The rain had been falling against the windows of The Kilns for most of the evening.Inside, the fire had burned down to a red glow. Books covered the table. Some were open. Others had scraps of paper marking particular pages. C.S. Lewis sat at one end with his pipe resting beside him. Michael Ward had several pages of notes. Alister McGrath had brought a … [Read more...] about What Happened to Susan in Narnia? Why C.S. Lewis Left Her Behind
Grief
The Sun Also Rises Centennial Stories: 5 Modern Lives
Introduction The Sun Also Rises Today: Five Stories About the Life That RemainsA century after The Sun Also Rises, the world looks almost nothing like Hemingway’s. We carry entire libraries in our pockets. We can work from another continent, choose from thousands of potential partners, reinvent careers, cross oceans overnight, and remain connected almost … [Read more...] about The Sun Also Rises Centennial Stories: 5 Modern Lives
When Love Outlives Death: Grief, Consciousness & Connection
Introduction What happens to love when someone dies?The body is gone. The chair is empty. The phone no longer rings with that person's name. Yet something strange remains.We still speak to them in our thoughts. We repeat their sayings. We make their recipes. We hear their voice in our memory. Sometimes we dream about them with such clarity that waking feels … [Read more...] about When Love Outlives Death: Grief, Consciousness & Connection
War and Peace Lessons for Modern Life: 5 Short Stories
Introduction What happens when life refuses to become the story we expected?In Parts 1 and 2 of this War and Peace trilogy, Tolstoy's characters and later Tolstoy himself with literary scholars explored a similar question from different directions. Plans collapse. History exceeds individual control. Love can contain devotion and injury at the same time. … [Read more...] about War and Peace Lessons for Modern Life: 5 Short Stories
War and Peace: An Imaginary Conversation on Life
Introduction What if the life we keep trying to reach is making us overlook the people already beside us?In Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, ambition, love, faith, and family unfold within events no individual can fully control. People pursue recognition, belonging, certainty, and happiness. Then life interrupts. A battle changes the meaning of glory. A … [Read more...] about War and Peace: An Imaginary Conversation on Life
Guided by Laura Lynne Jackson: 5 Modern Stories About Signs, Love & Purpose
Introduction What if guidance is not mainly about receiving signs?What if its deeper purpose is to change how we live?Inspired by Laura Lynne Jackson's Guided: The Secret Path to an Illuminated Life, these five modern short stories explore what spiritual guidance might look like when it enters ordinary life.A mother feels an unexplained urge to reach out to … [Read more...] about Guided by Laura Lynne Jackson: 5 Modern Stories About Signs, Love & Purpose
Love As If You’ve Never Been Hurt: 25 Book Club Questions
Introduction What can a poem actually do when something in life cannot be fixed?That question lies at the center of this second exploration of Love As If You've Never Been Hurt, the anthology edited by Korean poet Ryu Si-hwa.In Part 1, we approached the collection through an imagined conversation about wounds, healing, love, mortality, and the challenge of … [Read more...] about Love As If You’ve Never Been Hurt: 25 Book Club Questions
Love As If You’ve Never Been Hurt: 5 Modern Stories
Introduction What If Healing Is Not About Getting Over the Hurt, but Returning to Life?What does it really mean to love as if you've never been hurt?Surely it cannot mean forgetting.A person who has been betrayed cannot simply erase betrayal.A grieving mother cannot pretend her child never died.A craftsman cannot restore the fingers he lost.A father cannot … [Read more...] about Love As If You’ve Never Been Hurt: 5 Modern Stories
The Correspondent Inspired Stories: 5 Emotional Tales
Introduction What if the most important words in your life are the ones you keep assuming you can say later?Virginia Evans's The Correspondent is built around letters, but its deeper subject is human connection.Its characters reveal something easy to miss in ordinary life: we do not know ourselves entirely from the inside. Other people remember versions of … [Read more...] about The Correspondent Inspired Stories: 5 Emotional Tales
The Correspondent Book Club Questions: Sybil & Psychology
Introduction What if the story you tell about yourself is true, but incomplete?In Part 1 of our exploration of Virginia Evans's The Correspondent, Sybil Van Antwerp confronted the people who know different versions of her. Fiona remembers the mother shaped by grief. Rosalie remembers an earlier Sybil. Harry discovers vulnerability beneath her fierce … [Read more...] about The Correspondent Book Club Questions: Sybil & Psychology