Pines for Jack, Season 4, Episode 59. After Hours. The Barfield Buffet, Part 1.

Hello everyone. Today is the final Thursday in April, meaning that this should be the last episode in

Barfield Month. but it's not.

Over the past month, we've been looking at the life and the work of Owen Barfield,

the first and last inkling.

We've spoken to his grandson, Owen A. Barfield.

We've looked at his literature and poetry with Jake Graftonstedt,

and we've looked at how Tolkien manifested some of Barfield's

ideas surrounding language with Rob Coons. And last week we spoke to Mark Vernon about his book,

The Secret History of Christianity, applying Barfield's ideas surrounding the evolution of consciousness

to the story of salvation history. And over the course of this month, I've had a number of

Barfield fans and scholars reach out to me. And so I decided to host what I'm calling a Barfield

buffet. I've invited these fans and scholars to tell me about how they came across Barfield

and to talk about some of the value that they

find in his work. And what I've done is I've stitched all of these different monologues together

and today I'm sharing part one of the buffet, the appetizer course, if you will. Do buffets

have courses? Anyway, today I'm sharing part one and next Thursday I'll be sharing part two of the collection,

just because I had so many folks wanting to share their Barfieldian experiences.

Now, before we jump in, I do want to share a quarter of the week, and this comes from Barfield's book,

Night Operation.

He writes, when the velocity of progress increases beyond a certain point, it becomes indistinguishable

from crisis. For my drink of the week, I'm enjoying some black tea with milk now that

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