The Eric Metaxas Show - James Como (Encore Continued)

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 p.m. Investments.combe. The Texas show with your host, Eric Mettaxas. Welcome back talking to James Como. Here he is. James Como. Your new book, which is about C.S. Lewis's book, Paralandra. Your book is called Mystical Paralandra. My lifelong reading of C.S. Lewis and his favorite book. You write about so much in Mystical Perilandra. I mean, when you're talking about Lewis,

you're sort of talking about everything. And it's kind of like what you said about, about what Lewis said about Edmund Spencer, who wrote the Fairy Queen and what we say about Lewis. I mean, he touches everything. You know, Henry James said something about Shakespeare, which I think is true of C.S. Lewis. he said the thing about Shakespeare is nothing was lost on him.

And everybody who knew Lewis, he had this memory filed, you know, nothing was, everything was present, everything he ever read was present to him, you know. And a lot of it is in this book, which is almost a suma of Western cosmology, theology, theology, Lewis's beliefs. It's extraordinary. You don't have to read it at that depth. You can enjoy it as an action. an adventure epic. But once you decide to read into it, there's no end. That's what's so amazing

is that Lewis in Paralandra, he kind of puts everything. And one of the things that he puts into Paralandra, I wouldn't have known how to talk about it until Michael Ward wrote his book, Planet Narnia, about, can you talk about that for a minute, just to frame this? Well, there's a lot in Narnia. and one of the things that's infused into Narnia is Lewis's knowledge of cosmology. The planet's controlled by tutelary spirits. And Michael's thesis, which some have questioned, I included, but he makes a very good case, is that each of the Narnian books separately is under the tutelage of a different planet. Okay, so we mentioned Socrates in the city.

If you go to Socratesinthecity.com, not only can you see, you can get a tutorial in Lewis by watching my three conversations, with Walter Hooper, consecutively at the St. AllDates Church. We did that about, I don't know, seven years ago. And then I had a conversation with Michael Ward about his book, Planet Narnia. But he brings in this other issue, and it's what Lewis called the Kappa Factor. Isn't that what he called it? The Kappa Element.

Talk about that for a moment, if you would. Well, I think, I like Michael's book very much, except for the weaknesses in his thesis, which is a separate thing. that others have found, but I think he misunderstands the Kappa element. The Kappa element in fiction is what Lewis thought of as an underlying tone that gives color to a story. For example, you can't have James Fenimore Cooper without Indians with tomahawks. And buckskin. But it's very hard to explain this.

Very hard to explain it. But who was it? Was it Tolkien having a conversation with Lewis about this Kappa element? I mean, where did that term come from? Well, it comes, it's very early, in a very early essay by C.S. Lewis, I think, maybe even as an undergraduate. And then he developed it into an essay called On Stories. Okay. And that was anthologized.

But why does he, why does he call it the Kappa element? K is the Greek letter K, of course. But why does he call it this? Because it's unnoticed. It's unknown. It's hard to describe. It's not supposed to be everything. But why Kappa, why not Epsilon? No idea. No idea? There's got to be a reason.

Well, Michael Ward calls it Donagality, which I find unpleasant. So I'm going to call it the Kappa element. But I got to tell you, this book, Peralandra, it is, I mean, I think you mentioned that Lewis was one of the greatest medievalists ever to have lived. and he brings the medieval cosmology, which our friend Thomas Howard wrote about, he brings this to bear on this book. And so it has this kind of medieval flavor to it. I'll leave it at that. It could have been written in the Middle Ages,

and one of the reasons is there's no science in it. One of the reasons I don't like this called science fiction is that ransom does not go to Perilandah on a rocket ship, as he had in the previous book, he's transported mystically by these angelic creatures. So there's literally no science in parallel. I do want to get to something, though. The end of the book, as you recall, is ransom plunging.

He's fighting the unman, and he struggles with the unman. They fall into the sea, and he wakes up in darkness, and he realizes he's in a cave. And he has to struggle up the cave, a long, arduous climb. He's chased by who knows what behind him. Okay, look, this is, folks, I just got to tell you, this is, you have to read Perilander, really. But what you skipped over here is that this evil figure named Weston becomes fully possessed by the spirit of Satan. He becomes the unman.

Yes. The anti-human being. And the level of evil is bottomless. It's creepy. It's fighting an animated corpse. Yep. Well, one of the things that struck me finally in my rereadings of Peralandra is how emblematic Ransom's Climb is.

Because spiritual theology requires this strife. This purpose to the strife of life. You've climbed through this cave. because when you get to the top, there's the pinnacle of glory that you will experience. And that's what Ransom finally, finally does. So he climbs up a mountain from the inside. Yeah. There's nothing like it.

I'll never forget the first time I read it. I thought, this is just genius. There's nothing, I've never read anything like this. And then towards the end, of course, he's fed on the planet. It's as though the fat planet itself is feeding him. And then he meets the queen and the king. And he sees the two tutelary spirits. One is Malacondra, the tutelary spirit of Mars.

And the other is Perilandra herself, the aldeala of that planet. So these are these angelic, I don't know if they're thrones, principalities. I don't know what they are, but they're very, very high-level angelic beings. And Lewis calls them Oyarsa. Yep. She is the Oyarsa of Perilandrum. Okay. And you take, I love the fact that you take issue in your book.

In other words, it's, it's, Lewis is such an unparalleled genius that it's nice when you can find a mistake, when you can find something that he does that you just say, nah, that's, I don't like that. Uh-oh. What did I say? Well, no, you're right, because it struck me every time I've read the book. He refers to the Mal Eldil. Say about what that is. Well, it's a common root meaning evil. Well, no, Mao, of course.

But who's the Maleldo? Oh, Maleldel is the creator of the second person of the Trinity. Is God. Is God. So the fact that Lewis, who is himself a philologist, a studier of language, a student of language, that he uses the term to describe God at Maleldel. And you think, wait a minute, Mao, M-A-L, we know that that's supposed to be bad. So why did...

Is there any explanation? For where he came up with this, just to be annoying? Lewis liked the sounds of certain words and combinations of letters. You know how this book originated? No. It originated in a dream. He had dreams of floating islands. Okay.

I guess now that you mentioned it, I've read that someplace, but I forgot. Yeah, well, where did that come from? That's what I would ask, you know. Well, because he's a mystic. Of course. No different than seeing the image of a fawn carrying packages in a wood. which gives us seven books. Which gives us seven books.

And let us recall the pinnacle of Ransom's vision at the end. He sees the king and he looks upon the face of the king. Oh, okay. Again, you write about all of this in your book, Mystical Parilandra, my lifelong reading of C.S. Lewis and his favorite book, James Como. But what you just said, when I read that in your book, I thought, wow. This is heavy. So we just got 30 seconds in this segment. Tell us what happens. He realizes that he's looking upon the face of Jesus and all bowed down to it. And he had read his Saint, St. Bonaventure.

Bonaventure has a long chapter on the face of Jesus. Okay, we're going to be right back talking to James Como. C-O-M-O. Don't go away. 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 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 since the dawn of time. Legacy precious metals is the

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It has for about 70% of the half a million people who've tried it and have ordered more. Go to Relieffactor.com or call 800 for relief to find out about this offer. Feel the difference. Folks, welcome back talking to James Como, C-O-M-O, who has written a book about Lewis's, C.S. Lewis's favorite book of his own writing, Peralandra. So you were just talking about this moment when the hero, he goes underneath the sea and comes out inside the mountain on this planet and fights his, way up. I mean, it's just incredible, and eventually comes out the top of this mountain and looks on the face of Jesus. Well, the king, the king. He sees the king. Of, of Peralandra. Of that world. And so how is that the face of Jesus? In other words, it's somehow similar to the face of Jesus.

Well, I think Ransom recognizes it because I think somehow the Ldila, Venus and Mars, Peralander malacandra communicate to him that this is now that the planet is unfallen and will not fall is what our lord has intended all along right and um lewis of course had read st bonaventure who was a mystic himself and wrote about mysticism the three three parts of mysticism and so on and he has a long passage on the face of jesus as the most glorious thing you could behold and ransom experience is that when he's there. And then it spins off into what you know is the great dance, which is a favorite image of Lewis. And the king takes him through eons and eons and eons, and he says when we get to the end of these eons, it not even then is the beginning. We're still at, we're not yet at the beginning yet.

So Lewis's mastery of perspective is at its pinnacle here. I regard this, Eric, as Lewis's greatest apologetic achievement, is the pinnacle. of his work, of his intent, of his vocation, this book. And he was only 45 years old when he wrote this. And he, well, the thing that strikes me is the chutzpah to write about what he writes about in parallel, and you're really, you know, to talk about seeing the face of Jesus, who goes there, so to speak? Most people just are not, you know, unless you have seen it yourself and have the ability

to write about it, which you get the impression somehow he did. Well, it's more than an impression. You know, every... No, I mean that he saw the face of Jesus. Yeah, that he saw the face of Jesus. I want to point this out, though. People talk about the achievement of C.S. Lewis. How many books he wrote, how they're still in print,

the number of movies made about Lewis and his life, documentaries made about C.S. Lewis. Translations of C.S. Lewis. All of this is true. Sales. you know, in the multi, multi-multing millions. The real power of C.S. Lewis is in the heart, imagination, soul, and mind of every single individual reader as he reads Lewis. That is the power of Lewis.

You know one of the reasons I wrote this book? I mentioned in the preface. There is, I've named a new subgenre of literary criticism. I'm calling it recovery criticism. People who were enchanted by Lewis, usually the Chronicles. But now that they're grown-ups, they've gotten over it. You see, they've seen through Lewis.

So they write their books, good books, well-written books, about how they were wrong, but now they've seen this and that, and so they're beyond this, which usually means they've given up their Christian worldview. Well, I wanted to rebut the recovery genre by saying, here's a guy who was a very young man, got to Lewis, and not only have I not recovered from him, But it's deepened and deepened more and more.

And that is the power of C.S. Lewis. Well, listen, let's be clear. If you think of the Narnia Chronicles as children's books, you're kind of an idiot because they're not. Lewis made it clear that they're not. He wrote about writing and about fairy tales and about story. And one of the first things that I picked up from Lewis is that these genres, whether fairy tales or quote-unquote children's books, they're for everyone. It's just a different kind of genre, which may work for kids. But, I mean, look, I read the Narnia Chronicles for the first time when I was 30. Really? Yeah. And I, as a writer, you know, with literary aspirations, I said, this is some of the most fine writing I've ever encountered. It's just astonishingly brilliant. And that's to me the strength of Lewis is that he's able to write,

about things that we would think of as innocent, but they are not, it's not saccharine innocence. It's innocence with depth, which is the goodness of God. It's an innocent, Aslan's not the tame lion. He is good and frightening,

because he is Aslan. It's a level of goodness. And so that's kind of what makes Lewis so rare, is there very few writers who are able to pull all this kind of stuff off. And he does, I mean, in so many different genres. I don't think there's any other writer who pulls it off as well.

Look, that's a fact. I mean, that is a flat-out fact. Well, so I haven't recovered from C.S. Lewis. And this book is about how one doesn't recover from Lewis. And I tell the story at the end. I don't know if you recall that when I was in Oxford with my family and got word that my father died. And I was working on.

And this was in 1974? Yep. 1974. I was having dinner with Walter and his mother and his aunt Twiggy and my wife, of course, and the phone rang, and I got this desperate news from my brother. I was very close with my father because my mother had died when I was a kid. And I was working on a grief observed. And a grief observed is Lewis's journal. So you were reading a grief observed? Taking it apart. At the time. So 1974, you're a grad student? Yes. Okay, so you're a very young man. I'm writing my dissertation. on Lewis's book a grief absurd.

On Lewis's rhetoric, which included this book. And I thought then and think now that there's elements in the book that are contrivances, because even C.S. Lewis could not contrive for an extemporaneous journal to have its catastrophe right in the middle, right in the dead center. And then you read his five sonnets from 1951, and you can see, but I now go to New York for my father's funeral. I come back and I try to sit down at the same desk with the same book open, a grief observed, and it's a different book.

Because I realize there is not a false word about the feeling of grief in this book. It may be artful, but it's true. The authenticity, because you now see I'd gone through it myself. And Lewis, when he wrote the problem of pain, he said, I'm writing the problem of pain. This is 1939, 38. But, you know, put me in a dentist chair, and I'll be as big a coward as anybody else. Now he's going through it himself. You know, the metaphorical dentist's chair where the pain is throbbing in you.

And he writes this book. And I realized how true it was. And it was a great comfort to me. And I realized then that that's the power of Lewis, you know. It's just what he does to each individual. Well, see, that's, I wanted to come back to that. because you mentioned it and it's it's the because of what Lewis has written innumerable lives have been changed and improved innumerable and so you talk about somebody's legacy um Lewis there's a moral character you can't get away from it there's genius but there are plenty geniuses I mean I don't think many lives have been improved by reading Ulysses or Finnegan's wake I'm sorry I just don't uh or a lot of these people that you recognize recognize there's genius, but Lewis didn't just have genius. He had genius and moral courage,

and he infused them with each other. And you get something different. It has a moral quality. So when you said that, who was it, Henry James? Yeah, about Shakespeare, that nothing was lost on him. Well, actually, no, then I'm thinking of Lewis. What Lewis said about Edmund Spencer is that Read him is to grow in mental health. To read him is to grow in mental health. That's true of Lewis. Oh.

Is to read Lewis is to grow in mental and spiritual health. How many literary geniuses can we say that about? Not very few. Very few. Very few. I mean, there might be a couple of dozen, but given how many have written, that's very few, isn't it? Well, I mean, I guess I think about Lewis helps you. learn how to live?

Well, Lewis first taught me how to think. My first impression of Lewis was intellectual, and the impact was intellectual, and I thought this guy, you know, I was a debater, I was an argumentative kid, you know, I could take on anybody, and this is one guy I would never want to have to debate because he just knew too much and was too incisive in his thinking. Then came the imagination, because I loved fairy tales myself, have written some fairy tales, and then came the spirit.

And they're all linked. That's the thing about Lewis. The intellect is not separate from your spirit. It's another avenue into your spiritual growth. Well, that's why it's anti-enlightenment. That's why it is kind of medievalist. And when we come back, I want to talk for a moment about, again, you have to be astonished by the genius.

of C.S. Lewis. He wrote poems that are heavenly, that are glorious. He wrote every, seems almost every genre. When we come back, we'll continue the conversation with James Como. C-O-M-O. You can go to Jamescomo.combo. Your horn. Make like a Mr. Mumbles and you're a zero. Make like a Mr. Big, they dig a hero. My Pillow is having their biggest sheet sale of the year.

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Use the promo code Eric. The offer will not last very long because these percal sheets are known to sell very quickly. Order now with promo code Eric at MyPillow.com. That's MyPillow.com promo code, Eric. Folks, welcome back talking to James Como, C-O-M-O, about C.S. Lewis. I was just thinking of Lewis's poem, what the bird said early in the year. I could cry. It's so beautiful.

What the bird said early in the year, I think I remember it begins. I heard in Addison's Walk a bird sing clear. This year, the summer will come true. this year, this year. It's just so glorious. And you think, if I had just written that poem, I could retire. And it's virtually unknown in his oove. It's just this poem.

But it's so beautiful because it links the world of fairy tale with the kingdom of God. It's just, that's what Lewis does. He brings these things together. In here, he brings it together. you're the meeting point. You're the intersection of that because he's your surrogate. You know, to read Lewis,

it's a very intimate relationship that readers have with C.S. Lewis because you get the feeling that he knows you so well that he's speaking right to you. Sometimes he's looking at you. Sometimes he's at your shoulder, pointing something out to you. But many of the people who come to Lewis

want to write about it and talk about him because they know this guy and they want other people to know him. Why? Because he knows them. That's the odd thing about it. He knows you when he writes to you, when he speaks to you.

What was it that Walter Hooper said? And by the way, I want to remind people, if you go to SocratesandtheCity.com, you can see my three conversations with Walter Hooper. You don't really want to miss it because Walter Hooper is, my goodness, just spectacular. But was it Hooper?

I think you quote, him, there's so much in this book that you quote that said that Lewis was the most thoroughly converted man he'd ever known. What did he mean by that? Well, I once asked to Walter

because he told me that too, and I once asked to me, he says there was nothing about Lewis that wasn't converted, not his intellect, not his imagination, not his appetites, you know, carnally, corolli, intellectually, all of it was converted. And the only thing that mattered to Lewis, and Owen Barfield, his great friend says this about Lewis. The only

reason Lewis paid attention to himself was as a kind of examiner looking to correct the flaws that would get him into heaven, right? Wow. And he was worried about his own fame. You know, I think I point this out in the book. Yeah, you do. He has this wonderful poem called the Apologist's Evening Prayer, which ends with Lord of the Narrow Gate and Needle's Eye, take for me all my trumpery, meaning his work, lest I die. And at one point he writes the Italian priest, whom he corresponded with in Latin, that he's afraid he won't write anything else.

The well has dried up, and that's a good thing because he was starting to believe all of the rave reviews he was getting, and it was a temptation to pride. So if the price of avoiding pride was never to write again, so be it. of course outpours narnia shortly thereafter so yeah so much for that and you could in some ways you could argue that's his greatest work i mean those seven books are unlike anything that exists they are just beyond belief almost every genre lewis touched he wrote the landmark okay now that say that again because when i read that in your book i said aha that is correct and i'm glad you brought it up he did what i often aspire to do

In other words, I think that sometimes you're cursed or blessed with being eclectic, right? Some people write novel after novel after novel after novel, and they get better at it. And other people like Lewis, and I find myself doing this, I never met a genre I didn't like type of thing. And you kind of can't help it. But in Lewis's case, he manages to be the best. I mean, when you talk about the Narnia Chronicles, when you talk about, his apologetics when you talk. Everything he touched had, it was as if he'd done nothing else. Well said, yeah, because it's the height of that genre. The screw tape letters, for example,

psychological satire, right? I mean, nothing can approach it. Nothing can approach it. I mean, if he'd just written that book and then a couple of other crummy books, he would be famous for the screw tape letter. Yes, yes. But there aren't any crummy books. You see, that's the thing about, And this applies to as short essays, too. Brilliant, brilliant short essays, incisive short essays. I tried to make a list of all the things C.S. Lewis taught me life lessons, and I have some of them in the book as well.

Not theological stuff. Just intellectual stuff, temperamental, emotional. It goes on and on because he paid attention, you know. Well, you know, nothing was lost on him, was it? But that's what's so amazing. And I think that you realize if you are as gifted as he was gifted, And you don't find anyone more gifted. I mean, you'd have to go to Shakespeare.

He was, the idea that he was aware of this gift and saw it as a potential temptation to pride, I'm so happy to think that, so glad to think that he saw that. Yes. And that, I mean, I guess it's, you know, when Hooper says he was the most thoroughly converted man I'd ever. met. The way I see it as the most thoroughly redeemed in the sense that there wasn't a part of him that he allowed to grow in the flesh. He pruned everything he could. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, before we go on, if we do go on, let me dwell a bit upon Walter Hooper. I'd known Walter Hooper. My wife and I met him in Oxford back in 68, I think, or 69. We were friends for 50 years, right?

and for those who don't know this, who just read Lewis's books, if it warrant for Walter Hooper and the assiduousness of his dedication, we would not have the C.S. Lewis we have today. That is a fact, and if you watch the Socrates and the City interviews I did with Walter Hooper, you will get details on what James Cumber just said. We'll be right back. The TV breaks and movies Folks, welcome back.

Final segment with James Como, C-O-M-O, who's written a new book on C.S. Lewis, the fifth. It's called Mystical Paralander, my lifelong reading of C.S. Lewis and his favorite book. We haven't touched until we have faces, which Lewis wrote, was it his last major book? Close to it. Yeah, his last major fiction.

And that's another book that I think I only read it once, There's certain books, I don't know, like the experience of it. I feel this way about the man who was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton, where you just, it's almost too much. It's just mind-blowing, and you just want to go lie down because it's so, I don't know why I associate the two of them. I think that the ending of Paralandra, the ending of the man who was Thursday, and the ending of Till We Have Faces, It's this kind of beatific vision or something that you just, you're undone and you just want to go take a nap. I don't know if you remember how Till We Have Faces ends, apropos of a previous comment. Queen Oroel, who's the narrator of her own story, first person narrate.

It's a very modern novel, Till we have Faces. It's very interior, right? Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. And as we know, you can talk yourself right into hell. Now, she is on the brink of salvation because she's finally seen how wrong she was. but she won't shut up. She keeps writing. And she's writing words, words, words, brought out to do battle against other words.

If, and she dies. And I'm thinking to shut her up, Lewis had to kill her. If he hadn't killed her then, she'd still be going on and on and on, you know? A magnificent book with unplummed depths to this point. And by the way, he thought that was his best book. Yeah. Well, I think in some ways he's right. Yeah, I do too.

It doesn't mean that I like it the most, but if I have to grade them in terms of literary quality, I mean, he really, and it's so funny, too, he died so young. I mean, 63, so what was he? Barely 65, not even. Barely 65. And when you think of him as an old man, you think, well, the older I get, the less I think of that as old, I think to myself,

he could have continued writing for another 20 years, but he died. I don't even remember what it was that he died of. Well, heart failure ultimately, but organ, I mean, he was a mess. He was a wreck. Why was he a wreck? I mean, I think he lived fairly healthfully, no? No. Maybe ate too much cheese?

He did not. He ate too much. He drank too much. He smoked too much. He drank gallons and gallons of tea, which turned out to be not good for some internal organ. And as much as he walked, see, the walking, he was a great walker. I mean, miles and miles and miles. That kept him alive longer than he otherwise would have been alive. But also medical care. I mean, there wasn't the diagnostic ability that we had.

have now, you know, his prostate was swollen, you know, that kind of thing. He wore a catheter at the end of his life. So a bunch of things, you know, lined up to bring it to the end, ultimately his heart. His heart had to work too hard to keep him alive. But he was very careless about what he ate. I mean, the man did like to eat and the man did like to drink. Yeah, you get the impression of he ate a lot of cheese sandwiches and a lot of, it's funny. A lot of red meat. A lot of red meat. Yeah. Is that bad?

I don't know. Well, you know, everything in moderation is... Well, I mean, it depends on your body type. It depends on many things. But I, yeah, you don't get the impression that he was who... I guess it was our friend, the late Tom Howard, who describes Lewis that he had... What did he say? It was almost like a butcher's face, this kind of ruddy look to him.

And that was, what was that, 61 when he visited him? I think so. Right? At the latest, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe even 60? Yeah, yeah, yeah, 60 or 61.

But in any event, the idea that he was, you know, that he had written everything he had to write, and he was just, you know, in his early to mid-60s. Yeah. And I can't imagine what else he needed to write. He wrote enough for 10 lifetimes. Well, he did. And the great achievement of Lewis. See, this book is kind of emblematic.

I regard my book as emblematic. I by no means claim to be in every man writing for every reader C.S. Lewis. Because I include my story in this. But I do claim, Eric, that a whole bunch of readers of Lewis could write a similar book to what I've written about a different book, perhaps. Yeah. The achievement of C.S. Lewis, in my soul, in my mind, was the achievement of hope.

you read Lewis and I've never had a crisis of faith. Thank God I've never had a crisis of faith. But hope has dimmed from time to time. And I get back to Lewis and I realize because of him what's waiting for us. And hope is rekindled because he saw it. He was the mystic who saw what awaits us. I think, I'm glad you brought this up because I wasn't going to mention it, but Lewis in his writing, mostly in the Narnia Chronicles, there are things that he does, stories that he tells, images that he creates, which are completely unprecedented. There is nothing like them, and they have changed how I see God.

And I think if it weren't for Lewis to write about, whether it's Aslan, or I can never remember who it is who lies down as an old man in the same. stream and is rejuvenated and stands up. It's one of the kings. I don't know if it's Prince Caspian, but it is so glorious. There's no other word. It's so glorious that it transforms your ability to perceive the other side, the spiritual world. It makes it real. And I can't, I literally can't think of anyone else who does that in a way that Lewis does it. If you read his stuff, he gives you help in understanding what, you know. And in seeing it.

That's what I mean. And believing it. Because he wrote with such conviction that you realize he had to have been there and back. It is funny to think that he was. And that he had not just this next level super genius, but that he had that he had that soul. It is amazing. It is absolutely amazing. We just got 30 seconds left.

Let me mention you have written a book. It's called Mystical Paralandra. It's sitting here. My lifelong reading of C.S. Lewis and his favorite book, James Como, C-O-M-O. You have a website, Jamescomo.com. People can find you there. You live in New York. Were you born in New York?

I was. I knew it. I was. So was I. See? There's a few of us. And grew up in Astoria. And grew up in Astoria.

and I was born in Astoria, but I was very young. We're out of time, but what a joy to sort of catch up with you, James Como. Thank you for everything you do. Thank you for coming here. Thanks for having me, Eric. Very much. Thank you. She was making for the trades on the outside.

And the downhill run to Papa Epe off the wind. Folks, the headline is, we need your help. 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 Eric Mataxis.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 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 metaxistalk.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. this. It's always the struggle. God bless you as you give. 844-8663 hope. 844-8663 hope. These are people that are struggling, and we need to do what we can to help them.

844-863 hope. 844-863 hope. Metaxistocot.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 in a in a in a hat so to speak proverbial hat and we'll 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 ten thousand dollars as tax deductible i'd be delighted to have dinner with you to spend an evening with you we always uh managed to make that work so remember eight four four eight six three hope eight four eight six three hope or go to metaxis talk dot com god bless you