I have heard Chris Mitchell speak on a couple of occasions, and have also had the pleasure of meeting him. He came to our church to do a series of lectures on Tolkien a few years ago. The Wade Center is well worth the trip to Wheaton – especially now that it is housed in its own building. If you go, make arrangements for some 1 on 1 time with Chris Mitchell, if you can. Jerry Root is also still at Wheaton I believe, and keeps office hours. I can’t speak for him obviously, but he might be willing to meet with a visitor who called ahead of time for 15 minutes or half an hour as well – it would be time you wouldn’t regret.

We are in a new church where I have less influence over programs and speakers than I did at our prior church. But I’ll suggest that someone look into bringing John to the area.

I’d love to get to the Wade Center one of these days. For those who don’t know what the Wade Center is, it is a sort of research library for the study of seven Christian writers: C.S. Lewis, JRR Tolkien, Dorothy Sayers, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams, George MacDonald, and GK Chesterton.

The Wade Center director, Christopher Mitchell, will be speaking at the New York C.S. Lewis Society on the second Friday of November on the author Dorothy Sayers.

Karl, maybe you will be able to attend a C.S. Lewis conference in Wake Forest, NC (east of Durham, NC). It’s at a Baptist Seminary there on October 26-27. Featured speakers are Walter Hooper, James Como, and Bruce Edwards. I’ll be there and (I think) so will John. The registration deadline is October 12th and there will be a nice banquet Friday night. The cost is $125 dollars.

PS – Maybe your church would like to bring John down to Virginia to give some talks? I know he’d love to do it. He’s not all that far away to be able to drive there.

I am from Virginia, but I attended college at Wheaton in the early 90′s. So yes, I’ve been to the Wade Center and know some of the people associated with it (past and present). I know some folks at Taylor but have never been there myself.

Our church brought Jerry Root to Virginia to do a weekend series of lectures on C.S. Lewis and discipleship, and it was during that weekend that he shared the tidbit about MacDonald’s connection to My Utmost for His Highest. I have it on CD and have re-listened to it to make sure I had it right. I have googled to see if I could find that story confirmed or repeated anywhere, with no luck. But I’d be surprised if Jerry is wrong. He knows Hein pretty well and while he didn’t say, my guess is the anecdote either came from or at least was confirmed by Hein.

IMournForTonks – - – thanks for your appreciative comments about Betty’s poetry. I forgot to mention that people can go to the Zossima home page and click a PDF file that gives you access to the poems for the whole month of January. It also includes a short introduction by me.

MacDonald’s writing, being a full generation older than Lewis’ and Tolkien’s, isn’t as immediately accessible as the Narnia or LOTR works. But I’ve found it rewarding and worth the effort.

Many people have read MacDonald without realizing it. The devotional book “My Utmost for His Highest” contains many verbatim quotes from MacDonald’s devotional works, such as his “unspoken sermons.” Oswald Chambers copied into his personal diaries many passages of MacDonald’s writings but since they were just his diaries, didn’t stop to footnote or otherwise distinguish between his own thoughts and the places where he was copying MacDonald. When Chambers’ widow later edited and published his devotional writings as “My Utmost for His Highest” she didn’t realize that much of the content was MacDonald, rather than her husband’s original thought – i.e. whe was innocent of any intentional plagiarism, but much (though by no means all, nor even most) of what people have read as “Oswald Chambers” is really George MacDonald. BTW the source for this bit of info is Jerry Root, editor of “The Quotable Lewis”, a colleague of MacDonald scholar Roland Hein at Wheaton College. He shared the above at a lecture I attended.

I agree with your decision not to push Betty Aberlin’s acting career, because the poems do indeed stand on their own. They are very honest and moving. I look forward to reading the entire work. I would still buy it if the poems were written by Betty Schmedley of Hoboken.

In fact, I did the same thing with my wife: I showed her the excerpts without mentioning who Betty was, because I knew that she would relate to them, no matter who was the poet. SO all you readers out here–forget the Mr. Rogers preconceptions! And, sorry for spillin’ the beans.

Hi IMournForTonks. Yes, Betty is “Lady Aberlin” from Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. And has had bit parts in movies such as “Dogma” and “Jersey Girl” – and performed with Steve Martin, Lily Tomlin, Meryl Streep and others. We decided not to advertise her acting career in the book because we want her poems to be appreciated on their merit and not for celebrity status.

Hi Trish. I guess everybody can’t like everything – there are people who don’t like the Potter books. MacDonald has held a fascination for me for 35 years. Like Rowling, there is much more meaning than you find on the surface. As to the brutality of “The Light Princess,” you’re instincts are intact – one should feel horror at the callousness of the Princess and others who are onlookers of the sacrifice of the Prince. Just as we should be horrified at the callousness of those who blithly observe the sacrifice of Christ and are unmoved. Fortunately, the Princess is saved by the realization of what she has done. The realization of her lack of “gravity” brings her back to reality through her tears of remorse.

As a poet, I enjoyed these poems. Betty is a wonderful comtemporary poet.

Kitties don’t rhyme–
all sublime in
themselves, they spin
plots, curtains climb…

By the way, is Betty Aberlin THE Lady Aberlin from Mr. Rogers? I think she is!