Imitating Lewis...

So one of the assignments that we had for our C.S. Lewis class was to write a letter in the style of the Screwtape Letters. If you aren't familiar with them, the Screwtape letters were a series of letters which were published in a newspaper just before WWII, written by Lewis. He was writing as an arcdemon who was instructing his younger and less experienced nephew who had a particular person that he was trying to tempt into the camp of "our Father Below." Obviously then, when he refers to the "Enemy," Lewis is referring to God.
Our assignment was to write a letter in the style of Lewis' Screwtape letters, but about the person being tempted was a Cornerstone student (obviously not anyone in particular).
Here is that assignment!

My dear Wormwood,

It has been 8 years now to the day since you have allowed your charge to join the forces of the enemy, and you still have yet to bring him back to us. In light of that disappointing failure, I have decided to write you and give some suggestions to help further you along toward that end. I hear that he has recently begun his career at a biblical university. You may think that this is a tragedy, but in fact this can be used to our advantage in many ways. You should at all times cause him to dwell upon his laurels, and cause him to be lulled into a spiritual trance and so it will become easy for him to become complacent in his cursed faith. Send him to chapels not infrequently for he will soon become bored with the message and quickly tune it out for “he has heard this a million times before.” A secondary benefit to these chapels is that they have the effect of being a replacement for church services. You should at all times turn his mind on those mornings to the comfort of sleep and the fact that he has already heard three messages this week. In doing so he will quickly form a habit of not communicating with the forces of the Enemy.

A secondary benefit of his attending a Christian university is that it will be easy for you to keep in the front of his mind his superior spirituality as he walks through the campus. Show him at all times the girl who he thinks wears too little, or the boy who swears “frequently.” In doing this you will lull him into a confidence in his own ability to be holy and will be very close to our camp. He may quickly abandon his faith when he sees all of this religious hypocrisy, if you only keep from his mind the very hypocritical nature of his condemnation of hypocrisy. In all things, do not let him read his bible, save for classes where he will learn it to be a textbook for all sorts of criticism. Finally, keep his mind ever thinking of the latest sports event or music show or whatever he loves and slow set it up as the single thing which dominates his attention and you will quickly turn him away from the camp of the Enemy and into a faithful follower of whichever idol you set up.

Your Uncle,

Screwtape.

-Jared

One penny, Two pence...

Well I suppose I'll just go ahead and jump in!

Monday rolled around and we had a breakfast around 9, and then had a class meeting! We discussed the book Surprised by Joy, and spent some time discussing his life before we had a pretty chill lunch and then headed off to High Tea at one of the oldest Inn's in all of Ireland. This particular Inn was a favorite of Lewis' and was where he spent his honeymoon. The atmosphere felt as though we had stepped into a storybook. Fire places, suits of armor, gold and silver dishes, and all sorts of other decorations adorned the walls. Old, thick red carpet with coat-of-arms designs covered the floors. We were given large silver 3-tiered platters covered with all sorts of amazing finger foods, from sandwiches to scones to strange pink puffballs that tasted exactly like large Captain Crunch berries. I've found myself enjoying tea more and more since I've been here and this tea was probably the best I've had. It was absolutely amazing. We then took off through the town and arrived back at the house in time for dinner at 7, despite all of us being rather full. We spent the night hanging out and playing a game called Bohnanza, which I'm not sure I can describe adequately. It's a lot of fun despite the appearance and sound of the game.

Tuesday was an amazing day, completely jam-packed with activity. We began by driving to a place called Saul which had an old church building, and a very old cemetery and round tower. This was the very hill, we found out, where St. Patrick in 432 began the first church in all of Ireland. We met inside of the very small church and had a devotional and sang the doxology. It was a great time had by all. We then drove to a place called Inch Abbey. It is an old ruin of the abbey which was established a long time ago and then destroyed by the Vikings. We spent a little while exploring and of course everyone had to take a million and one pictures.. story of this trip! :) I'm actually grateful for that because I haven't had to take many. But anyways, I climbed about 20 feet into the remains of an old tower... I would have gone higher but wasn't sure if I would want to die so soon in Ireland. Anyways we wrapped that up and headed to the Church which is dedicated to St. Patrick and has the place where he is (supposedly, though not definitely) buried. We were given a (not-so) brief history of the church and spent some time looking around and at the tombstone of Patrick. From there we headed to Dunmore Castle, again another ruin. It was a spectacular place and had a great view. My inner child was jumping for joy, and obviously I climbed the ruins as much as I could. I could practically hear the castle being under siege by the Vikings. It was at Dunmore castle that we were introduced to fish and chips, and had dinner outside by the castle. It was a great meal and I decided that my digestive system is especially suited to this sort of meal since I am of Irish ancestry. Anyways we then took off to the town of Newcastle where we spent a bit of time walking around. This town was set directly between the Mourne Mountains and the Irish sea, and was a beautiful place. We wandered around for a bit before jumping into the van and heading to the Tolleymore forest which was a lot of fun. We explored a bit of the forest and walked along paths which followed a few streams and such. We then jumped in the van and headed back the manor. However, before we made it back we stopped by a place called the Giants Ring where the ancient druids used to hold religious ceremonies, and in the center was an alter where they would do sacrifices. The ring was massive, probably a mile around. It rose about 20 feet above the surface of the center and was dug by hand centuries ago. It was a bit creepy, but interesting to walk around. We then jumped in the van and headed home, safe and sound.

Wednesday we heard the story of Billy, our leader and then saw some of the places he grew up here in Belfast. It was a very unique story, but to make a long story short, he grew up as the son of a head IRA terrorist and was converted to Christianity at the age of 6. He for the next few years prayed for his father who converted to Christianity at the age of about 12. We spent some time walking around the neighborhood he grew up in, and it reminded me of a more militarized version of some areas in Woodlawn. We then walked along the peace wall which separates the Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods. It was a really unique experience. We then hung out and watched a movie called as Mickybo and I, which described the Troubles and was a really great story.

Thursday was mostly a day to ourselves, but we went to a Museum near Queens University and spent about an hour and a half walking around. It was a cool, though. We came back to the manor for lunch and then went downtown Belfast and hung out, did alot of shopping and then went to a place called the Kitchen bar. I again had fish and chips, and they were incredible. There were only 3 of us who went, and so trying to navigate the social restaurant setting was really interesting, and we were often left feeling really ignorant of even really simple things, like tipping the waitress, getting the bill, etc... Side note, if you decide to come to Ireland and go out to eat, it's not customary to tip the waitstaff, free tip ;)

Today we left the Manor at about 10am, and drove up to the North Coast of Ireland. The drive up was one of the most scenic routes I've ever been on; the views were incredible. We made it up through a few towns and finally to the North Coast where we walked a path for roughly a mile and then walked across a rope bridge to a nearby island, checked out the view, took pictures and then went back. It was clear enough that we were able to see Scotland in the distance (about 30 miles away). We then drove up to the Giants Causeway, and again walked a bit over a mile down to the Causeway itself, and then walked out to the edge of the rocks in the Sea. It was incredibly slippery until we discovered that the barnacles on the rocks were incredibly grip-able. We spent some time just messing around on the rocks and then headed back to the van. We next went to visit the ruin of another castle, though the castle itself was closed we explored around the outside and did a bit of climbing up to the walls of this castle which were basically on a cliffs edge. This particular castle was once throwing a banquet when the kitchen fell into the sea, though no one noticed until they went to get the food.. Imagine the surprise... That awkward moment when you have to go tell the king that the kitchen is gone...
Moving along..
We then went to a restaurant where we ate and chilled for roughly two and a half hours. I had another lovely meal of fish and chips, and then had a chocolate fudge cake for dessert. It was phenomenal.

That has been the outline of the extent of our trip thus far! We have about 4 more days before we head back to the G-Rap. This is a fair brief outline of the trip so far and I'll be able to explain a lot more in person!

Thanks for reading, and I'll probably post a final blog the day before we leave.

-Jared

The Luck o' the Irish!

Hey!

So, it's been a while since I've posted and I'm not even sure who all will read this that has read any of my other posts, but anyways, hello again!
If you haven't heard, I'm currently in the beautiful country of my ancestors (or at least some of them): Ireland!

I'm writing this post so as to keep you posted on what's happened over the last week, though this certainly is  not (and could not be) comprehensive. I'll try to give a daily recap here with a few stories if I can keep track of them and perhaps make a few more detailed blog posts, or simply talk to you when I get back to the States!

So we flew out of the Grand Rapids airport on Jan. 5th, and had a layover in Newark. Joyously however, our plane to NJ was delayed in Cleveland and so we had to wait about an additional hour and a half in the GR airport. Now thankfully we had a 6 hour layover in Newark so we were able to make it to NJ with about 4 hours to spare, despite the delay. One of the many joys of sitting and doing nothing for hours on end in a very busy place is that you get to people-watch, the wonderfulness of which is compounded when you're able to people watch with friends. As you would expect in "Joyzee," there were all sorts of characters including a woman wearing a rather large leopard face on a leopard print shirt, an girl in a leopard print footie pajama and endless other (nearly absurd) characters. Anyways, we finally boarded the flight to Dublin and took off. The plane was smaller than I was expecting (757 I believe) and actually had slightly more space than I anticipated. The flight was pretty uneventful overall and we landed in Dublin about 6 hours later, at what was roughly 7:30 local time (5 hours ahead of EST.) We then met up with Billy and Mindy Stevenson (our hosts/guides) who took us to a bus stop where we caught a bus to Belfast and then shuttled to the Manor where we have stayed ever since -- the picture above shows the back side. The rest of that day is a bit hazy due to the jetlag, though I know I took a walk for a bit in a nearby neighborhood, took a 3 hour nap. We had dinner which was (and has been,) amazing. After an early bed and a late wake up (10:15am) we got brunch and then headed downtown Belfast and got a walking tour led by Billy. We stopped initially at a local coffee shop called Clements and then walked through the campus of Queens University which was directly across the street. We were able to go to their library which has a C.S. Lewis reading room with several rather cool pieces of his furniture as well as the door to the Wardrobe in the recent movie.

I should pause here to explain that I'm taking a course in the writings of C.S. Lewis and so much of what we do in some way or other relates to him. He grew up in this area of Ireland and so we're seeing much of his homeland in addition to reading mere Christianity, Surprised by Joy, the Screwtape letters, a Grief Observed and the Great Divorce, all written by Lewis.

Anyways we continued on to downtown Belfast and got a tour of the area. We walked by City Hall, the Europa Hotel (the most bombed hotel in Europe), Victoria Square (a very large shopping district) as well as other very interesting, though less important streets. We visited a cathedral where we spent a bit of time looking around and praying. Directly across from this Cathedral happened to be the occupy Belfast movement which I thought was rather funny since I'd been saying that I was going to "#occupyBelfast" for about a month before we came. Sadly, I was beaten to the punch. We then headed up to Belfast Castle, which was built in the 1900's, and is one of the newest castles in Europe. We then returned to the manor for another great meal, after which  our classes met for a short period of time.

Sunday then rolled around and we all, still fairly jetlagged, attended a local Anglican church which Lewis and his family attended for many years. The service was interesting and far more liturgical and ceremonial than I've experience before. After the service a gentleman from the church talked to us for about 25 minutes about the history of the church and the involvement of C.S. Lewis and his family, specifically his grandfather who was the minister at that particular church. Across the parking lot happened to be the red door with the lions head handle which was part of Lewis' idea of Aslan in the Narnia series.

To be continued...