Banquet at the Kilns FRIDAY, JULY 23

   The Wade Center at Wheaton College is an institute founded to study seven authors, four of them members of the Inklings—C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Owen Barfield (Lewis's close friend and solicitor, the Narnia books were originally written for his daughter Lucy), and Charles Williams.  Two of the others were from the previous generation and heavily influenced Lewis and his friends—George MacDonald and G.K. Chesterton.  The last is Dorothy Sayers, who was at Oxford contemporary with the Inklings and a friend of Lewis and others, but, she was a woman... and it was a different time.  It was unthinkable that a lone woman would meet with a group of men in the back room of a pub even for a reading group.
   Now what does this have to do with a banquet at the Kilns?  Well, the Wade Center's highest honor is the Clyde S. Kilby Lifetime Achievement Award.  It is given to those who have had enormous impact on the study of one of the seven authors listed above, and in the 45 years of the Wade Center's history it has only been given to three people—and two of them joined us for the banquet tonight—Walter Hooper and Aidan Mackey.  Aidan, who is the scholar of all things Chesterton, actually joined us for several days this week, so Walter Hooper was the guest of honor at our end-of-the-week celebration.  Much of the night was spent listening to him tell Lewis stories (one of which I videoed if anyone is interested).  Hooper became Lewis' secretary at the very end of his life, when ill health made it difficult to keep up his letter writing and other work.  After Lewis died Hooper stayed on as the literary executor of his estate and much of the credit for Lewis' ongoing popularity is because of his work keeping the titles in print.  The C.S. Lewis Foundation staff did a terrific job of catering the meal (again, I loved the two courses after dessert) and it was a great way to finish the week.  Hooper's insight into Lewis' last, controversial book—A Grief Observed—was particularly fascinating and 180 degrees different from conventional wisdom.  And as we ate and talked and munched and talked and sipped and talked, hanging over the table was the original Eagle and Child sign which Hooper had rescued from the trash pile.