The Eric Metaxas Show - James Como (Encore)

Episode Date: August 7, 2022

James Como, a founding member of the New York C.S. Lewis Society, shares his extensive study not only of Lewis' work in general, but also of his favorite story, "Perelandra."

Folks, welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show, sponsored by Legacy Precious Metals. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit legacy p.m. Investments.com. That's legacy pm investments.com. A Texas show with your host, Eric Mettaxas. Folks, have I got a treat for you? Some of you know how much I love C.S. Lewis. And if I had to pick one book, it would be parallel. Not hugely known. He wrote a, they often call it the Space Trilogy. It's really a misnomer, but it's, I think of it as Narnia for adults. It's just genius, genius, genius level of writing and ideas.

It's amazing. And the centerpiece is this book called Perilandra. We'll be talking about it because I have in the studio, I have James. Como, who's written a book called Mystical Paralandra, James Como, a dear old friend many, many years. Welcome to the program again. Thank you, Eric. You're tough to sum up. Let's try.

Let's try. You've written many, many books. You're a noted authority on C.S. Lewis. And I was trying to remember how we first came across each other. It's literally 20-something years ago. It is. It is. We had dinner once at Rossini's down the block from the Church of Our Savior.

I remember. Yeah. Well, I used to live on 38th Street, on East 38th Street. There it is. But I'm just trying to remember how we were connected. Maybe it was through Thomas Howard. Very likely, through the late, great Thomas Howard. I dedicate my new book.

It's called Is Atheism Dead to Tom Howard, whom I loved. I just have to say he was one of the finest men I have. I've ever had the privilege of knowing another expert on C.S. Lewis and so much else. But it might have been Tom Howard, who initially came to us. He's a great man. I had the pleasure of meeting him a few times. He met Lewis, as you probably know. Yes, I know, and we've discussed it.

Well, let me just say that you've written many books about C.S. Lewis. You are Professor Emeritus of Rhetoric and Public Communication at E.S. York College. And I'm trying to remember when you were last here a few years ago, we talked about T.S. Eliot going on a double date, if you want to call it that, with, was it Vivian at the time? It should have been. It should have been. Thomas Sterns Elliott, T.S. Elliott and his wife Vivian went to dinner with C.S. Lewis. and joy. Yes, indeed.

It's something like we made up. Yeah, I know. Right? But I have a weird, I have a weird thing to tell you. Go ahead. I don't know where I was headed, but the day you and I were together, it's got to be four years ago, I was going to the airport that evening to fly to, I don't even remember where I was headed. I was headed.

Germany, maybe? Across the pond. Yeah. Probably Germany. And at the airport at JFK, I bumped into someone. I can't even remember now who it was, but somebody I hadn't seen in a long, long time. And we got to talking. And that subject came up of Elliot's having written the updated book of a prayer book.

And it was one of those moments, you know, if I believed in, Kismet. I just thought my head's going to explode. I was just talking about this a few hours ago with James Como in my radio studio. I'm not the kind of person that talks about this kind of stuff incessantly. I mean, it's nice when I get to do it, but it was so bizarre to be talking about, I guess it was somebody who, it'll come to me eventually, but they had somehow worked on that or they were doing an updated version of that. And I said, this is insane. A few hours ago, I was talking about this. I don't talk about T.S. Eliot and Anglican stuff.

Anyway, we'll come back to that. But I want to say that you've written a book about one of my very, very, very, very favorite books. It's called Mystical Paralandra. So there are a lot of people listening. They're not even C.S. Lewis devotees. So describe, if you would please, what is Paralandra for my audience, tell my audience, so that I don't. All right, I'll begin with the subtitle.

Mystical Perilandro, my lifelong reading of C.S. Lewis and his favorite book. Because Perilandra, he said more than once, was his favorite book. What year did he write it? 42? 43. Three. Came out in 43.

Amazing. Out of the silent planet, the first of this trilogy had preceded it in 39, and that hideous strength, which is really a standalone thing in 45, I think, was the third book. I think of it as the Ransom Trilogy. Right. Because of the hero Ransom appearing in all three. So let's call it the Ransom Trilogy. But the middle book, and you say it's, it was Lewis's favorite book, and boy, he wrote a lot of books.

He said. It's called Perilander. So it's a novel? Yes, a fantasy. He would have called it a romance. using the old medieval classical term for an adventure. Now, Peralandra, people who don't know the book should know, is Lewis's name for Venus, the planet Venus.

And in this book, Elwyn Ransom travels magically in a coffin-like object transported by El Dela, angelic creatures, to this unfallen paradise, which is Peralandra, populated by two people, the king and the king, the queen, prelapsarian, before the fall. I mean, look, this is a heavy idea, so I'm going to have to interrupt a lot, because I want my audience to be tracking. This is amazing stuff, folks. So this is a novel. It is brilliant. It is brilliantly written as a writer who values writing, who values literature. There are passages in the book Parilander, particularly toward the end, that are some of the

most glorious passages of prose ever written in English, bar none, some of the most spectacular writing that I have ever read. But the plot is that Elwyn Ransom goes to this planet. It's his version of Venus, Lewis's version of Venus. And he sort of confronts the atom and the eve of that planet before the fall and then is used by God to help them prevent the fall. To prevent the fall. I mean, this is heavy. Well, let me comment first on what you said about Lewis's writing, because I'm a contrarian by nature, and I go out on more than one limb. Yeah. The only reason we can call the end of this book prose is because it's printed as prose.

It's some of the greatest poetry in the English language. And I'll go further than that. I don't read fluently Italian, but I read more than one translation of Dante. And the glory of the end matches the glory of Dante's achievement in the Paradiso at the end. That's how wonderful this is. Now, a scientist travels to Perilandra, and he's given himself to the dark side. So he's inhabited by no less than safe. Okay, so this is the plot.

Right. We're talking about a book written by C.S. Lewis called Perilander, written 1943. And the plot is that this bad guy, whose name I forget, really bad guy, Weston. Weston. Yeah, he's wicked. He's evil. So does he go there first? I can't remember how this works. No, no, no. Ransom is there. Oh, right, right, right.

He's met the Green Lady, who was the first Eve of the planet. The Eve figure of Venus. And Weston arrives, welcomes a spirit into him, and then proceeds to tempt the lady to disobey Malay. who is God the sun, in effect, the creator of the universe, the creator of Perilandra included, who has forbidden her to be on the fixed land during the night. Now, see, this is, I realize like we need a thousand annotations just to explain this. One of the things that makes Perilandra just hands down brilliant is that Lewis invents the idea

that on this planet there are floating islands, floating islands. The planet is basically one big sea with these islands. Floating islands, but there is a fixed land. With a huge

mountain on it. With a mountain on it. Okay, so there is a fixed land, so it's not floating, and then there's these floating islands. And instead of saying, as we get from the scripture, where God says, don't eat of that tree, the prohibition on perilandra is do not spend the night on the fixed land you have to sleep on the

floor it's all we're asking of you we're going to go to a break we'll be right back talking to james como in case you haven't been paying attention the biden administration has caused a financial crisis and they have no clue how to fix it oil prices have skyrocketed and when oil prices go up the cost of transportation and shipping spikes leading the prices of goods to rise and when we're already seeing record inflation, that's the last thing we need. Our economy is in trouble and you need to take steps to protect yourself. If all your money is tied up in stocks, bonds, and traditional markets, you are vulnerable. Gold is one of the best ways to protect your retirement. No matter what happens, you own your gold. It is real, it is physical, it's always been valuable

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You can find him at Jamescommo.com. He's a lecturer, writer, teacher, written many books. The new book is Mystical Paralandra about C.S. Lewis's book, Paralandra. And we were just talking about the basic plot. James Como, let's pick up where we left off. The Prohibition, so this is an unffallen planet. Weston, who is the villain. The villain.

He's not there yet. ransom, the good guy, who's named Ransom for some big reasons here, right? He arrives on the planet, and he is, in a sense, charged with helping prevent the fall on this planet. It didn't happen here. Here, the fall happened, so it was not prevented. But Lewis, I mean, even for C.S. Lewis to have this idea, it doesn't get much bigger than this. It's like, you want something tough to pull off? How about that?

It doesn't. The thing is, when ransom first gets there, he has no idea what he's doing there. And then when he realizes what's expected of him, he can't believe it because he's ill-suited to this. He's a middle-aged philologist, and now he has to prevent this cosmic catastrophe. And there's no one to help him. He needs a miracle. And then he hears the voice, you know, you're the miracle. You're here to do this. And my view of this, and I really do think this is one of the great modern epics in English. It will rival anything from Greek and Roman literature. Look, look.

I've said the same thing. It's not you think it is. Okay. Right? And that makes ransom one of the great, unacknowledged heroic figures in Western literature. Yeah, you think like Aeneas is a big deal? Come on. Nothing.

We are talking about, I have often said that Paralandra ought to be taught alongside Paradise Lost in a survey course. It's as good as anything in Western literature. Absolutely. And it's one of the reasons it's so delightful to talk to you about your book about it. Okay, so this philologist is sent, if you don't mind, since we have the time, let's talk about the book before Paralander, because let's say somebody picks this book up. Ideally, C.S. Lewis in 1939 wrote out of the silent planet, which is about ransom's trip to Mars.

He goes to Mars. He comes back, whatever. A few years later, he goes on this trip to Venus. So that's the antecedent. That's the framing of Peralandra. Well, in the previous book, he goes to Mars unwillingly, but he also meets Weston there. So this time, he knows that he has a mission,

because these eldelic creatures, angelic creatures, have told him that he must do this. So he knows what's up because of the framing of out-of-the-s Silent Planet. But the thing that matters about this is that, can I go further with this summary? Because it... If you don't talk, I will, and we've had enough of that, so you talk. He encounters Weston, who's ripping the bellies out of frogs. He offers ransom one of the frogs.

One of the frogs to rip for himself. And Ransom looks into the eyes of pure evil and understands, so this is what hatred was made for. Okay, now hang on a second. I need to, I need to, I want my audience to track with what you just said. Basically, the good guy, Ransom, he's on, he goes to this planet, Parilandra, which is like Venus. And while he's there, he meets the Adam. and the eve of that world, the king and the queen of Perilandra,

and he realizes that he's on a mission to prevent the eve of that, the Green Lady, from succumbing to the temptation that is going to arrive, not in the form of a serpent, but in the form of this evil man named Weston. And I want to say that the evilness of Weston, Lewis's ability to scare the reader, it's unparalleled. I mean, he creates something so horrifying. You don't, if you want to know how great he is, you have to put that in his quiver, that he's able to do so many different things, but to create a character that's actually frightening.

Well, you and some of your audience may know the great sermon, sinners in the hands of an angry God by Jonathan Edwards, which has some of the most horrific imagery you could imagine. None of it is as evil without that imagery, by the way, as evil is what Lewis creates in parallel. You just mentioned one of the things that you can't get it out of your mind, that Weston is so evil that he is disgustingly and cruelly torturing and killing these frogs that he finds. Eric, let me interrupt a moment. He's not killing them because on parallelandering. which is yet unfallen, they can't die yet.

So they're lying there alive in great pain, but he just moves on to other frogs. And he's so evil that somehow he wants to do this. I mean, that's just one thing. But when Lewis, I'm sorry, Lewis, when ransom looks into the eyes of Weston, he sees pure evil. And then you just said,

he realized that that's what hatred, in the good sense of hatred was made for. In other words, he was supposed to hate evil, and he is now confronted with evil in a form so pure that something rises up in Weston. The appropriate response is hatred. The appropriate response to evil is this hatred,

which is, it's a big idea. Very big idea. Well, he battles Weston, and one of the things I love about this book, they have a debate in front of the lady, because Weston wants the lady to disobey. Now, remember, Weston is in half, by this evil spirit, he doesn't need to sleep.

Ransom needs to sleep. He's losing the debate. Ransom is losing the debate. So I wonder if you remember what he does. I certainly do. I read your book. I wouldn't have remembered if I hadn't read your book. Oh, it's one of my favorite. He holds off with a nice left hand, a straight left hand, and decks. And they get into a physical struggle. Right. A physical struggle.

And one of the interesting things about this, Lewis, who was a master of rhetoric, an absolute master of rhetoric. who distrusted the art of rhetoric, but it was a master of it. Very often in his work, language is getting a character into trouble, and Lewis finally has the character act. You've read your non-ear. You remember the silver chair. They're in underworld. The witch is enchanting them with this spell,

and what does Puddlegum do? Steps with his naked, webbed foot on the fire to break the spell. Stop talking. It's time for act. And that's the heart of spiritual theology, the development of our spirits. You go through this strife, but you have to act. You have to act. I mean, you didn't realize it when you wrote the book, and you didn't realize it when you came in here today.

But this has become a big issue for me lately. In other words, as I've criticized, there are many voices, particularly in the American evangelical church, that they talk and they talk and they talk. and they seem fundamentally, ideologically unwilling to act as though to act or to fight is wrong. Now, they are, of course, quite wrong about that. But it was so fascinating to read in your book, Mystical Perilander, about this moment when the hero realizes a left to the jaw, he has to fight. Now, we don't mean always fight, but the point is that to act, to pay a price, to get involved, not to simply, debate, there comes a time when if you're sensitive morally to the situation, you say,

now I have to act. Will I join the French resistance? Will I join a plot to assassinate Hitler? You know, right? I mean, this is the question. And it's always easier to say no. It's always easier. It's the morally wrong and easier path to say, I'm going to sit this one out.

Let some other sucker fight. Well, that's what Ransom says. surely I was not meant to, I'm just supposed to do my best. And then Lewis's great line, it snapped like a violin string. Like all rationalizing

snaps like a violin string. And that's when he hears what you referred to earlier, a voice that says, not for nothing, a you named Ransom. I too. So it's the voice of Christ

speaking to our hero, Ransom, and saying I too am named Ransom because I Ransom, I gave my life as a ransom for many. So there's so much, this is the beauty of Lewis's writing and especially this Ransom Trilogy, the depth of it. There is so much at play. I'd like to, one of the main themes of this book, because I describe it as a triple helix. It's the book, Lewis, and me. Wound up with each other. The book, Lewis, and a reader. And first of all, I would claim that if you want to know C.S. Lewis, you must know this book. Because all of Lewis is in this book, his learning, his soul, his imagination, his story. More than any of his other books,

this book, if you wanted a distillation of Lewis, you get it in Perilandra. Absolutely. But you get something else, and something Lewis was reluctant to dwell upon. What emerges from this book, in my view very clearly, is that Lewis was a mystic. Actually, that, actually, that That's another thing. Because I read the book, there are many things that I, that struck me. So I'm glad you brought that up. When we come back, we're going to get to that. This is provocative and it's very interesting.

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Welcome back. I'm sitting here with James Como, who is a C.S. Lewis expert and a New Yorker. And, in fact, you were there the other day when we did our Socrates and City event with Apollo 16 astronaut. Charlie Duke. I'm so glad you got to come because let me tell you, that was a magically, there's no other way around it. It was an event in my life to hear this. He was so matter of fact about these dangerous things. I wonder if his heart ever quickened.

You know, he's just astonishing man. Isn't it? Isn't it? Well, anyway, we're going to get that online so people can watch it. But I have to say, I wanted everyone I knew to be in the room. I said, this is going to be one of these moments. But, well, you were just talking about C.S. Lewis and what you write about in your book, Mystical Perilandria, I don't know that I've ever read this before.

But when I read what you wrote, I said, this is very important. you say that C.S. Lewis is a mystic. Yes. In the tradition of the great mystics, let's name some mystics. Walter Hilton, St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, Hildegard of Bingen, Evelyn Underhill in the 20th century. Okay, so there's other ways to describe these people,

but they are, these are people who have, have an experience with the other side. These are people who see or experience God in a way that is not merely rational. There's something mystical about it. And we know there's a tradition of this going back to millennia. And it's real. And somebody of the intellect of Lewis, I mean, you can't get a finer intellect than Clive Stables Lewis had. It's clear when you read him, and you point this out in your book, it's clear that he had these mystical experiences, but he

was diffident in that, in that English way, he was so diffident about it. He kind of almost pretended like, no, not really. I don't want to embarrass myself. I'm not going to bring it up. I'll just put it in my fiction in such a way that if you're very careful, you'll pick it up. And he also he was my, he didn't want to

put himself in that company, you know, because they're higher on the ladder of perfection than he could ever achieve. But one thing I point out when he roused from a coma Walter Hooper, his last secretary was there and Lewis popped up in bed and he looked in front of him with a gaze

as though he was seeing something else and he said oh I never imagined I never imagined and what I point out in the book is you know, if I ever get to meet him elsewhere, I'm going to say, well, Mr. Lewis, you did, didn't you? You did imagine. And he put it in your books, you big phony. Now, let me ask you, I don't recall, I mean, I've read a lot about Lewis, certainly not nearly as much as you, but I don't recall that moment that you refer to. So this is his last. toward the end.

Right toward the end. So Walter Hooper at this point is living at the kilns in Oxford. But I don't recall this, that there's a moment that Hooper is there with him. Yeah, because Walter had recorded it previously in a journal. And I don't think it made a letter, but recent biographies have picked it up. And I want to cite a book that was very important to me by a man named David Downing, who, along with his wife, Crystal Downing, are the co-directors of the Wade Center at Wheaton College, which is the great repository of Lewis's papers.

He wrote a book called Into the Region of Aw. C.S. Lewis as a. Yes. C.S. Lewis as a mystic. And when I read that, I just thought, well, my problem with David, who's a wonderful gentleman and scholar, he didn't go far enough. These are elements of mysticism in C.S. Lewis. David, they're not just elements of mysticism in C.S. Lewis, this is Lewis the mystic. And David points out to us that the first Christian mystic was St. Paul, who was transported to the third sphere, you know. So that book was very influential. And there can be no doubt in my mind that Lewis expressed that mysticism in this book, Peralandra.

That's right. But under a guise, you know, the diffidence, as you point out. Well, I want to, before we go further on this subject, I want to talk about you a little bit. You talk a little bit in this book about your own journey with C.S. Lewis. You encounter him in the 1960s. I don't mean him, the person, but his writing. And in 1969, here in New York, you start the C.S. Lewis Society. I and 13 others. You and 13 others.

Talk about that. I mean, what were you doing? Where did you grow up? and how did you find yourself into reading this sort of thing? You'll recall that the book is dedicated to the New York C.S. Lewis Society and to all our members, both here and gone away. And I found Lewis in 65 thanks to an article in National Review by Jeffrey Hart called Christmas, the Celebration of Christ, where he talked about this man.

I'd never heard of Lewis. Well, we forget that Lewis died in 63, and I learned from Walter, Hooper personally, because I interviewed him for Socrates in the city, we had a number of wonderful, wonderful conversations. And I didn't realize the depth of his role in bringing Lewis to new audiences after Lewis. We can talk about that more. But you, so here you are in 1965, and you're reading National Review. Yeah. And that's when you bumped into the idea. Now, you're a very young man where you were an undergraduate at that time? Yes, I was. Yes, I was. And I was taking a literary criticism course, and he commented on Lewis's literary criticism, which is what I read first. I read the criticism first. And I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe how lucid it was compared to what I had been reading. Okay, we're going to go to a break. Folks, lots more ahead. I'm talking to James Como, C-O-M-O. You can go to Jamescommo.com. We'll be right back.

Folks, I continue my conversation with James Como, C-O-M-O, Professor Emeritus of Rhetoric and Public Communication, founding member of the New York CS-Lewis Society. His books include many essays, long and short fiction, poetry, mystical perilander, which I'm holding in my hand, is his fifth book on C.S. Lewis. What does that tell you? It tells you that there are four other books on C.S. Lewis. One is called C.S. Lewis at the breakfast table. One is called Branches to Heaven. One is called Why I Believe in Narnia.

And then more recently, C.S. Lewis, a very short introduction. So you were just saying that in the 60s, you read this Jeffrey Hart article in National Review, and you bump into C.S. Lewis. But you bump into him. He was professionally an academic who wrote literary criticism. So this is not the popular Lewis that we know, the author of all these popular books. No, but what struck me in Hart's article was that this, this, this man is at the pinnacle of his profession.

He is the leading medievalist in English literature. Yeah. Undisputably that. Correct. And a Christian apologist at the same time, right there in the heart of academia. That's where I am. And I'm a believing Christian in the heart of an unbelieving, very hostile academia. I have to find out more about this guy, you know, which he struck me and has

always struck me as a very, very brave man, which of course he was in World War I. You know, he saw combat in the trenches in World War I, but very brave. He takes on the hardest questions with the hardest audiences. Debate anybody, right? Route the field. And yet is this most respected English professor. So this was just, I just went nuts. What's the book that he wrote? It's It's abbreviated, oh hell. Oxford, something of English literature. The Oxford History of English Literature. Right, and he wrote one of the volumes.

He wrote the thickest volume on 16th century prose and poetry. Which was his field. He was part of his middle ages in Renaissance. And he loved Edmund Spencer. He did? What did he say about Spencer? He said something about Spencer. You quoted in here.

I've quoted everywhere. Shall I quote it again? please. Edward Spencer, Edmund Spencer, had branches to heaven and roots to hell. And in between the two came all the multiplicity of human life. To read him is to grow in mental health. Okay, that line, to read him is to grow in mental health. Lewis says that about Spencer, who most famously wrote the fairy queen,

And you say it about Lewis. Oh, okay. And I agree. It's to grow in mental health. But people don't normally think about that, that I could grow in mental health. But that's really God's plan for us, isn't it? Mental and spiritual health, of course. And, you know, I just go from there, a letter appeared in National Review, exploring interest in Lewis.

We met one night, 50-something years ago, and the rest of history. We've just gone on. It's the oldest and largest Lewis society in the world. Now there are many. And many others have paid tribute to the New York Society as the model they followed when they started their own organization. It's funny because a lot of people wouldn't associate C.S. Lewis with New York. But that's not really right because his wife was a New Yorker. Bronx.

Right? And she was a New Yorker with a New York accent. And she, I'm trying to think, well, I interviewed Bell Kaufman. Oh, boy. You know, Belk Hoffman. Up the Down Staircase, yeah. It's kind of amazing. She was famous in 1967 for writing Up the Down Staircase, famous book.

She was the granddaughter of Sholam Alecum. I did not know that. The Yiddish Mark Twain. Who's the Yiddish Mark Twain? Is there such a thing? Yes. Sholem Alakum, 19th century. She was the granddaughter.

So this woman who died a few years ago at age, I don't know, 100, I interviewed her about her relationship with Lewis and Joy Davidman. And so there's this kind of New York connection for Lewis. It's counterintuitive, but it's fitting that you started the first CS Lewis Society. Yeah, and New York seems to be the natural place for this. Here we are. And, you know, it's gone on and on since then. And we cover all the branches of Lewis, and we cover authors related to Lewis.

We've talked about Tolkien Charles Williams, George McDonald, who is so influential to Lewis. George McDonald. Literally, apropos of nothing, I stumbled on a George McDonald book like five days ago and started reading McDonald's. I've never really gotten into him in the past, but it's so fascinating because Lewis credits him. Well, tell the story. Well, he's an atheist. He picks up. Lewis was an atheist.

He says. Now, I think there's a depth to Lewis. I love the fact that you quibble with that in your book, and I think you're right. There's a depth to Lewis that he himself. was unaware of. Yes. And he wrote poetry while he was an atheist, which is very religious stuff.

So yes, he calls himself a nominal Christian, but his family was not nominally Christian at all, right? But, you know, his mother died when he was just 10 years old, and that will screw up a kid, as I know myself. My mother died when I was eight years old, my brother too. So he's an atheist. He's at a railroad station. He picks up this book called Fantan,

I never know how to pronounce that. It's a George McDonald book. Now, George McDonald is a 19th century Scottish minister of the gospel, most famously known for his fantasies. He wrote fantastical stories, which are fairy tales and other things. And so Lewis just happens to pick up this book. Shear, if you believe in coincidence, coincidence. Which we don't. Which we don't. And he reads it and he's changed and he says, McDonald baptized my imagination. And, you know, that's kind of an event, but as with all conversions, except maybe St. Paul's, it's a process more than an event. So it took a while for the thing to happen with CS.

Lewis. So the society has talked about a wide-ranging array of authors and lots of things about Lewis. And we've had meetings calling some things that Lewis said into question. You know, we're not cultists. you know, objection. We have many meetings called objections to C.S. Lewis. So that's the society. And Lewis has kept me company through thick and thin. There were, two elements have kept me company

through thick and thin. My dear wife. Fifty-four years sitting in the other room, not brave enough to come into the studio, but we're going to let it go. Well, she knows she'd be a distraction time. Oh, yeah. Oh, that's nice. That's nice. That's very nice. Okay, we're going to go to a break. So your wife, Alexandra, and C.S. Lewis. All right. We're going to be right back talking to James Como, C-O-M-O, Jamescomo.combe. Folks, the headline is, we need your help. What do I mean by that?

I mean at least three things by that. Number one, if it's possible for you to get to be part of our studio audience, August 3rd, 4th, and 5th, and 8th in New York. This week, it starts about 4 o'clock every day. we're taping the late night, the talk show with Eric Metaxus. It is a mainstream TV talk show. We don't have time to get into it now, but it's nuts. We've got a lot of mainstream guests.

It's going to be a blast. We can't share most of it with you yet. But if you can get there, go to Ericmataxis.com. You'll see where it says speaking or schedule, whatever, and you click on it. Every day you can sign up through Eventbrite. We'd love you there all four days or just one. day. You can bring as many people as you want to sign them up. But this is going to be a wild, fun thing. We need some fun, folks. We need some fun because there's a lot of tough stuff going on,

but we want you to be there. Please do what you can. That's number one. Number two, if you follow me on social media, let me just ask you, instead of liking what I put there, would you retweet it or would you share it? Would you share it on Facebook? I'm trying to get a lot of information out. And I don't think I've ever said this before, but a lot of times people will like something. We need to get the word out. We are being suppressed. We know that what we're doing, whether we're being shadow banned, I don't mean to sound like, you know, like the, like chicken little. This is actually, or not chicken little. Who am I looking for? Oh, the boy, you cried wolf. This is actually happening. We need your help, folks, to multiply our message. Everything we put out, it's a struggle. So whatever

you can do to help us. And speaking of helping us, as you know, every couple times a year, we try to raise funds for an organization that we think worthy. At the top of the list is Food for the Poor. Food for the Poor is an amazing Christian nonprofit relief organization. They go where there is a need. And I just want to tell you right now, they are helping families who have fled the Ukraine. Now, we don't need to get into the politics of it. These are people that are suffering, and we want to show them the love of God. We want to help them. Food for the poor, I can't think of anybody that I would trust more to do that. So Food for the Poor is partnering with a number of Christian organizations, relief organizations, ministry partners to get food, literal food to these

families that have fled their homes. They've left everything behind. If you know anybody who's ever have been through anything like this. My parents experienced this kind of thing. It's hellish. And we want to show them the love of God. So I want to ask you simply to call this number to help, or you can just go to the banner. Our banner is metaxis talk.com. That's the radio banner.

We want you to give. We want you to give generously. We just want everybody who listens to this program to do what you can. By God's grace, we are able to do something. Let's do what we can. So please go to metaxis talk.com. or you can call this number. I'll give it to you right now.

844-863 hope. Please dial that number. Please give what you can now. It's August 1st. We don't have a lot of time to do this. It's always a struggle. God bless you as you give. 844-863 hope.

8-44-863 hope. These are people that are struggling, and we need to do what we can to help them. 844-863 Hope, 844-8663 Hope. Metaxistalk.com. You'll see the banner there. And Albin and I will shortly let you know everybody who gives anything. We will put your names in a hat, so to speak, proverbial hat, and we'll have a number of grand prize winners. We want to give you signed books and all kinds of things. And I always say anybody who can give $10,000 as tax deductible, I'd be delighted to have dinner with you, to spend an evening with you.

We always manage to make that work. So remember 844-863-hope, 844-863 hope, or go to metaxis talk.com. God bless you.