Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, come on your Story Hours on.
Speaker 2: Welcome to your Story Hour.
Speaker 3: I'm Aunt Niki and I'm Uncle John, and we're here
Speaker 3: to bring you today's inspiring story. Hello everyone, We're.
Speaker 4: So glad to be with you today. Uncle John, what
Speaker 4: can you tell us about today's story?
Speaker 3: Well, it's about C. S. Lewis, And if you're not
Speaker 3: familiar with that name, nearly everyone has heard of some
Speaker 3: of his writings like the Chronicles of Narnia.
Speaker 4: Oh yes, stories like The Lion, the Witch and the
Speaker 4: Wardrobe Nobody can forget, Reap a cheap the Brave Mouse,
Speaker 4: or Aslaan, the Noble Lion King.
Speaker 3: Aunt Niki, did you know that for a long time. C. S.
Speaker 3: Lewis didn't even believe in God?
Speaker 4: Really?
Speaker 3: And that's what our story is all about. But before
Speaker 3: we get started, I want you to know that even
Speaker 3: though the CS part of his name stands for Clive Staples,
Speaker 3: everyone called him Jack, a name he gave himself when
Speaker 3: he was just four years old. So Jack is the
Speaker 3: name we'll use in this story. We call C. S.
Speaker 3: Lewis's Journey to Jesus.
Speaker 5: Jack Lewis grew up in Belfast, Ireland in a house
Speaker 5: overlooking the hills and the sea. In those days, the
Speaker 5: shipyards of Belfast built enormous ships like the Oceanic and Titanic,
Speaker 5: and Jack and his big brother Warny could look out
Speaker 5: and watch them taking shape. Jack's father was a lawyer
Speaker 5: and his mother was a mathematician. Their house was full
Speaker 5: of books, and the brothers loved the Irish folk tales.
Speaker 5: Their nurse Lizzie told them, one of which got them
Speaker 5: in trouble. One day it stopped raining.
Speaker 6: Oh look at the ramo, Jack, it's so close. Whoa,
Speaker 6: come on morning, Let's go outside. I don't see the rainbow.
Speaker 1: Anymore, but it was here, just over the garden. Remember
Speaker 1: what Nurse Lizzy said about the pot of gold at
Speaker 1: the end of the rainbow.
Speaker 6: Uh huh.
Speaker 1: That means it's right here. We gotta dig and find it.
Speaker 7: Jack.
Speaker 6: But if we make a hole, Papa will be mad.
Speaker 6: Not when we find the gold, go get a shovel.
Speaker 5: The boys dug, and they dug, and they dug until.
Speaker 1: Warney Jacksie time to wash up for dinner, coming mama.
Speaker 4: Boys, you're filthy. Get out of those grubby clothes and wash.
Speaker 6: Up, yes, mama.
Speaker 5: Once they had washed all the mud from under their fingernails.
Speaker 5: Jack and Warny sat down for dinner. Moments later, they
Speaker 5: heard their father's angry shouts.
Speaker 8: Boys, what's wrong, dear is rascals dug a trap and
Speaker 8: caught me. Good look, I'm covered in mud and I
Speaker 8: nearly broke my briefcase.
Speaker 6: It wasn't a trap, Papa. You were digging for gold.
Speaker 6: What you know, Papa, the pot of gold at the
Speaker 6: end of the rainbow.
Speaker 8: What kind of a fool do you think I am
Speaker 8: to believe in such fairy tales?
Speaker 6: But it's true, Papa, Lizzie told.
Speaker 9: Us, boy is that's just a fairy tale. There's no
Speaker 9: gold in our garden.
Speaker 5: Jack and warning were punished for digging the hole, but
Speaker 5: it didn't keep them from escaping to the world of
Speaker 5: make believe. The brothers spent many happy hours in their
Speaker 5: playroom in the attic, creating fantastical worlds populated by trains
Speaker 5: and ships and talking animals. When their cousins came to visit,
Speaker 5: Jack enthralled them with tales of far away kingdoms, epic battles,
Speaker 5: and rabbits dressed in shining armor.
Speaker 1: Jack he didn't finish the story last time about the
Speaker 1: cat and the castle.
Speaker 6: Oh, do tell us more? Did the rabbits win the battle? Here?
Speaker 1: I'm into the wardrobe and I'll tell you what happened.
Speaker 1: Your mother's first coat feels so socked.
Speaker 6: Is it really your coat? Or is it the back
Speaker 6: of a really hungry cat.
Speaker 5: When he wasn't entertaining his cousins, Jack loved to look
Speaker 5: out the window at the distant castle Great Hills.
Speaker 6: Mornie, how far away are those hills? I don't know,
Speaker 6: maybe twenty miles.
Speaker 1: They're so pretty right before sunset, Yeah, green and alive,
Speaker 1: like I could just reach out and touch them.
Speaker 6: But it would take one hundred years to walk that far.
Speaker 5: When Mornie went off to boarding school in England, Jack
Speaker 5: was all alone in their big attic playroom, and then
Speaker 5: one day his father shared some very sad news.
Speaker 3: Jack.
Speaker 9: Your mother has a tumor. She's going to need an operation.
Speaker 5: Sadly, the surgery wasn't able to save Jack's mother. She
Speaker 5: died when he was just nine years old.
Speaker 9: Jack, we'll that your mother's gone.
Speaker 8: I'm going to have you join Warney at boarding school
Speaker 8: in England.
Speaker 5: Jack, devastated by the loss of his mother, did not
Speaker 5: enjoy the boarding school. Students were frequently mistreated by the
Speaker 5: cruel schoolmaster, and before long the school closed. Warney transferred
Speaker 5: to Malvern, another boarding school in England, while Jack returned
Speaker 5: to Ireland to attend a school close to home. When
Speaker 5: he wasn't doing school work, Jack spent his time writing
Speaker 5: stories and drawing pictures of the made up kingdoms he
Speaker 5: and Warney had imagined as boys. He missed his brother,
Speaker 5: and when Warney came home for the holidays, they'd leafed
Speaker 5: through magazines while Warny regaled Jack with tales of his
Speaker 5: new boarding school.
Speaker 7: It's not all books, Jack, We play games every day, really, yes,
Speaker 7: And the kids who are good at sports are popular. Well.
Speaker 6: I can't stand a cricket about for anything.
Speaker 9: Ah, don't worry.
Speaker 7: Just be a good sport and you'll have fun.
Speaker 1: Fun sports sound about as much fun as a neighborhood dance.
Speaker 10: Tonight.
Speaker 7: Hello boys, father, Look at this Rover motorbike.
Speaker 9: It's got a five hundred cc. You don't need a motorbike, Warny.
Speaker 9: I've lived fifty years without.
Speaker 7: Lived forty five years without a telephone too, and now
Speaker 7: you have one.
Speaker 8: Well, you're not buying a motorbike with my money.
Speaker 6: Tell me more about school.
Speaker 3: Warny.
Speaker 5: When he was fourteen, Jack started attending school at Malvern.
Speaker 5: The Warning had already moved on and was studying for
Speaker 5: college entrance exams with William Kirkpatrick, their father's old school headmaster.
Speaker 5: Jack still looked forward to the new school. However, once
Speaker 5: he arrived, he discovered that life at Malvern was not
Speaker 5: as glorious as he expected. Older students bullied the younger boys,
Speaker 5: treating them like servants.
Speaker 11: Louis, my shoes need polish in the school laundry can
Speaker 11: take care of them for this, my man, you want
Speaker 11: me to wait an entire day before my shoes get shined?
Speaker 2: What you think you're too good to help a man out?
Speaker 7: I have a Greek exam.
Speaker 10: I know you knew here and you can't help that.
Speaker 10: You're Irish, but you have to respect your betters if
Speaker 10: you want to last long here.
Speaker 7: Well, truth is, I'd really much rather be going in, Lewis.
Speaker 2: You've got a lot to learn now here. You go.
Speaker 10: My shoes the muddy from playing rugby, but I'd better
Speaker 10: be able to see my reflection when you're done with them.
Speaker 7: Yes, sir, that's the spirit, Lewis.
Speaker 2: You're gonna do just fine.
Speaker 5: Despite the upper classmen's words, Jack did not do fine.
Speaker 5: Constant bullying made him wish he weren't studying at Malvern.
Speaker 5: The only place Jack could escape harassment was the campus library.
Speaker 12: Jack, you done with that paper for Professor Smoogie?
Speaker 3: I just finished.
Speaker 12: Well done, my man. You know I really enjoy Smoogie.
Speaker 12: I didn't think I would.
Speaker 7: At first.
Speaker 13: I thought, who actually enjoys reading Latin or Milton?
Speaker 12: But he really respects you.
Speaker 7: You know, too bad more of his students don't follow
Speaker 7: his example.
Speaker 12: If only, Hey, Jack, you ever think the meanest boys.
Speaker 13: Are the ones who got picked on the most when
Speaker 13: they were underclassmen.
Speaker 7: That's how the world works, isn't it. Everybody's stepping on
Speaker 7: somebody else to get to the top, and so it
Speaker 7: goes on and on and on for eons. You'd think
Speaker 7: God would have designed a better world than that. If
Speaker 7: there even is a God, the world is just so cruel.
Speaker 5: When Jack was home on Easter break, he became friends
Speaker 5: with his neighbor Arthur. They disagreed on the point of religion.
Speaker 5: Arthur was a devout Christian and Jack had given up
Speaker 5: on God. But the friends shared a love of music, literature,
Speaker 5: and Norse myths. Jack enjoyed their lively conversations and begged
Speaker 5: his father not to send him back to Malvern.
Speaker 7: Well, Jack, Kirkpatrick prepared warny here for the Royal Military College.
Speaker 7: I suppose I could send you to study with him instead?
Speaker 7: Could you really?
Speaker 9: Perhaps it would be for the best.
Speaker 7: I'll say, Jack always thinks he's the smartest person in
Speaker 7: the room. I think, Oh kirk would knock some sense
Speaker 7: into him.
Speaker 2: In my day, we didn't call him the Great Knock
Speaker 2: for nothing.
Speaker 5: When he was fifteen, Jack traveled by train to Great Bookham,
Speaker 5: outside London to live with Kirkpatrick and his wife while
Speaker 5: he prepared for his college entrance exams. Kirkpatrick met him
Speaker 5: at the station.
Speaker 7: Well, I've arrived. Now I just need to find the
Speaker 7: Great Knock. Oh I think I see him?
Speaker 9: Why Lewis?
Speaker 7: Yes? But people call me Jack?
Speaker 9: Good day, sir? Is it is it?
Speaker 13: What?
Speaker 9: On what basis do you pronounce today?
Speaker 2: Good?
Speaker 3: I will?
Speaker 7: Nothing bad has happened so far.
Speaker 9: So come on we can discuss as we walk.
Speaker 14: You say, nothing bad has happened, Clive, But as we speak,
Speaker 14: nation after nation is going to war.
Speaker 7: Turkey has just declared war on Belgium.
Speaker 3: Now what business does Turkey have with Belgium?
Speaker 7: I don't know.
Speaker 9: And Great Britain has been at war nearly a month now.
Speaker 14: No doubt your brother will be called up for military
Speaker 14: service soon.
Speaker 3: Will that be a good day?
Speaker 11: No?
Speaker 7: But I suppose it's a matter of how things turn out.
Speaker 7: All's well, that ends well.
Speaker 14: If that's the case, we're surely getting ahead of ourselves,
Speaker 14: aren't we.
Speaker 3: Well we've arrived at home.
Speaker 5: Kirkpatrick began tutoring Jack right away and insisted on using
Speaker 5: his given name Clive.
Speaker 3: Will begin by reading the Iliad by Homer in the
Speaker 3: original no Ionic Greek.
Speaker 5: Jack listened in astonishment as Kirkpatrick read the first hundred
Speaker 5: lines of the ancient poem. Then Kirkpatrick assigned him to
Speaker 5: study the vocabulary on his own. Each day, they worked
Speaker 5: a little bit further through the poem, and Jack understood
Speaker 5: more and more. Once he had a good understanding of
Speaker 5: ancient Greek, they added Latin texts, then French, and German
Speaker 5: and Italian. Jack studied in the morning, had afternoons free
Speaker 5: to explore the countryside and hit the books again every evening.
Speaker 5: Kirkpatrick was an exacting instructor, and Jack animatedly shared his
Speaker 5: impressions of the man with his friend Arthur when he
Speaker 5: was home on break.
Speaker 10: So Kirk won't let you say a single word without
Speaker 10: dissecting like a peach.
Speaker 7: Yes, if I say those brutal charmans, he'll shout ward.
Speaker 9: A brutism animal?
Speaker 2: What animal was?
Speaker 6: Ever?
Speaker 7: So cruel and heartless as a single human being.
Speaker 2: That's one way to look at things.
Speaker 7: Oh, he does make me think, and not just me.
Speaker 2: He treats other people like that.
Speaker 12: Oh.
Speaker 7: Yes, you should have seen when his wife's friends came
Speaker 7: over to playbridge. There he is surrounded by old women
Speaker 7: saying what do you mean by that?
Speaker 2: What a way to view the world.
Speaker 7: The thing is, Kirk only believes in what he can
Speaker 7: see in touch. That's why he doesn't believe in God.
Speaker 7: God can't be seen. But Arthur, don't you think there
Speaker 7: must be more to the world than what meets the eye?
Speaker 7: What do you mean take literature? Is it beauty any
Speaker 7: less real than the ground we stand on? Aren't there
Speaker 7: things we can only feel with our.
Speaker 2: Heart, like peace and joy?
Speaker 12: Yes?
Speaker 7: Exactly. The pity is everything that makes life worth living
Speaker 7: is invisible, and what I can reach out in touch
Speaker 7: is meaningless.
Speaker 10: You sound like the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible.
Speaker 4: Boys and Girls will be right back to the story.
Speaker 4: But first I was just thinking about something.
Speaker 3: Oh, and what were you thinking about, Aunt Nikki.
Speaker 4: About the name of this story. C. S. Lewis's journey
Speaker 4: to Jesus, and about how we're all on our own
Speaker 4: journey to Jesus.
Speaker 3: Then I imagine you must also be thinking about your
Speaker 3: story hours Bible Lessons at Ventures in the Holy Bible,
Speaker 3: right you are, Uncle John, Boys and girls, we're so
Speaker 3: happy that we can share these Bible lessons with you.
Speaker 3: I personally think they're both fun and interesting, and to
Speaker 3: top it off, they're free.
Speaker 4: One of my favorite things about the lessons is that
Speaker 4: as you go through them, you'll get free audio stories
Speaker 4: about the life of Jesus. By the time you finished
Speaker 4: all fifty two lessons, you'll have our entire series from
Speaker 4: Jesus's birth through his resurrection.
Speaker 3: It's fun to listen and imagine you're right there in
Speaker 3: the Bible times, walking beside Jesus as he heals the
Speaker 3: lepers and blind men, feeds five thousand people, walks on
Speaker 3: the water, and shares God's love with everyone.
Speaker 4: So what are you waiting for? You can do the
Speaker 4: lessons online at our website, your story hour dot Org.
Speaker 4: Just click on Kid's corner in the menu, or you
Speaker 4: can sign up to do the lessons by mail.
Speaker 3: However you choose to enjoy the lessons, Aunt Nikki and
Speaker 3: I pray that they help you on your journey to Jesus.
Speaker 4: Speaking of which, it's time to get back to today's
Speaker 4: story called see Us Lewis's Journey to Jesus.
Speaker 5: Jack returned to England to complete his studies with Kirkpatrick
Speaker 5: while his big brother Warny served as an army officer
Speaker 5: in France in the First World War. In the spring
Speaker 5: of nineteen seventeen, Jack followed in his brother's footsteps and
Speaker 5: enlisted in the military as well. After military training at Oxford,
Speaker 5: Jack joined his battalion as they prepared for deployment.
Speaker 9: Company Jez mess love that AH won't die down?
Speaker 7: Tired yet or I think I'm ready for a change
Speaker 7: of pace.
Speaker 9: Feels like we've been pacing all day long. My name's Johnson,
Speaker 9: Lawrence Johnson.
Speaker 7: Lewis, Well, that's my surname. I go by Jack.
Speaker 9: Go to meet you, Jack, You Irish?
Speaker 7: Oh what gaveaway? Let me guess you're from London Town, Yes, sir,
Speaker 7: right in Shakespeare's shadow.
Speaker 9: Now, I guess I Shakes was from Stratford.
Speaker 3: Eh.
Speaker 7: Well, after today's two hour lecture on how to read
Speaker 7: a map, I'm so cross eyed that I'm not sure
Speaker 7: which end of the map is up.
Speaker 9: Well, Jack, I'm famished. Let's see what they've cooked up tonight.
Speaker 7: Sounds good, John's son, I'm not sure what this is.
Speaker 6: On my plate.
Speaker 9: Probably best not to ask.
Speaker 7: I you going to Oxford too?
Speaker 9: Just as soon as this little war was over.
Speaker 7: I did my officers training there in the spring and
Speaker 7: it was magnificent, Even though it's currently just a pale
Speaker 7: reflection of itself with so many students off to war.
Speaker 7: I feel so alive there the library, oh and the bookshops.
Speaker 9: What let down to be shipping out to have a
Speaker 9: taste of Oxford and then off to war.
Speaker 7: But at least the army is not like boarding school,
Speaker 7: with everybody telling you how much you'll enjoy it, when
Speaker 7: in reality it's terrible.
Speaker 9: True, no one says wars any fun.
Speaker 5: When they weren't training for war. Jack and Lawrence Johnson
Speaker 5: spent hours talking about philosophy and literature.
Speaker 7: Compared to you, Lawrence I feel ignorant about modern authors
Speaker 7: like Brooke and Bottomley and Macefield.
Speaker 9: Sure, but Jack, I can never read the original Iliad
Speaker 9: or Odyssey like you do. It's truly all great to me.
Speaker 7: There's so much for both of us to read. As
Speaker 7: they say, of making many books, there is no end.
Speaker 9: Ah, But that quote starts much study is wearisome to
Speaker 9: the flesh. And that's from the Bible. Jack.
Speaker 7: I don't believe in the Bible, Johnson, But that doesn't
Speaker 7: mean I don't know it. Doubter's often no religion better
Speaker 7: than most believers.
Speaker 9: Ah, you might be right about that, my friend. What
Speaker 9: do you think about religion? Well, the weight of evidence
Speaker 9: points to their being a god.
Speaker 7: Yet there are ten thousand men falling every day in
Speaker 7: our armies and just as many on the other side.
Speaker 9: All while God looks the other way. The world reaps
Speaker 9: the consequences of its choices.
Speaker 3: Jack.
Speaker 9: If you jump off a cliff and die, is your
Speaker 9: death God's fault for not sending a wind to whisk
Speaker 9: you to safety.
Speaker 7: Isn't that what God did for Jonah with the whale?
Speaker 9: It certainly points to God's goodness.
Speaker 5: Deep discussions with his new friend helped the evenings pass
Speaker 5: by quickly, and after several weeks of training, their battalions
Speaker 5: set sail for France on twenty ninth, nineteen seventeen, which
Speaker 5: happened to be his nineteenth birthday. Jack, now second Lieutenant Lewis,
Speaker 5: arrived at the front lines. Soldiers were camped out in
Speaker 5: trenches that ran for miles and miles.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the war, gentlemen.
Speaker 3: Don't worry.
Speaker 11: You'll soon learn the difference between their bullets and owls.
Speaker 3: Ah.
Speaker 9: I'll look for the German lettering on them.
Speaker 7: At least the trenches look nice and cozy with snowfallen
Speaker 7: and winter coming on.
Speaker 8: I just remember the dust every two weeks if you
Speaker 8: want to keep your trench feeling like home.
Speaker 3: It's a little hard.
Speaker 7: To dust all the mud, though, good thing I packed
Speaker 7: a handkerchief.
Speaker 9: Wait to plan ahead, Jack, Gentlemen, what we lack here
Speaker 9: in comforts we make up for in fine conversation and fellowship.
Speaker 2: Take good care of your boots.
Speaker 7: You'll find no truer friend here than the two boots
Speaker 7: on your feet.
Speaker 5: Jack soon became used to the rhythm of life in
Speaker 5: the trenches. Limited space, unpredictable sleep, constant noise, endless marches
Speaker 5: and the ever present threat of death. Every day brought
Speaker 5: new challenges, and not.
Speaker 14: God today is to reinforce the is cranking.
Speaker 8: You asked the Germans to knock it off for a bit,
Speaker 8: so we don't have to do it all over again tomorrow.
Speaker 14: I'll tell a Graham, the ruler, the Kaiser, and I'll
Speaker 14: let him know his response.
Speaker 9: Thanks Sergeant.
Speaker 5: By the time Christmas arrived, Jack was very lonesome for home.
Speaker 9: Marry Christmas, Jack, and to you, Lawrence, how you doing well?
Speaker 7: He was just thinking about home and my brother Warney.
Speaker 7: We're both here in France, but he's a supply officer,
Speaker 7: not posted here on the front lines. So who knows
Speaker 7: when I'll see him again?
Speaker 9: Ah, so near and yet so far. Indeed, here's something
Speaker 9: that might cheer you up. Where it is. They're putting
Speaker 9: on a Christmas concert for us soon. Here I put
Speaker 9: your gift.
Speaker 7: Oh Lawrence, a new book. And it doesn't look like
Speaker 7: twelve other men have already read it either. Thank you.
Speaker 9: You said you never felt more at home than with
Speaker 9: a new book, So welcome home. My friend.
Speaker 5: Reading the new book lifted his spirits, But soon afterward
Speaker 5: Jack became ill with a fever. After spending several weeks
Speaker 5: at a Red Cross hospital, he returned to the confusion
Speaker 5: and exhaustion of war.
Speaker 9: A word, yes, sir, you will wait, Lewis, We're marching here.
Speaker 7: Chid Son. Of course I'm awake. How could I fall
Speaker 7: asleep in this downboard.
Speaker 9: I've never seen someone march with their eyes shut before.
Speaker 7: If I close my eyes, I won't know that my
Speaker 7: toes have turned into icicles.
Speaker 9: That's not how it works.
Speaker 7: It's all right. Next bomb that goes off, I can
Speaker 7: warm myself up.
Speaker 5: As the winter of nineteen eighteen ended, the German army
Speaker 5: made one last push to defeat the British and their allies.
Speaker 14: Had It's the first day of spring, which means the
Speaker 14: Germans have launched a new offension. They aim a push
Speaker 14: through our lines and cats have Paris nalla allah. Watchmen.
Speaker 14: However long it takes, we will break the German army.
Speaker 5: The Battle of Eras saw some of the fiercest fighting
Speaker 5: of the war. On April fifteenth, nineteen eighteen, Jack and
Speaker 5: his fellow soldiers prepared to attack.
Speaker 14: Today's the day We're going to advance on the Germans.
Speaker 14: Our big guns will fire over you to clear away.
Speaker 6: Let's for.
Speaker 5: As Jack and his fellow soldiers advanced exploding shells fired
Speaker 5: by their own army fell short of the enemy lines.
Speaker 14: Look new tunny the shells they're hitting or old men
Speaker 14: take them?
Speaker 5: An explosion through Jack to the ground, his body taking
Speaker 5: numerous hits.
Speaker 7: So this is death.
Speaker 5: The world faded to black, and Jack was unconscious when
Speaker 5: his body was lifted off the battlefield and carried away
Speaker 5: on a stretcher.
Speaker 12: Good morning, soldier, nurse.
Speaker 7: Where am I?
Speaker 15: You're in a hospital. How do you feel?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 7: Uncomfortable, I imagine.
Speaker 15: So the important thing is that you're still with us here.
Speaker 15: Let me help you sit up.
Speaker 7: Thanks, ma'am, you're very welcome. I have to ask my men,
Speaker 7: Sergeant Ayre's Lawrence Johnson.
Speaker 15: Now, don't you spend any energy worrying about them. Just
Speaker 15: rest and get yourself better.
Speaker 5: At an army outpost many miles away, Warney found out
Speaker 5: that his brother was wounded.
Speaker 7: Lieutenant Lewis, there's a telegram for you from your father.
Speaker 7: Thank you, sir, wounded Jack, You rascal officer. I need
Speaker 7: to borrow a motorbike. My brother Jack has been wounded
Speaker 7: and I must go to him.
Speaker 2: Only Lewis god Steed.
Speaker 9: I better be all right.
Speaker 7: Jack.
Speaker 5: Meanwhile, as Jack rested in the hospital, an officer came
Speaker 5: to check on him.
Speaker 7: Lieutenant Lewis, good morning, officer.
Speaker 3: You took quite a hit, yes, sir.
Speaker 7: But Sergeant Ayers and Lieutenant Johnson, they they didn't survive,
Speaker 7: did they.
Speaker 3: No, I died instantly in the explosion.
Speaker 7: Oh, Johnson and I were looking forward to study.
Speaker 3: It together at Oxford. I know he was a good man.
Speaker 3: How do you feel?
Speaker 7: Jack?
Speaker 3: Tired? Captain bone tired?
Speaker 7: Where is he? Where's Jack Lewis?
Speaker 13: He's over there, sir Jack.
Speaker 7: Warny, Oh brother, you came to see me.
Speaker 13: Jack.
Speaker 7: You're all right? Yes, I'm hanging in there.
Speaker 9: Well, you better be.
Speaker 7: I rode fifty miles across a barren landscape to get here.
Speaker 7: I was worried you might be at death's door. Ah no,
Speaker 7: just a few bits of shrapnel in my chest, my
Speaker 7: side and my hands.
Speaker 9: Your chest. Did they get the shrapnel out?
Speaker 7: I think they'll have to leave it in there, Warny,
Speaker 7: it may be too close to my heart. I guess
Speaker 7: a miss is as good as a mile.
Speaker 5: Jack spent the remainder of the war recovering from his wounds.
Speaker 5: Even after his skin healed over, he still experienced emotional
Speaker 5: trauma with nightmares that lasted for years. When the war ended,
Speaker 5: Jack finally began full time studies at Oxford, where he
Speaker 5: once again enjoyed deep conversations with friends.
Speaker 7: Owen, I was walking in nature the other day again, Yes, again,
Speaker 7: and I felt it a sense of longing that I
Speaker 7: used to experience while gazing at the green Hills when
Speaker 7: I was a boy, longing. What for something greater, greater,
Speaker 7: like God? Oh, I wouldn't call it a god. I
Speaker 7: don't think there's somebody peeking over our shoulder and plan
Speaker 7: and judgment day. That's more like an absolute.
Speaker 13: So that's your compromise, Jack. You admit that there's a God,
Speaker 13: but he's some personal absolute force. So where do our
Speaker 13: values come from? Our sense of right and wrong?
Speaker 7: People have always tried to make sense of the universe.
Speaker 7: It's human nature.
Speaker 13: If what you say is right, then love and honor
Speaker 13: and fairness can be whatever we want them to be.
Speaker 13: If they mean different things to everybody, do they have
Speaker 13: any meaning?
Speaker 9: That's the question.
Speaker 5: Jack wrestled with his ideas of religion. After graduating with
Speaker 5: degrees in philosophy and English, he became a professor at
Speaker 5: Mardlin College in Oxford. One night in his office, as
Speaker 5: Jack struggled with his beliefs, he had a realization.
Speaker 7: Am I just being stubborn calling God and absolute? Am
Speaker 7: I the one pretended? Not like a child at play pretends,
Speaker 7: but someone foolishly denying what's real? I know in my
Speaker 7: heart it's more that you're more that all my life,
Speaker 7: You've been there.
Speaker 9: All right, God, I hear you. I accept you. It's you.
Speaker 7: I've been sensing, calling me all alone, Lord, I kneel
Speaker 7: before you, acknowledging that you alone are the creator and
Speaker 7: ruler of the universe.
Speaker 5: Two years later, while riding to a zoo in the
Speaker 5: sidecar of Warney's motorcycle, Jack accepted Jesus as his savior.
Speaker 5: For the rest of his life, he used his skills
Speaker 5: of logic and philosophy to become a great writer and
Speaker 5: share his hard earned faith in God. Today, his beloved
Speaker 5: books like Mere Christianity and The Chronicles of Narnia are
Speaker 5: a source of inspiration to people all around the world.
Speaker 5: Many of his stories tell of heroes on epic quests,
Speaker 5: but his very own quest for truth and love was
Speaker 5: the greatest quest.
Speaker 3: Of what an amazing journey to Jesus, Aunt.
Speaker 4: Nikki, indeed Uncle John. God loves and wants to connect
Speaker 4: with each one of us no matter what we've been.
Speaker 3: Through, and we want to connect with him too.
Speaker 4: One great way to connect with God is through the
Speaker 4: Bible lessons we've mentioned earlier Adventures in the Holy Bible.
Speaker 3: Girls and Boys. You can sign up online at your
Speaker 3: story hour dot org in the section called kids.
Speaker 4: Corner, or you can call us at eight hundred nine
Speaker 4: eight seven seven eight seven nine. Our office will be
Speaker 4: happy to help you sign up.
Speaker 3: That's right, because Aunt Nikki and I and all of
Speaker 3: the staff at your Story Hour love you very much.
Speaker 4: Yes, we do, and we look forward to joining with
Speaker 4: you again next time.
Speaker 2: Goodbye,