Tributes from Friends
October, 2003
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Sept 9, 1997
Dear Joshua,

It is past time for me to let you know how much I enjoy and appreciate your contributions to the MACDONALD listserve.

Kathryn Lindskoog
Orange, California

Sept 10, 1997
Dear Kathryn,

Thank you for your kind note. It's nice to know that one is appreciated by someone, especially someone whom one also respects and admires. I read your book on Lewis over 25 years ago. It is still with me. Every time I wanted a quick refreshment on some of Lewis' ideas, your book was of great help to me. I also greatly enjoyed reading your essay on Sadhu Sundar Singh and his connection with GM and CSL. One almost needs a "second sight" to see them thus connected. Would love to see more of your contributions to the GM list.

Under the Mercy and the Power,
Joshua
Hong Kong
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The above tells how Kathryn and I began our "electronic" acquaintance in 1997. The following year I began writing on Lewis, in English in the beginning, followed by co-translating Lewis's LETTERS TO MALCOLM into Chinese, writing on Lewis in Chinese and finally on GM in Chinese. Kathryn was a tremendous help to me in the beginning. Where she could help herself she would do so tirelessly, despite her medical condition. Where she could not help herself, such as with translating some Latin and French quotes in Lewis's book, she put me in touch with some one who could. I am also glad that I was able to supply a good biblical reference to her for a recent book of hers, for which she expressed deep gratitude and made clear acknowledgement, amply testifying to her great honesty and generosity.

Disagreement with her was absolutely OK with her, provided of course it arose from honest intellectual conviction. We had corresponded over some issues on which we didn't exactly hold the same conclusion.

She introduced me to the problem of forgery in the Lewis canon whose purity she had spent an incredibly amount of energy to defend. I am truly grateful to her for removing my ignorance in an important area that concerns my great intellectual and spiritual mentor.

I bet Kathryn is having lots of surprises at present. She will be unclothed and re-clothed as all of us will be.

Under the Mercy and the Power,
Joshua

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I am so sad to hear the news of Kathryn's death. Although I never met her, I have several of her books about Lewis and came to this website from time to time to see what was new and what she was up to. I live in India and never got to meet her though would have loved to, but? Through her writings, I feel in my own way I knew her. Here is a Requiem that you may pass onto John and the rest of her family if you feel it is appropriate.

Requiem

We seem to give her back to Thee, dear God,
Who gavest her to us.
Yet as Thou didst not lose her in giving,
So we have not lost her by her return.
Not as the world giveth, givest Thou,
O Lover of Souls!
For what is Thine is ours always, If we are Thine.
And life is eternal, and love is immortal
And death is only a horizon,
And a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.
Lift us up, strong Son of God,
That we may see farther;
Cleanse our eyes that we may know
Ourselves nearer our beloved who are with Thee.
And while Thou dost prepare a place for us,
Prepare us for that happy place,
That where they are and Thou art,
We, too, may be.

My prayers are with you and with her whole family at this time.

"To live in the hearts we leave behind is not to die"

A friend, Asha

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Oh how I would LOVE to be a fly-on-the-wall....eavesdropping on the animated conversation going on now with CSLewis, GMD, and Kathryn L.!

And wouldn't it be marvelous to follow her around the next few days, as she visits with Dorothy Sayers....Dante... all those she loved sooo passionately in this life, that her greatest joy was SHARING these human gems with the dull masses (like myself) who needed her sparks for our own lives to catch fire...

It's a good thing heaven has a rewind button.

(Another "great moment" i want to see on instant replay is....is Mother Teresa meeting her beloved Jesus...

....doesn't the thought just give you tingles? :-)

Chere

Wonderful statement, Chere, and absolutely true. Strangely, I miss Kathryn now even though I didn't miss her when she was alive. I envy her her bravery and stoic Christian courage, the heart of a lion.

Praise God!
God bless you!
Eugene L.