Aug. 27, 2023, column from the Amarillo Globe-News:

C.S. Lewis retreat to focus on 'Silver Chair,'

Amarillo author to debut new book

By Mike Haynes

                Jill Pole receives “The Four Signs” from Aslan the lion as she and friend Eustace Scrubb try to find the kidnapped Prince Rilian. Jill is told to remember the four instructions, but she is careless in following through, which almost keeps the young duo from completing their quest.

                Readers of “The Silver Chair,” one of seven children’s books in C.S. Lewis’s “Chronicles of Narnia” series, will recognize those characters. And thanks to an Amarillo author, the plot line will figure strongly into an adult Christian retreat between Houston and College Station in October.

                Nan Rinella organized the annual C.S. Lewis Retreat at Camp Allen, near Navasota, for many years. She has stepped back from that job, but as a longtime volunteer for the California-based C.S. Lewis Foundation, she suggested that the theme for this year’s retreat should be something from “The Silver Chair” because the book was published exactly 70 years ago, in 1953.

                So this year’s theme will be “Remember the Signs: Faith, Knowing and the Real in ‘The Silver Chair.’” And though Lewis wrote the Narnia books for children, the “readers, writers and mere Christians” who will attend the Oct. 13-15 event will discuss that topic on a variety of scholarly and spiritual levels.

                Information on registration and lodging at Camp Allen can be found at cslewis.org under “Events.”

                The retreat features speakers, musicians, dancers and breakout sessions with a readers’ track and a writers’ track plus a livestream option for those who can’t attend. Main speakers will be Christin Ditchfield Lazo of Alexandria, Virginia, author of “A Family Guide to Narnia: Biblical Truths in C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia,” and Charlie Starr of Alderson Broaddus University in West Virginia, author of “The Lion’s Country: C.S. Lewis’s Theory of the Real.”

                The retreat pastor will be Andrew Lazo of Alexandria, Virginia, author of “Mere Christians: Inspiring Encounters with C.S. Lewis.” Performers will include singer-songwriter-Episcopal priest Josh Bales and the Ad Deum Dance Company of Houston.

                Organizers say the event will be an “experience of faith, reason and imagination” – three strengths that Lewis used to lead people toward Jesus Christ.

                Kirk Manton, chief operating officer of Amarillo’s Sharpened Iron Studios and author of two poetry books, will lead the retreat’s technology staff, a volunteer task he has done for many years.

Nan Rinella

And in a coincidence that might correspond to the retreat’s theme of watching for signs, Rinella plans to attend and launch the second novel in her series, “The Choice.”

Inspired by Narnia characters, by Lewis and by his friend, J.R.R. Tolkien, Rinella’s first book, “Dreams in the Distance,” follows two young English women and three military veterans – one English, one Scottish and one American – who seek to reclaim dreams they put on hold during World War II.

In her second installment, “Hopes on the Horizon,” the five young people grapple with doubt, pride, guilt, fear and other obstacles, trying to determine which inner voices they should listen to and which come from a dark source.

Both novels include what might be called cameo appearances by Lewis and Tolkien in chapters set in Oxford, England.

Rinella expects “Hopes” and a revised version of “Dreams” to be available at amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com by October. She is working on the third book, part of which will be set around the 1953 coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Her story lines include a devastating train crash, a British intelligence operative looking for moles, a humanist professor speaking with Tolkien and Lewis in the audience, romantic drama and spiritual soul-searching.

Readers can expect doses of faith, reason and imagination in Rinella’s stories. She hopes to be talking about them with fellow Christians in the piney woods of Camp Allen in October.

* * *

Nan Rinella, Kirk Manton and other supporters of the C.S. Lewis Foundation meet at 5:30 p.m. on the fourth Monday of each month to discuss Lewis’s books and for Christian fellowship. Email haynescolumn@gmail.com for details.