The Prof's Financial Advice
What To Do When Your CD's Mature

Being a part-time banker myself, I am often answering the question, "what do I do when my CD (or CD's) mature? What do I do with the money?"

I hate to deviate from the common theme of the page, but the issue is stuck in my mind right now. I have had to answer this same question, perhaps forty different times today.
Many people reinvest their CD money into other CD's, especially because short-term rates recently have been rising. Although CD's, even very short-term ones, can be appropriate as part of your overall portfolio, I don’t believe it’s a good strategy to own too many CD's without also owning some longer-term bonds.

Most people own bonds and CDs for the income they provide. You could be putting your long-term goals at risk by owning too many short-term investments. But if CD rates drop and your CD matures, you may have to invest your money at a lower rate, which will reduce your amount of income.

Investment Alternatives

Before automatically reinvesting in CDs, consider some alternatives to help provide income:

Equities that Pay Dividends – Stock investments that historically have paid and increased, dividends can help provide rising income over time. Ask your investment representative about stocks that are believed to offer good value today. Dividends can be increased, decreased or totally eliminated at any point without notice.

Ladder Bond Maturities – Even though short and long-term interest rates are close together right now, it may not stay that way. Many people own short and long-term bonds but neglect the middle of their ladder. I believe that many intermediate-term bonds offer attractive rates with less volatility than those on the
longer end of the ladder (& I like solidity and dependability). By buying bonds with different maturities, you will have money coming due at different times and can be exposed to a variety of interest rates.

Plan Ahead
Most people never ask the investment question until they have to. If you have money coming due in the near future, plan now to make the choices that make sense to you.

I would say that the best Christian History magazine I may have ever picked up would be HERE.
This is actually an archival page, & there is a chance it could move on me...hopefully not. But they cover some really great issues & people.

Allegorically Speaking
Or Not

Perhaps the single most common question about The Chronicles of Narnia asks whether Lewis wrote the series as an allegory. Even if your Biblical knowledge is limited to a few Sunday school classes in third grade, most people would agree, you probably notice that Aslan has many similarities to Jesus Christ. If Lewis added that symbolism on purpose, does that mean that everything in Narnia represents something in the Bible?

C.S. Lewis makes clear that he did not write the Narnian Chronicles as a Biblical "allegory." But you may be asking: How can this be true given the obvious symbolism used throughout the series?

In order to understand Lewis's side of the story, you need to understand the difference between allegory and something he called supposal.

The Gory Details Of Allegory

An allegory is a literary device in which an Author uses the form of a person, place, or animal to represent an abstract idea. For example, an eagle can represent the abstract concept of "freedom," or a Witch can represent "evil."

Much of History's Literature is allegorical, for instance, Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy, represents humanity as the protagonist journeys through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, revolves around concepts like Faith, hope, and mercy, as they become real-life characters in his saga of a man (named Christian) fleeing the wrath to come. So too, Lewis's first book written after his Christian conversion was The Pilgrim's Regress, a Bunyanesque allegory that describes his road to the Christian faith.

In The Allegory of Love, Lewis writes that when you use allegory, "you can start with [facts]...and can then invent...visible things to express them." He adds, "What is good or happy has always been high like the heavens and bright like the sun. Evil and misery were deep and dark from the first."

A broader definition applies when an Author represents real people or places in a fictional context. George Orwell's Animal Farm is a well-known example of this allegorical type. As a way of addressing the issues surrounding the Russian Revolution, Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and other real Historical figures are represented as pigs on a farm.

The Chronicles of Narnia is not in this genre. Lewis did not write the series as an allegory, i.e., using his fantasy setting to represent abstract concepts or real people. In terms of literary style, the series bears no parallels to allegorical works like The Divine Comedy, Animal Farm, or even Lewis's own The Pilgrim's Regress.

In fact, Lewis explicitly warns readers against trying to make a one-for-one match between Narnia and the real world. In a letter to a class in Maryland, he writes, "You are mistaken when you think everything in the books 'represents' something in this world. Things do that in The Pilgrim's Progress but I'm not writing in that way."

Supposedly, There Is A Supposal

Although Lewis makes it clear that The Chronicles of Narnia is not an allegory, he does not deny that symbolism was written into the series. But to understand his approach, you need to recognize that Lewis differentiates allegory from something he calls supposal. In a letter to a girl named Sophia Storr, he explains the difference:

"I don't say, 'Let us represent Christ as Aslan.' I say, 'Supposing there was a world like Narnia, and supposing, like ours, it needed redemption, let us imagine what sort of Incarnation and Passion and Resurrection Christ would have there.'"

Allegory and supposal are not identical devices because they deal with what is real and what is unreal quite differently. In an allegory, the ideas, concepts, and even people being expressed are true, but the characters are make-believe. They always behave in a way reflective of the underlying concepts they are representing.

A supposal is much different; the fictional character becomes "real" within the imaginary world, taking on a life of its own and adapting to the make-believe world as necessary. If, for example, you accept the supposal of Aslan as true, then Lewis says, "He would really have been a physical object in that world as He was in Palestine, and His death on the Stone Table would have been a physical event no less than his death on Calvary."

Aslan is not an allegory of Jesus Christ. Instead, He's a supposal. Lewis emphasizes this point in one of his letters:

"[Aslan] is an invention giving an imaginary answer to the question 'What might Christ become like if there really were a world like Narnia and He chose to be incarnate and die and rise again in that world as He actually has done in ours?' This is not allegory at all."

Much of The Chronicles of Narnia is built on the concept of supposal. For example:

Suppose Christ came into the world of Narnia as Aslan. What would He be like?
Suppose Aslan created Narnia out of nothing and centuries later brought it to a conclusion. How would these stories play out ?
Suppose evil were introduced into Narnia. What would that be like?
Suppose a person or talking animal could freely obey or disobey Aslan. What would life in Narnia be like?

If we understand this vital difference between allegory and supposal, it should make us value the Imagination a bit more...as both Lewis and McDonald spoke of: "purifying the Imagination."
This is a process the Puritans understood, and most of us have forgotten. It involves the beauty of a supposal, with the truths of an allegory.
Don't understand? Maybe it's time to purify the Imagination.
Don't know how? Start with Lewis.

Do we read, or read those who have read?
Source & Secondary

I sometimes get stuck on the issue of Works, & Works of Works...i.e., Do we read the primary work, or do we read what someone else said about it?
In some cases, my thoughts are mixed: for instance, the Scriptures.
There can be no substitute for reading the real Thing. However, if we overlook the writings of our Fathers concerning the Scriptures, & ignore the creeds & catechisms which they drew from these Scriptures, we are full of vain ignorance, thinking that we have nothing to learn from the generations before us.
There was a reason each Council sat down & discussed an issue, or resolved a Heresy. If we would give heed to these men & their lives, we would do well.

However...

We do not say this to negate the importance of the original Author. In fact, while material may be read to suppliment the original piece, as I said before, they should not (usually) supercede the original.
In his essay, “On the Reading of Old Books” in God in the Dock, C. S. Lewis explains a phenomenon of material exchange, still prevalent today:

"I have found as a tutor in English Literature that if the average student wants to find out something about Platonism, the very last thing he thinks of doing is to take a translation of Plato off the library shelf and read the Symposium. He would rather read some dreary modern book ten times as long, about “isms” and influences and only once in twelve pages telling him what Plato actually said. The error is rather an amiable one, for it springs from humility. The student is half afraid to meet one of the great philosophers face to face. He feels himself inadequate and thinks he will not understand him. But if he only knew, the great man, just because of his greatness, is much more intelligible than his modern commentator. The simplest student will be able to understand, if not all, yet a very great deal of what Plato said; but hardly anyone can understand some modern books of Platonism. It has always therefore been one of my main endeavours as a teacher to persuade the young that first-hand knowledge is not only more worth acquiring than second-hand knowledge, but it is usually much easier and more delightful to acquire."

Good point.
Let us not forget what others might say about what we deem important. But let us also remember who said it first.