An opera based on C.S. Lewis's Perelandra receives its second premiere in Oxford, UK in June of 2009

Contents

Features
Live Webcast Conversation with Kathleen Norris and Gregory Wolfe
Time and the Tilting Earth by Miller Williams
Perelandra Opera Premiere and International Colloquium
Remembering the Future, edited by Chris Keller and Andrew David
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Features

As we approach a season that is always deeply entangled with commercialism, you are invited to participate in an exploration of the mystery and wonder of the season of Advent and Christmas. On Thursday, November 20 at 5 p.m. Pacific (8 p.m. Eastern), award winning poet and New York Times bestseller, Kathleen Norris and the editor of Image journal, Gregory Wolfe will host a live conversation on the meaning of the Advent and Christmas season. Along with renowned spiritual writers such as Eugene Petersen and Luci Shaw, Kathleen Norris and Gregory Wolfe have created the popular book of art and daily reflections entitled God With Us: Rediscovering the Meaning of Christmas. Based on their contributions to the book, Kathleen and Gregory will spend 60 minutes in conversation on this profoundly important topic and will interact with audience members from across North America, responding to the questions or comments submitted before and during the conversation. We welcome you to participate in this rare opportunity to interact with the authors. This online conversation is co-sponsored by Imago, Image journal and Signpost Music. For more information about Kathleen, Greg, or the book, see the website, www.rediscoverchristmas.com. Please pass this invitation on to a friend.

Time and the Tilting Earth by Miller Williams  

Miller Williams has authored more than a dozen books of poetry in his long career, so its fitting that his latest collection, Time and the Tilting Earth, is a bit self-reflective. Like T.S. Eliot in his Four Quartets, Williams has written enough verse to know its limitations, the ways that words stretch and slip when brought to bear on ideas of mortality, the universe, and God. In The Fourteen-Line Confession of a Retro Poet the poet is conscious about the writing process: Whats the point of a pattern? Has anyone found / the hand of a god in this? Has anyone seen / in all the counted feet, the foot of One? Williams seems to possess a growing amazement for science and the physical universeseveral poems explore the concepts of time, space, and quantum mechanicsand this is accompanied by a reverence for what science cant tell us about the mysteries of our existence. These poems ponder birth and death, beginnings and ends, the worlds creation and the possibility of its destruction. But Williams has been around long enough not to take himself too seriously. With a tone that is a perfect combination of wise and wry, he keeps his poems grounded in things of the worldincluding the marriages, anniversaries, and retirements that inspire several occasional poems. Some of the poems are short and playful; most use end rhymes and an iambic rhythm, giving them a deceptively lighthearted feel that contrasts with the gravitas of the subject matter. In The Old Professor Deals with Death and Dying, the narrator muses about the no place at all that were moving toward. But, as the last stanza concludes, Still we stand at the beds of those who leave us / and cherish the seconds. Still our best dramas / depend on the death scenes, which all the religious / tell us are not periods but commas. That Miller Williams is the father of Grammy Award-winning southern musician Lucinda Williams and was once a friend of Flannery OConnor is an apt image of the delicate balance he keeps between gravity and grace.

The Oxford University C.S. Lewis Society and the Donald Swann Estate have recently announced that they will be producing the second premiere of Perelandra, an opera by Donald Swann (music) and David Marsh (libretto) based on the eponymous novel by C.S. Lewis. The piece was written between 1960 and 1964, with the enthusiastic support of C.S. Lewis. In a 1962 letter to Marsh, Lewis wrote: I think [the libretto] just stunningly good. It brought tears to my eyes in places. Done right, it will be terrific. I very heartily congratulate you. The opera was also very dear to Swanns heart, and contains some of his most lyrical music. The opera opened to enthusiastic reviews in Oxford, Cambridge, London, and later New York. The sale of the film rights shortly after Lewiss death, however, placed a long-term embargo on its performance. The opera is now receiving a long-awaited second premiere in its original, three-act form. It will be performed in Oxford, UK, on June 25, 26 and 28, 2009, and recorded by Oxford Records. The performance run will be accompanied by a two-day international colloquium on C.S. Lewiss Perelandra in all its aspects: literary, theological, philosophical, and musical. A keynote address will be given by Walter Hooper. A Call for Papers is now available on the website. A competition for subject-related artwork for display at the performance and on its products has also been announced, and Alan Lee, best known for his Tolkien illustrations and conceptual artwork for the Lord of the Rings trilogy, is to judge the competition. The closing date is February 15, 2009. The full announcement is available on the website.

Please click here for more details, or contact the production team at admin@perelandraproject.org.

Remembering the Future is a selection of works published in the last three years by The Other Journal, an online journal at the intersection of theology and culture. Included in the anthology are poems by the likes of Luci Shaw, Marjorie Maddox, and Paul Willis, interviews of contemporary thinkers such as Lauren Winner, Brian McLaren, and Charles Marsh, and essays on everything from genocide to pop music (including a piece by music writer and former Image intern Joel Hartse). The anthology charts a course across human transgressionpoverty, rape, violence, genocideinto the iconography of contemporary cultureBorat, Britney Spears, reproductive technology, the ONE campaign. The book will naturally appeal to readers with a theological bent, but it does not remain in the realm of mere ideas. Rather, its contributors are interested in the ways that theology is incarnated in real life, here and nowin family and community; in politics, economics, and education; in works of social justice; and in art, literature, and music. In the preface, the editors articulate their vision that authentic, redemptive Christian practice requires double-vision, that is, thoughtful engagement with both the biblical tradition and the cultural moment. From a broad spectrum of creativity and theology, this anthology encourages us to rethink our comfortable paradigms in light of such thoughtful engagement. The contributors, including voices from the emergent church and the evangelical, Catholic, and mainline traditions, are not always in agreement with each other, and many of the pieces are provocativea testimony to the diversity of perspective that The Other Journal values. The opening poem by Luci Shaw, A Few Suggestions for an Insubordinate Idea, sets the tone for the whole book, which seeks to goad and stir, to fling / a glitter of ash over the ocean, pocking it like rain. / Ignite a burning bush. Transfix the universe. Then,and heres the beauty of what Remembering the Future doeshaving found a mind of your own, come home. / Burrow my brain. Be one of a neuron couplet / that breeds a host of your own kind.

Click here to buy the book.

Want to Work for Image This Summer?

Are you an undergraduate student who'd like to work for Image this coming summer? Or do you know someone who might be interested? The purpose of the Luci Shaw Fellowship is to expose a promising student to the world of literary publishing and introduce him or her to the contemporary dialogue about art and faith that surrounds Image, its programs, its contributors, and its peer organizations. In short, we're looking for summer fellows who share our vision for the place art has in the life of faith, and who are also diligent, meticulous, and responsible about the daily details. There's grunt work galore in this job, but also plenty of opportunities to grasp the vision at the heart of a dynamic arts organization. The Shaw Fellow will also receive a scholarship to Image's Glen Workshop in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Applications are due February 1, 2009.

To learn more about the Luci Shaw Fellowship, and to download an application, click here.

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