"Once Upon a Wardrobe" by Patti Callahan

Once upon a wardrobe, not very long ago and not very far away… 

That phrase, which sounds like the beginning of a fairy tale, is the centering theme of Once Upon a Wardrobe by Patti Callahan. It’s a wonderful story, about legend and myth, about fairy tales, about C.S. Lewis and the Chronicles of Narnia. And it’s about story, and the role story plays in our lives. 

 

It’s 1950. Margaret “Megs” Devonshire is studying mathematics at Somerville College at Oxford. She’s into everything logical, precise, and measurable, because that’s how she makes sense of the world.

 

She has a brother, George, 10 years her junior, a brother she loves dearly and who is not likely to see his next birthday. He’s seriously ill with what sounds like a worsening heart condition. When she visits home, she learns that George has been reading a just published book called The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by Oxford’s own C.S. Lewis. And George wants to know if she’s met Lewis or talked with him, because he has an important question: where did Narnia come from?

 

Because she loves her brother, Megs is determined to find out. She starts by making an unannounced visit to The Kilns, the house where Lewis and his brother Warnie live. Warnie finds her in the garden and invites her to have tea.

 

Patti Callahan

That invitation will send Megs on a journey into fairy tales, legends, myths, and stories. After each meeting with the Lewis brothers, and she has several, they will explain where Narnia came from – by not explaining any such thing. “Here is the thing, Miss Devonshire,” Lewis says, “you must not believe all that authors tell you about how they write their stories. When the story is finished, he has forgotten a good deal of what writing it was like.”

 

(Speaking from my own experience, that is absolutely true.)

 

Megs’ journey into the imagination will lead her to romance – and to an unexpected journey for her and George.

 

Patti Callahan Henry is the bestselling author of 17 novels, including Becoming Mrs. Lewis, the story of Lewis’s wife Joy Davidman. She’s also published in numerous anthologies and short story collections. She is the co-host and co-creator of the weekly podcast Friends and Fiction. She received degrees from Auburn University and Georgia State University. Trained as a pediatric clinical nurse, she now writes full-time. Callahan lives in Alabama. 

 

Once Upon a Wardrobe will have you nodding at its wisdom, smiling, laughing, and often in tears. Not every story has a happy ending, but the true stories have the right ending. And Once Upon a Wardrobe is a true story.

 

(And a big hat tip to my wife Janet, who recommended I read it.)

 

Some Monday Readings

 

Why the Progress Debate Goes Nowhere – Samuel Matlock at The New Atlantis. 

 

Tyson Foods cut contracts with Missouri farmers and is working to silence their legal fight – Egan Ward at Missouri Independent.

 

Winter Apple – poem by David Whyte.

 

Royal slush – Gary Saul Morson at The New Criterion on The Last Tsar: The Abdication of Nicholas II and the Fall of the Romanovs by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa,

Building his house

After I Peter 2:4-8 

The builder is constructing

his house, laid upon

the cornerstone, the foundation

upon which all settles, all

depends, all has meaning,

for without it, nothing lasts,

nothing survives. This house,

because the cornerstone is

living, is constructed with

living stones, stones rejected

and abused and derided

by the world, but placed

upon the foundation,

to build the house of God.

 

Photograph by Dakota Roos via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

Solstice Poem – Angela Alaimo O’Donnell at Rabbit Room Poetry.

 

Sensing Magic and Mystery: Countdown – poem by Joy Lenton at Poetry Joy.

 

Be Still and Know – poem by Peter Venable at Society of Classical Poets.

 

O Oriens: A fifth Advent reflection with music – Malcom Guite.

 

Saturday Good Reads - Dec. 21, 2024

You may have seen his name in small, italicized print underneath a hymn in your church hymnal. But who was he? Stephen Steele at Gentle Reformation has a reflection on Isaac Watts at 350 years old. 

Idaho isn’t just about ski resorts. Sandra Heska King at Tweetspeak Poetry takes a look at Idaho and its rich literary tradition, cultural history, and geographic beauty. See her entry in 50 States of Generosity. 

 

Free speech has been under attack in the United States for some time, and in recent years the attacks have taken the form of “anti-disinformation” efforts, which seem more about censoring everything but your own particular view of the world. But this isn’t a recent phenomenon. More than 150 years ago, even the abolitionists had to defend free speech. (Small consolation: it’s even worse in Britain, which has a tradition of free speech but no First Amendment protection.)

 

More Good Reads

 

Faith

 

12 Fresh Ways to Read Your Bible in 2025 – Tim Challies.

 

A Hollow in the Mystery – Greg Doles at Chasing Light.

 

Why We Need Beautiful Churches – Phil Cotnoir at The Gospel Coalition.

 

Lead Kindly Light – Mark Clavier at Front Porch Republic.

 

Life and Culture

 

Columbia professor who called Oct 7 attacks ‘awesome’ to teach course on Zionism – Greg Norman at Fox News.

 

Abigail Shrier was Vilified. Now She’s Been Vindicated – Editorial at The Free Press.

 

‘The public sector is the illness’: Meet Javier Milei – Kate Andrews at The Spectator.

 

Poetry

 

The Joy of Writing – poem by Wisława Szymborska at Poetic Outlaws.

 

Carrying Our Sheaves – poem by Cody Ilardo at Power & Glory.

 

An Old Man’s Winter Night – Robert Frost at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

News Media

 

Bluesky Has a Death Threat Problem – Jesse Singal at The Free Press.

 

American Stuff

 

A ‘Loco Gringo’ Takes on the Mexican Cartels – Madeleine Rowley at The Free Press.

 

Writing and Literature

Getting to Know the "Literature": Finding out what's been written on your subject doesn't have to be overwhelming – Thomas Kidd.

Cormac McCarthy’s secret muse, the internet, and me – Vincenzo Barney at Substack Reads.

Art

Once the most expensive painting ever auctioned, has a long hidden Van Gogh portrait been rediscovered? – Martin Bailey at The Art Newspaper.

 

The Sanctuary – Chevrolet Christmas 2024 Commercial 

 Painting: Man Reading at a Window, oil on canvas by Francois-Marius Granet (1775-1849). 

A living stone

After I Peter 2:4-8

We come to him,

rejected by the world

but chosen and 

precious. He calls us

living stones,

memorials, signposts,

markers, temples,

a spiritual house,

a holy priesthood

offering spiritual

sacrifices, resting

upon the cornerstone

sacrificed for us.

Our lives become

an act of worship.

 

Photograph by Ardhy Sapanca via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Poets and Poems: Andrew Calis and "Which Seeds Will Grow?"

A friend recommend I read the poetry of Andrew Calis, and I soon discovered I was gingerly wading into one of the most contentious realities imaginable – the Mideast. 

Andrew Calis is a poet whose work has been featured in Dappled Things, The Atlantic, and several other literary publications.  He’s published two poetry collections, Pilgrimages in 2020 and Which Seeds Will Grow? just last month. He has a Ph.D. degree in English Literature from the Catholic University of America. He’s a high school English teacher and lives with his family in Maryland. 

 

He’s also a member of a family that belongs to what is the most overlooked group in conflict in the Mideast – Palestinian Christians.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry. 

Some Thursday Readings

 

The artist bringing Van Gogh’s paintings to life – without the use of AI – Aimee Dawson at The Art Newspaper. 

 

Have You Lost the Ability to Think Deeply? – Lydia Kinne at The Gospel Coalition.

 

The Deep Roots of Irish Anti-Semitism – Simon Sebag Montefiore at The Free Press.

An Inspiration for "Brookhaven" - The Family Bible

In the early 1980s, the Young family Bible was passed down to me from my father. We had looked at it together much earlier, especially the family records it contained. All of the entries for births and deaths, beginning in 1802 and ending in 1890, were in the same hand, presumably my great-grandfather’s.  

For years after I received it, I did the time-honored family thing: kept it wrapped in brown paper and twine and on a closet shelf. I did eventually buy an acid-free box to store it in, but it was fragile. The binding was coming apart, the ink on the family records was fading, and some of the pages were loose.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Photograph: a page of records in the family Bible, before restoration.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

World War II, Remembered Rightly – Philip Jenkins at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

A Gathering of Old Men – Brian Miller at Notes from an East Tennessee Farmer.

 

Family Matters –Alan Jacobs at The Homebound Symphony.

 

Political Violence Happens Because We Let It – Charles Fain Lehman at The Free Press.

 

“Snow-Bound,” poem by John Greenleaf Whittier – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

The Paperback Arrived!

The paperback edition of Brookhaven just arrived. I downloaded the Kindle version last Thursday, but it is something else to hold the physical book in my hands. Behind it are a few of the books (but only a few) I used for research.