Will Vaus

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" 2 Corinthians 5:17 "God became man to turn creatures into sons: not simply to produce better men of the old kind but to produce a new kind of man. It is not like teaching a horse to jump better and better but like turning a horse into a winged creature." C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity , Book IV, chapter 10, paragraph 16. To hear the original recording of C. S. Lewis's BBC radio talk on "The New Men" click here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/people/cslewis_16.shtml . May you live out a happy new you in a happy new year!

"In the Christian story God descends to re-ascend. He comes down; down from the heights of absolute being into time and space, down into humanity; down further still, if embryologists are right, to recapitulate in the womb ancient and pre-human phases of life; down to the very roots and sea-bed of the Nature he has created. But He goes down to come up again and bring the whole ruined world up with Him. One has the picture of a strong man stooping lower and lower to get himself underneath some great complicated burden. He must stoop in order to lift, he must almost disappear under the load before he incredibly straightens his back and marches off with the whole mass swaying on his shoulders. Or one may think of a diver, first reducing himself to nakedness, then glancing in mid-air, then gone with a splash, vanished, rushing down through green and warm water into black and cold water, down through increasing pressure into the death-like region of ooze and slime and old decay;

During World War II people got most of their news about the war over the radio, or what was then called by some people like C. S. Lewis--the wireless. Lewis used this expression in his BBC Radio Talks during the war. He said that one reason we go to church is to listen in to the secret wireless from our friends. By that expression he meant that in church we receive messages from the spiritual realm. Of course today the term "wireless" has meanings that C. S. Lewis never could have imagined. But I have thought back to C. S. Lewis and those BBC Talks in recent days as I have been interviewed numerous times over "the wireless" about my new book-- The Professor of Narnia: The C. S. Lewis Story. To listen to just one of these interviews you may click here: http://willvaus.com/the_professor_of_narnia and visit my web site. When you get to that page just press the play button on the right hand side and listen away!

I had a good interview today (Monday, December 8) with John Fleming on The Corner, a Talk of Connecticut radio program. As mentioned in my last post I have another interview tonight at 7 pm EST on the Laurie Roth Show. And now I have two more interviews scheduled to talk about The Professor of Narnia. Roger Fredinburg will be interviewing me tonight at 10 pm EST on his show Neighborhood 21. You can learn more about him at www.regularguy.com . His program is broadcast over the Accent Radio Network. Then tomorrow morning (December 9) at 10 am EST I will be interviewed by Michael Harrington on Salem Radio Network. To learn more about Michael click here: http://townhall.com/TalkRadio/Show.aspx?ContentGuid=dfed5c1f-802a-4b87-9516-b56f6da376ef&RadioShowId=49 . I hope you can listen in to at least one of these interviews about The Professor of Narnia: The C. S. Lewis Story.

There seem to be at least three major stages in the life of a book: Conception and early growth (also known as writing). Birth and launching into the world (also known as publishing). The parent (author) of the book talking about his/her child ever after (also known as book promotion)! Right now I am in stage three with The Professor of Narnia . I had another wonderful signing yesterday at a Barnes & Noble in Fairfax, VA. I always get to meet such interesting people at book signings. Yesterday I met a leader of the Campus Crusade movement at George Mason University. (I hope we can link together for some joint ventures in the future.) I also met a lovely lady named Sandy, a friend of my publisher, and we found that we had a number of mutual friends in common. Along with these two enjoyable people there were a number of others who stopped by to listen to my dialogue with my publisher, Dianne Haskett, about the book, ask questions and get their copies of the book signed.

I took Becky and the boys to see The Narnia Exhibition which opened at The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia on Friday, November 28. Thanks to Chris Mitchell and Rachel Mink of the Wade Center at Wheaton College for obtaining complimentary tickets for our whole family! The first room of the exhibit is designed to resemble C. S. Lewis's study and contains, among other items, Warnie Lewis's actual wardrobe on loan from Westmont College. From there one enters the wardrobe room, a replica of the one in the Walt Disney/Walden Media movie version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe . One of my son Joshua's favorite parts of the whole exhibit was stepping through the wardrobe, touching real fur coats along the way, and then entering Narnia with snow falling on his head. What could be a better memory-maker for a nine year old?! Another one of Joshua's favorite parts of the exhibit was getting to bend down and crawl into a facsimile of Trufflehunter's tree house