“I still have my copies of the Chronicles of Narnia somewhere.”
Ahh, “The Chronicles...”; I need to re-read them all to combat the calcifying effects of middle age.
Lewis’ space trilogy (Perelandra, Out of a Silent Planet, That Hideous Strength) is worth an intentional read; being a sort of an Lewis’ own rendering of Creation, Fall, and Apocalypse.
I highly recommend his wartime radio broadcasts wherein he accepted the invitation of the BBC to explain “mere Christianity” to a beleaguered British people; these having been brought together in the book bearing that title.
And among the works of Lewis’ other close friends — “The Inklings” as they came to be called — Dorothy L. Sayers’ “Letters to a Diminished Church” is highly recommended. At the very least, the reader’s inner grammarian will revel in Sayers’ masterful command of the English language, but she delivers immeasurably more.
“Somehow or other, and with the best intentions, we have shown the world the typical Christian in the likeness of a crashing and rather ill-natured bore — and this in the Name of One who assuredly never bored a soul in those thirty-three years during which He passed through this world like a flame. Let us, in Heaven’s name, drag out the Divine Drama from under the dreadful accumulation of slipshod thinking and trashy sentiment heaped upon it, and set it on an open stage to startle the world into some sort of vigorous reaction.”
This seems a tall order, but Sayers expends the balance of her work keeping that target under continual barrage with an unrelenting bombardment of theological and philosophical munitions laced throughout with such wit and humor as to achieve the end without becoming oppressive or suffocating.
Curious, Commander Dflupmort. It seemed to be a collection of writings from a few millennia ago. There was, apparently, a pre-civilized species on this planet. Many of the writings described the end of their world. They had many visions of how it would come to be. Some credited a supernatural being. Some thought creatures like us, from another world, would bring it about. They still had deadly diseases, and some thought a super virus would destroy their kind. Some believed in other dimensions with creatures living parallel lives who would come and end their world.
And what have we discovered about how this race was destroyed?
As far as we can tell, they had developed a highly advanced entertainment network that drew everyone into an enhanced state of idleness. Ironically, they didn't go out fighting the great scourge of their time. They went out too lazy to even get off the couch and make a sammich.