Sep
8
Coffee with Lewis: to love or not to love?
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From The Four Loves:
To love anything at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to amke sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket–safe, dark motionless, airless–it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. the only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell. [121]
Sep
3
Coffee with Lewis: forgiveness
Filed Under Around the Church, C.S. Lewis, Christian Living, Coffee with Lewis | Leave a Comment
Every now and then I’ll start throwing in a choice C.S. Lewis quote. His insight, wit and wisdom still amaze me. Here’s a first sip from The Weight of Glory:
To forgive the incessant provocations of daily life–to keep on forgiving the bossy mother-in-law, the bullying husband, the nagging wife, the selfish daughter, the deceitful son–how can we do it? Only, I think, by remembering where we stand, by meaning our words when we say in our prayers each night, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” We are offered forgiveness on no other terms. to refuse it is to refuse God’s mercy for ourselves. There is no hint of exceptions and God means what he says.
Jesus says the a forgiven heart is a forgiving heart (Matthew 18:21-35). Is forgiveness really necessary? According to the Lord’s prayer, practicing forgiveness is as much a part of daily life as seeking food. The Bible is the story of a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin… And this God says the forgiveness I receive is to be translated into forgiveness extended to others.
P.S. Folks in and around Kosciusko ought to come to our FPC Fall Lecture Series, which begins, Thu. Sept. 4 at 6:30 pm in our fellowship hall. Rev. Brad Mercer will present six lectures over the next six weeks on “C.S. Lewis: A Man for All Christians.” Let us know if you want more information. See you there.
Dec
21
Better for nothing than for a nuisance
Filed Under C.S. Lewis, Christmas, Culture, Family, Reading | Leave a Comment
Here’s a Sweet Dropper Christmas tradition [which, being interpreted, means, 'I posted this last Christmas and can't come up with anything better.']
It’s Friday. There must be another Christmas party to attend–I hosted one last night. There must be another little gift to buy. Who’s going to be so favoured as to receive one of my signature fruitcakes? C.S. Lewis wrote a short essay for the December 1957 edition of the publication, Twentieth Century. Under the heading, ‘What Christmas Means to Me,’ Lewis launches a scathing attack on the ‘commercial racket’ that overwhelms the season–NOT because it isn’t ‘religious,’ but because it drains our energies and undermines the merry-making, and hospitality that ought to characterize the season:
The interchange of presents was a very small ingredient in the older English festivity. Mr. Pickwick took a cod with him to Dingley Dell; the reformed Scrooge ordered a turkey for his clerk; lovers sent love gifts; toys and fruit were given to children. But the idea that not only all friends but even all acquaintances should give one another presents, or at least send one another cards, is quite modern and has been forced upon us by the shopkeepers. Neither of these circumstances is in itself a reason for condemning it. I condemn it on the following grounds.
1. It gives on the whole much more pain than pleasure. You have only to stay over Christmas with a family who seriously try to ‘keep’ it [in the commerical sense] in order to see that the thing is a nightmare. Long before December 25th everyone is worn out—physically worn out by weeks of daily struggle in overcrowded shops, mentally worn out by the effort to remember all the right recipients and to think out suitable gifts for them. They are in no trim for merry-making; much less (if they should want to) to take part in a religious act. They look far more as if there had been a long illness in the house.
2. Most of it is involuntary. The modern rule is that anyone can force you to give him a present by sending you a quite unprovoked present of his own. It is almost a blackmail. Who has not heard the wail of despair, and indeed of resentment, when, at the last moment, just as everyone hoped that the nuisance was over for one more year, the unwanted gift from Mrs. Busy (whom we hardly remember) flops unwelcomed through the letter-box, and back to the dreadful shops one of us has to go?
3. Things are given as presents which no mortal ever bought for himself—gaudy and useless gadgets, ‘novelties’ because no one was ever fool enough to make their like before. Have we really no better use for materials and for human skill and time than to spend them on all this rubbish?
4. The nuisance. For after all, during the racket we still have all our ordinary and necessary shopping to do, and the racket trebles the labour of it. We are told that the whole dreary business must go on because it is good for trade. It is in fact merely one annual symptom of that lunatic condition of our country, and indeed of the world, in which everyone lives by persuading everyone else to buy things. I don’t know the way out. But can it really be my duty to buy and receive masses of junk every winter just to help the shopkeepers? If the worst comes to the worst I’d sooner give them money for nothing and write it off as a charity. For nothing? Why, better for nothing than for a nuisance.
From C.S. Lewis, “What Christmas Means to Me,” in God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 304-305.
Sep
12
Proverbs: Too much, continued
Filed Under C.S. Lewis, Christian Living, Ethics, Proverbs | 1 Comment
This past Lord’s Day I preached on the wisdom found in Proverbs concerning excess–or as I called it in the sermon, too much. Alas, I had too much material to include in the time allotted for preaching that evening. I wanted to read a paragraph from C.S. Lewis’ Perelandra, in which Ransom is acclimating himself to the new planet, reminiscent of what Adam’s first hours must have been like in Eden (thanks to Grant Carroll for bringing this passage to my attention last week):
Now he had come to a part of the wood where great globes of yellow fruit hung from the tress–clustered as toy-balloons are clustered on the back of the balloon-man and about the same size. He picked one of them and turned it over and over. The rind was smooth and firm and seemed impossible to tear open. Then by accident one of his fingers punctured it and went through into coldness. After a moment’s hesitation he put the little aperture up to his lips. He had meant to extract the smallest, experimental sip, but the first taste put his caution all to flight. It was, of course, a taste, just as his thirst and hunger had been thirst and hunger. But then it was so different from every other taste that it seemed mere pedantry to call it a taste at all. It was like the discovery of a totally new genus of pleasures, something unheard of among men, out of all reckoning, beyond all covenant. For one draught of this on earth wars would be fought and nations betrayed. it could not be classified. He could never tell us, when he came back to the world of men, whether it was sharp or sweet, savoury or voluptuous, creamy or piercing. “Not like that” was all he could ever say to such inquiries. As he let the empty gourd fall from his hand and was about to pluck a second one, it came into his head that he was now neither hungry nor thirsty. And yet to repeat a pleasure so intense and almost so spiritual seemed an obvious thing to do. His reason, or what we commonly take to be reason in our own world, was all in favour of tasting this miracle again; the childlike innocence of fruit, the labours he had undergone, the uncertainty of the future, all seemed to commend the action. Yet something seemed opposed to this “reason.” It is difficult to suppose that this opposition came from desire, for what desire would turn from so much deliciousness? But for whatever cause, it appeared to him better not to taste again. Perhaps the experience had been so complete that repetition would be a vulgarity–like asking to hear the same symphony twice in a day.”
Did you catch that? Perhaps the experience had been so complete that repetition would be a vulgarity. Something in Lewis’ thought here sheds light on our sinful tendency to overindulge and binge. We find something good and pleasurable, and we feel we must have more and more and more. Opposed to us is the teaching of Proverbs 25:16: If you have found honey, eat only enough for you, lest you have your fill of it and vomit it. Paul’s expression their god is their belly comes to mind as well.
When you look at it closely, too much is a lordship problem, a worship disorder. Who is your master, God or your desires? Do you desire God above all else, is he the strength of your heart and your portion forever? Or do you desire something in the creation more than you desire the Creator? At root, drunkards and gluttons and workaholics and exercise-obsessives are worshiping another god. Their worship is actually a form of self-worship. We worship what brings us joy and contentment and rest.
I had the opportunity to feast with dear Christian brethren last night in Fort Collins, Colorado (I’m here for the annual RYM board meeting). My conscience was teased along with the thought: there was plenty of “honey” to eat, but how much better to taste and move on, rather than have my fill and vomit it.
Dec
14
Better for nothing than for a nuisance
Filed Under C.S. Lewis, Christmas, Family | Leave a Comment
It’s Wednesday. There must be another Christmas party to attend. There must be another little gift to buy. Who’s going to be so favoured as to receive one of my signature fruitcakes? I need to credit fellow-laborer for the gospel Brad Mercer of First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, Mississippi, for bringing out the following C.S. Lewis excerpt from his vast and varied studies. It comes from a short essay Lewis wrote for the December 1957 edition of the publication, Twentieth Century. Under the heading, ‘What Christmas Means to Me,’ Lewis launches a scathing attack on the ‘commercial racket’ that overwhelms and undermines the celebration, merry-making, and hospitality that characterize the season.
From C.S. Lewis’ “What Christmas Means to Me”:
The interchange of presents was a very small ingredient in the older English festivity. Mr. Pickwick took a cod with him to Dingley Dell; the reformed Scrooge ordered a turkey for his clerk; lovers sent love gifts; toys and fruit were given to children. But the idea that not only all friends but even all acquaintances should give one another presents, or at least send one another cards, is quite modern and has been forced upon us by the shopkeepers. Neither of these circumstances is in itself a reason for condemning it. I condemn it on the following grounds.
1. It gives on the whole much more pain than pleasure. You have only to stay over Christmas with a family who seriously try to ‘keep’ it [in the commerical sense] in order to see that the thing is a nightmare. Long before December 25th everyone is worn out—physically worn out by weeks of daily struggle in overcrowded shops, mentally worn out by the effort to remember all the right recipients and to think out suitable gifts for them. They are in no trim for merry-making; much less (if they should want to) to take part in a religious act. They look far more as if there had been a long illness in the house.
2. Most of it is involuntary. The modern rule is that anyone can force you to give him a present by sending you a quite unprovoked present of his own. It is almost a blackmail. Who has not heard the wail of despair, and indeed of resentment, when, at the last moment, just as everyone hoped that the nuisance was over for one more year, the unwanted gift from Mrs. Busy (whom we hardly remember) flops unwelcomed through the letter-box, and back to the dreadful shops one of us has to go?
3. Things are given as presents which no mortal ever bought for himself—gaudy and useless gadgets, ‘novelties’ because no one was ever fool enough to make their like before. Have we really no better use for materials and for human skill and time than to spend them on all this rubbish?
4. The nuisance. For after all, during the racket we still have all our ordinary and necessary shopping to do, and the racket trebles the labour of it. We are told that the whole dreary business must go on because it is good for trade. It is in fact merely one annual symptom of that lunatic condition of our country, and indeed of the world, in which everyone lives by persuading everyone else to buy things. I don’t know the way out. But can it really be my duty to buy and receive masses of junk every winter just to help the shopkeepers? If the worst comes to the worst I’d sooner give them money for nothing and write it off as a charity. For nothing? Why, better for nothing than for a nuisance.
From C.S. Lewis, “What Christmas Means to Me,” in God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 304-305.