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"I was going up Headington Hill on the top of a bus. Without words and (I think) almost without images, a fact about myself was somehow presented to me. I became aware that I was holding something at bay, or shutting something out. Or, if you like, that I was wearing some stiff clothing, like a corset or even a suit of armour: as if I were a lobster.
I felt myself being, there and then, given a free choice. I could open the door or keep it shut: I could unbuckle the armour or keep it on. Neither choice was presented as a duty; no threat or promise was attached to either, though I knew that to open the door, or take off the corset, meant something incalculable. The choice appeared to be momentous but it was also strangely unemotional. I was moved by no desires or fears. In a sense I was not moved by anything.
I chose to open. Then came the repercussions on the imaginative level. I felt as if I were a man of snow at long last beginning to melt."
That momentary and momentous encounter, so dramatically unremarkable in so many ways, was the beginning of Christ's impact on the awareness of C.S. Lewis, who was so surprised by joy that he gave that joyful experience of surprise as the title of one of his great books. It all seemed so quietly natural, but it was really a supernatural earthquake. He was born again as a disciple of Jesus Christ, there and then. His lucid mind and superb gift of writing has marked him out as the foremost Christian writer of the 20th Century. Looking back, it was an encounter of considerable impact on the 20th Century when Jesus quietly met C.S.Lewis on the top of that bus going up Headington Hill.
Now this is St. Paul speaking:
I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. Galatians 1: 11-12
A Prayer:
For every quiet encounter between you and your children, Lord, I give thanks, In Jesus' name.
Another man, Another road, The same Jesus.
Now read Acts Chapter 26.
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