Though I wouldn't have admitted it, even to myself, I didn't want God aboard. He was too heavy.

I wanted him approving from a considerable distance. I didn't want to be thinking of him. I wanted to be

free, like gypsy. I wanted life itself, the color and fire and loveliness of life. In Christ, now and then,

like a love poem I could read when I wanted to.

I didn't want us to be swallowed up in God.

I wanted holidays from the School of Christ.

This is Pines with Jack, season five, episode 65,

The Noter Van Gang, after hours with Philip, Natalie, and Soren.

Good morning, everyone. Pines with Jack is your favorite weekly CS-Lewis podcast, where together

with David and Andrew, we break down and discuss the works of C.S. Lewis. Now, back in June,

we had a severe mercy month, and you might have thought you'd heard enough of it. But we have a

bonus episode today. And this episode is coming out a little bit after that month. I could argue

because I wanted you guys to chew on it, and then we get to come back to this great book

a couple months later. But in reality, it is because I was a little

delayed in scheduling this. And so we're going to have this coming out slightly later. And this

was despite David pestering me to get on this much sooner. So regardless, you guys get a second

dose of a severe mercy month. And today,

I am joined not by one, not by two, but three guests. And they'll be talking to us today

about the author of a severe mercy, Sheldon Vanalkin. We are calling us the Notre Van Gogh.

Because three of the four of us once Notre Dame and Natalie,

who I will introduce in a sec, is spent a lot of time down at Notre Dame.

And so we're all very much connected to that.

...