Sheena had contracted cancer a while ago and even more sad when recenty she died, not yet 60.

There must have been over 400 present to hear Andrew Sach preach and the family bear witness to this woman who loved simply being a mother. With five children of their own they went on to foster four others, some with great difficulties. It was a privilege to be there, as alien as I find some of it, just to hear testimonythat it is still possible even in 21st century Britain to live an evangelical life as a happy mother, trusting in the only Saviour there is. How one feels for the family and the congregation to some ectent too.

Midweek Meeting May 7 2025

Among our church members are Eduardo and Anna Marzia. Eduardo is Brazilian and his wife, Anna Marzia is Italian. We met them when Eduardo came to the seminary. For the past nearly five years they have been living and serving in Brazil under the aegis of UFM. There have been encouragemants but things are not working out quite as well as hoped. Currenty we are thinking about Eduardo becoming a pastor back in this country and there is a real possibility in the offing (not here), It qs good to have them at our prayer meetinglast Wednesday then and to hear from them. Their visit is a fying one adn they will soon be back in Brazil. More here.

Penguin Lessons

Yesterday we went to the cinema to see the charming "The Penguin Lessons". Steve Coogan is the main actor. Jonathan Pryce is also in it. It is based on a 2015 memoir by Tom Michell, a British teacher who taught at a boys' boarding school in Argentina in the 1970s (when he was in his twenties; the fact Coogan is 58 didn't really matter). Michell finds a penguin soaked with oil on a beach in Uruguay and takes it back to the school, where it becomes a popular pet. The message is the usual positive side of humanism, the main character being a bit of a waster with a sad past (fictional addition) who perhaps does some good despite himself. It's a 12a for good reason but is worth watching if you can cope with the periodic swearing. The penguin is brilliant. They mostly used real animals apparently but there was a little jiggery-pokery. (This is at least the third Argentinian-themed film for Welsh actor Jonathan Pryce, who previously played Argentinian president Juan Perón in Evita, as my wife pointed out to me, and also Pope Francis II (who was Argentinian) in The Two Popes.

V E Day 80 Fly past

It was Bank Holiday yesterday so a bit of a day off. We went down to central London and saw the flypast (courtesy of my son the above). We also saw a film in the cinema (more on that later) and watched some TV and I finished reading C S Lewis's Great Divorce, which I started on Saturday.

 

10 Places with a "went" in their name

1. Blaenau Gwent, Monmouthshire (Urban locality)
2. Caerwent, Monmouthshire (Village)
3. Cas-gwent, Monmouthshire (Town) [Welsh name for Chepstow]
4. St Bride's Netherwent, Monmouthshire (Hamlet)
5. St Brides and St Peterstone Wentlooge, Monmouthshire (Village)
6. Trewent, Pembrokeshire (Hamlet)
7. East Trewent, Pembrokeshire (Hamlet)
8. Mynwent y Crynwyr, Glamorgan (Village) [Welsh name for Quakers Yard]
9. Newent, Gloucestershire (Town)
10. Wentnor, Shropshire (Village)

Lord's Day May 4 2025

We made a good start to the new month with a bumper turn out for communion and then the morning service. I carried on in Ephesians and 2 Chronicles. Great passages. With bank holiday coming we had a number of visitors but then at least four or five others were not there for some reason.

Family Pic

 

This is a pic of the family was taken on holiday in North Wales last month

10 Places in Hertfordshire beginning with H

1. Harpenden
2. Hastoe
3. Hatfield
4. Hemel Hempstead
5. Hertford
6. Hexton
7. Hitchin
8. Hockerill
9. Hoddesdon
10. Hunton Bridge