Risking Enchantment

“[T]he Middle Ages…was in some ways immeasurably more humane and creative than its modern successors. It was happy to see human life as fully part of the natural world, shaped by the cycles of the sun and moon and the seasons; it was able to articulate a belief that material considerations, convenience, and economic productivity are not the highest goods, and not the only standards by which life s...

"All these things happen on Christmas Eve, they are all told of on Christmas Eve. For ghost stories to be told on any other evening than the evening of the twenty-fourth of December would be impossible in English society as at present regulated. Therefore, in introducing the sad but authentic ghost stories that follow hereafter, I feel that it is unnecessary to inform the student of Anglo-Saxon li...

"A story that was a metaphor for American capitalism in the tale of a great king with three sons: the oldest was given his passion and aggressiveness, the second his sweet nature and child-like qualities, and the third his intelligence, cunning, and coldness. Suddenly I saw the story as one of succession and power."   - Francis Ford Coppola, The Godfather Notebook   In this episodes, I’m delighted...

“The Unknown is at turns gothic and autumnal, grim and threatening or comforting and even silly, with seasons of harvest and hearth giving way to snow and silence.” - Martin Cahill In this episode of Risking Enchantment I'm joined by professional animator Robyn Conroy to discuss the little known gem of autumnal animation that is Cartoon Network's 2014 Over the Garden Wall. The story centres on two...

“There is something in us, as storytellers and as listeners to stories, that demands the redemptive act, that demands that what falls at least be offered the chance to be restored." - Flannery O'Connor For this episode of the podcast we're doubling up the Sherlocks as Rachel is joined by her brother Michael to discuss the film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. In this episode we place the...

“He found himself wondering at times, especially in the autumn, about the wild lands, and strange visions of mountains that he had never seen came into his dreams. He began to say to himself: ‘Perhaps I shall cross the River myself one day.’ To which the other half of his mind always replied: ‘Not yet.’” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring In this episode of the podcast Rachel and Phoebe di...

‘But my dear Sebastian, you can’t seriously believe it all’ ‘Can’t I?’ ‘I mean about Christmas and the star and the three kings and the ox and the ass.’ ‘Oh yes, I believe that. It’s a lovely idea.’ ‘But you can’t believe things because they’re a lovely idea.’ ‘But I do. That’s how I believe.’ Brideshead Revisited   Risking Enchantment returns for its autumn/winter season. As promised our first ep...

"Romance is the deepest thing in life; romance is deeper even than reality." - G.K. Chesterton In this last episode of Risking Enchantment before the summer break, Rachel and Phoebe share their experience of watching musicals from the Golden Age of Hollywood. We discuss their peculiar charm, the effects of the era in which they were made, from cultural mores to filming techniques, and why they are...

“The human mind has no more power of inventing a new value than of imagining a new primary colour, or, indeed, of creating a new sun and a new sky for it to move in.” C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man   In this episode we are joined by Michael Ward, author of the award-winning and best-selling Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis and After Humanity: A Guide to C.S. Lewi...

“[Paradox is] truth standing on its head to gain attention." - G.K. Chesterton In this Easter episode of Risking Enchantment, Rachel and Phoebe discuss two of Chesterton’s books: Manalive and St. Francis of Assisi. We draw out the similarities in themes, characters, and messages between the two books, in particular the use of paradoxes and seeming contradictions, as well as the general atmosphere...

[Joseph’s] incomparable example as a saint fortunate among so many for having lived a common life with Jesus and Mary—a life of service to Christ, a service born of love. - Saint Paul VI on the Feast of Saint Joseph (March 19, 1966)   We’re delighted to welcome Elizabeth Lev back to the podcast. In her first episode, ​​Elizabeth Lev: Founding Christian Art and Redeeming Roman Myth we discussed her...

“The Word himself was the first Gardener. In the beginning he planted a tree in the garden of Eden that grew the fruit of immortal life" - Vigen Guroian In this episode Rachel is joined by Reba Luiken, director of Allen Centennial Garden at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, to discuss how gardening grounds us, both in the gifts of our bodies and the gifts of Creation. We talk about how we can l...

“The great abstract nouns of the classical English moralists are unblushingly and uncompromisingly used: good sense, courage, contentment, fortitude…Contrasted with the world of modern fiction, Jane Austen’s is at once less soft and less cruel.” - C.S. Lewis, “A Note on Jane Austen”   In this episode, we are joined by Haley Stewart, a Catholic convert, writer, speaker, podcaster, and Managing Edit...

“I now see that I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked”. C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters Risking Enchantment is back for 2022, and in our first episode back Rachel is joined by Phoebe, to discuss our resolutions for how we hope to spend our time in the coming year. Using the above quote as inspiration, we discuss how to balance productivity with leisure, how sched...

“The more we are proud that the Bethlehem story is plain enough to be understood by the shepherds, and almost by the sheep, the more do we let ourselves go, in dark and gorgeous imaginative frescoes or pageants about the mystery and majesty of the Three Magian Kings.” - G.K. Chesterton   For our last episode of 2021, Phoebe is back again to discuss the wonderful paradox in celebrating Christmas th...

“A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.” - Italo Calvino In this episode Rachel and Phoebe are back to discuss Classic literature, what is it and why does it matter? We take a look at our own reading journeys and our hopes to try to become “well-read”, as well as a look at what Classic literature means to us, the question of whether all reading is good reading, and...

Who will remember, passing through this Gate, the unheroic dead who fed the guns? Who shall absolve the foulness of their fate,- Those doomed, conscripted, unvictorious ones?" Siegfried Sassoon, 'On Passing The New Menin Gate' November has for many centuries held a place for Catholics as the Month of the Dead, a time to reflect and pray for the departed. In the last century it has also become the...

"I looked at her, with my mind full of that other lovely face which had so ominously recalled her to my memory on the terrace by moonlight. I had seen Anne Catherick's likeness in Miss Fairlie. I now saw Miss Fairlie's likeness in Anne Catherick." - Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White   We are joined for this episode of Risking Enchantment by Catholic author Eleanor Bourg Nicholson. Eleanor has rec...

“For us, we like going back to a time—and I’m sure nostalgia is feeding into that—where cell phones and the internet weren’t around. If you went off with friends, it felt like you really could get lost on a grand adventure.” - The Duffer Brothers In this episode of Risking Enchantment I'm joined by Robyn Conroy, a professional animator who previously joined us for our episodes 'Cartoon Saloon: Cel...

"One writes such a story [The Lord of the Rings] not out of the leaves of trees still to be observed, nor by means of botany and soil-science; but it grows like a seed in the dark out of the leaf-mold of the mind: out of all that has been seen or thought or read, that has long ago been forgotten, descending into the deeps." - J.R.R. Tolkien For this episode we are delighted to be joined by Dr. Hol...

"[T]he first aim of Dante, in his landscape imagery [in the Earthly Paradise], is to show evidence of this perfect liberty, and of the purity and sinlessness of the new nature, converting pathless ways into happy ones." - John Ruskin   For the first episode back from the summer Rachel is joined by Theology Professor Matthew Rothaus Moser to discuss Dante's Divine Comedy and its themes of nature an...

“[God] gave you strength to do what your conscience told you was right; and I don’t see that we need any higher or holier strength than that; or wisdom either." - Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South In this episode Rachel and Phoebe discuss North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. Often dubbed ‘The Victorian Pride and Prejudice’ it is a wonderful love story but also a story of class struggles, the ind...

“Why is it that of all the billions and billions of strange objects in the Cosmos - novas, quasars, pulsars, black holes - you are beyond doubt the strangest” - Walker Percy Lost in the Cosmos   In this episode Rachel is joined by Shane Jenkins to discuss Walker Percy’s satirical self-help book Lost in the Cosmos. In this book Percy explores ideas of the self, as well as the problems of modernity,...

“If we insist on keeping Hell (or even earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell.”   ― C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce   In this episode we are delighted to welcome to the show David Bates, co-host of the Pints with Jack podcast. He joins Phoebe and Rachel to discuss The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis’ imaginar...

“‘You will find,’ he explained, ‘that when the kings are bullies who believe in force, the people are bullies too. If I don't stand for law, I won't have law among my people.’” In this episode Rachel and Phoebe discuss the figure of King Arthur in Malory’s Le Morte Darthur, the biblical echoes of his kingship, his attempt to create a just society and his failure to embody Christ-like ideals. We al...