C.S. Lewis - dangerous heretic?

Cindy_Skillman · March 9, 2018, 2:54am

Jason, just popping in here to recommend “'Til We Have Faces.” It’s a GREAT book and doesn’t take long to read. I loved it.
Dick, I’ve never read “A Grief Observed,” but I think I have it around somewhere. My mom bought it after my dad died because someone recommended it to her – her stock broker I think, strangely enough – she’s never read any other Lewis and she hated it, but I think her cognitive skills were already slipping a bit at that point. She gave it to me and maybe I’ll have a look around for it. So many books – I can never find them when I want them though I’ve tried many times to impose some kind of organization on them. Maybe I need Mr. Dewey.

Sobornost · March 9, 2018, 2:54am

You need to call our Mildred Turnbottom for help there

Regarding a Grief Observed - funnily enough I’ve never turned to it when bereaved personally, but I know some find real comfort in it (that’s a very individual thing). Even it’s apologetics haven’t particularly stayed with me. But what has stayed with me is a palpable sense of Lewis opening up and coming to terms with bereavement. Lewis is always interesting and sometimes easy to love as he is in this book. Also some of the insights about grief - about how much like the emotion of fear it can be - are very illuminating on a very human level.

Cole · March 9, 2018, 2:54am

Dick,

Here it is:

“In speaking of this desire for our own far off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter. Wordsworth’s expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his own past. But all this is a cheat. If Wordsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering. The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”

I use to live in a little town called Weatherford. It’s where I grew up and went to church. Well, about a month ago I decided to visit the church after about 10 years. As soon as I hit the town memories started flooding into my mind. I got to the church and when the music started playing it was ecstasy. The music blended in with all the memories and I could just feel this intuition like there has to be more to it than just all this. All the times, and loves, and romances. Just everything in my life. I can relate to C.S. Lewis here.

Sobornost · March 9, 2018, 2:54am

Is that from ‘Surprised by Joy’ Cole?

Just googled it - and it’s the ‘Weight of Glory’; what a lovely quotation Cole - and that’s a really interesting piece of memoir you’ve given to show and how your experience resonates with Lewis here . And see - in Lewis this longing is a shared thing across humanity (it’s not something confined to the elect). And it is this longing that is part of our intrinsic dignity IMHO. It’s not something external to us - it’s already there, at least potentially, in every human being

Sobornost · March 9, 2018, 2:54am

Cole · March 9, 2018, 2:54am

That is a very good point Dick. I like that.

Cole · March 9, 2018, 2:54am

Dick,

I know what’s wrong with Piper. It’s not only his views about self worth but it’s also his belief in hell. Hell bothers me sometimes too but I’ve let it go. I’m just going to trust God. Anytime any part of my future is disturbed fear hits. And this causes my defects of character to come up. Worry, unhealthy pride, anger, frustration, impatience. It’s all a lack of faith in God to handle my circumstances. If I let go and let God, faith arises, fear is broken, and the defects of character loose their power. They don’t completely go away but their power is broken and I take action.

Cindy_Skillman · March 9, 2018, 2:54am

Dick, you’re probably right, but I’m afraid that Mildred would be entirely horrified and possibly momentarily incapacitated by shock at the disastrous state of my library!

Cole, that is a painfully excruciatingly beautiful quote. (And The Weight of Glory is yet another Lewis book I own and am not quite sure where to find. )

I think, since you posted that quote, you might also love one of my favorites: The Sacred Romance.

Cole · March 9, 2018, 2:54am

I love that book Cindy!!!

Sobornost · March 9, 2018, 2:54am

I’m so glad Cole and I’d only suggest that letting go of

by increments (and always knowing that we will never be perfect and that God forgives and heals us slowly but surely) is big part of what mainstream Christians mean when we talk of dying with Christ and rising with Christ We all need to listen behind the words as much as we can.

Cole · March 9, 2018, 2:54am

It took me years dick and they still crop up. Hey, I need to apologize for that picture in the other thread that I put up with the Bible and all the nails and blood on it. I feel bad for doing that. It was uncalled for.

Sobornost · March 9, 2018, 2:54am

Don’t worry old chap - you were just letting off steam. People have done far worse here

Cole · March 9, 2018, 2:54am

Dick,

My new book I got today:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61ZLjkjYb5L.jpg

Sobornost · March 9, 2018, 2:54am

Enjoy

Cindy_Skillman · March 9, 2018, 2:54am

Beautiful book, Cole!

And a very nice picture of you. My favorite one so far.

Sobornost · March 9, 2018, 2:54am

My favourite too

Cole · March 9, 2018, 2:54am

Cole · March 9, 2018, 2:54am

Alright Dick. Lewis was Episcopalian and they are not dogmatic about hell, so I think I will do this.

Cole · March 9, 2018, 2:54am

Dick,

It’s not a bad thing to seek our own good. This what Christ was doing in His sacrifice. The Bible says that it was by the joy set before Him He endured the cross. It was the joy of purifying His bride and being exalted at the right hand of the Father. He was seeking His own good in this particular instance because He was obeying the Father by showing love for Him and His bride. I think this particular act of Christ was a unique event. We follow in Christ’s footsteps in the sense of showing sacrificial love for others by seeking our own joy too. The Bible says we take care not only of our own needs but also the needs of others. Lewis would agree with this:

If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, unselfishness. But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. - C.S. Lewis, The Weight Of Glory, 1-2.

I’m still going Episcopalian.