The Discarded Image

We’re into the first week of Advent…and I know what you’re thinking! If only you could add in a little something to this already bursting month. Maybe a book to read or a class? How about three books to read?! No, this feels like the worse time to attempt something new.

Reader, I signed up.

Ahead of the feast day of King Alfred, Kelly Cumbee read aloud The Ballad of the White Horse by G.K. Chesterton. Now, I am not a Chesterton fan, not a fan of traditional rhyming narrative poems. But I am a fan of Alfred and of Kelly Cumbee, and so I gave it a try. It’s a transcendent experience. Absolutely necessary for entering the world of Narnia. The poem feels more relevant than ever in the best way. Kelly is teaching another section of her series on Medieval Cosmology this month. The class focuses on the medieval understanding of man and we will be reading Purgatorio, The Horse and his Boy, and The Tempest.

I got the Dorothy Sayers translation of Dante because her notes are absolutely worth the price of admission. She is steeped in church tradition, can write a bang up English sentence, and is funny as heck! I’ve never read Horse and His Boy and look forward to it. The Chronicles of Narnia continue to surprise and delight unlike some of Lewis’s other work (Mere Christianity cough cough). The Tempest is one of my favorite plays, and I look forward to reading it with Kelly as a guide.

The classes start this week and will be recorded so that you can watch at your own pace and return to them over time. This would be an excellent class for an upper high school student. And I would love to have you join me!