The Ultimate Judge

When I disagree with a rational man, I let reality be our final arbiter; if I am right, he will learn; if I am wrong, I will; one of us will win, but both will profit.

- Ayn Rand

Help

To what will you look for help if you will not look to that which is stronger than yourself?

- C. S. Lewis

I have a hard time with this. I'm in a tough and scary position right now spiritually. I want a mentor. I want someone older and with more experience than me as a Christian that I can trust. I want someone who has lived a real life through their faith, in the unshakable attempt to seek and live God's will for them. I'm not looking for someone who's perfect, or lived a perfect life, but someone who's lived and is living consistently with Him and His effect on him in mind. Where can I look for this than to someone that is stronger than me? I haven't found that person yet. I've prayed for that person, but they haven't come along. I've looked for someone in a couple of different churches. I haven't looked explicitly, for fear that I would find the exact wrong person: how can this person be who I'm looking for while at the same time claim to be these things upon my solicitation? This failure to find anyone thusfar has led me to this scary position. I am being set up to believe that there's no one I can talk to that is further along in the journey than me. I know this to be a massive temptation to a line of thinking that is utterly false when examined in light of what must be. The problem is that I've found no one, and no one has found me, so it seems that there's no one out there that fits the bill. Maybe the point is that right now, it is best for me not to meet that person. Right now, and over the last year and a half, my mentors have been Lewis and MacDonald. Maybe the truth is they haven't taught me everything I need to learn yet. Whatever the answer is, I just wish that there was a real person that I could interact with, that I could be friends with, that could help me where I have questions, or add another slat to the bridge I'm trying to build between ignorance and understanding.

Lord, please send me the one (or many) that are stronger than me and available to me, and make me available to them.
- Amen

More Me

Why so many quotes, why not more of my own stuff? I don't know if I know. Maybe it is because the chief editor of this blog (me, for those in the dark) doesn't think my stuff is up to snuff. He thinks there are men and women that he considers to be much smarter than me, and so their words appear here much more often than mine. They have incredible things to say...things he could never imagine me coming up with, but things that I identify with on a deep level nonetheless. I like to share it when something touches me that deeply, and sometimes, most times, I don't know what more to say about the quotes that they haven't already said for themselves.

Here's what I know: I'm scared to write for an audience. I lack the confidence that I will have anything interesting or intelligent, entertaining or inspiring to say. And if you can't do one of those four things, why say anything at all? (I think that's a direct quote from my editor). What is it that I could have to say that would hold your interest? I also fear that I'll say something that I won't have any clue how to back up. I don't know why, but being in that position makes me uncomfortable.

Maybe my editor is missing something. If I can't be intelligent, interesting, entertaining or inspiring, maybe I can at least be honest. I think I read somewhere that all those things, those qualities we consider appealing in an author's work fall into line when honesty is achieved. When universal truth is tapped into, it strikes a chord with everyone. Perhaps the aim should simply be honesty, maybe that's the answer to my confidence problem.

Based on a suggestion from my lovely wife, (which for me served as a reminder of sorts, since I originally told her this is what I intended to do with the blog all along) I will make an effort to at least comment on the quotes I post, to do my best to clarify how I interpret their meaning, and maybe take a shot at explaining why they mean what they mean to me. So, hold on to your butts...

The Thing that Chose

...bad psychological material is not a sin but a disease. It does not need to be repented of, but to be cured.

When a man who has been perverted from his youth and taught that cruelty is the right thing, does some tiny little kindness, or refrains from some cruelty he might have committed, and thereby, perhaps, risks being sneered at by his companions, he may, in God's eyes, be doing more than you and I would if we gave up life itself for a friend.

...That is why Christians are told not to judge. We see only the results which a man's choices make out of his raw [psychological] material. But God does not judge him on the raw material at all, but on what he has done with it. Most of the man's psychological make-up is probably due to his body: when his body dies all that will fall off him, and the real central man, the thing that chose, that made the best or the worst out of this material will stand naked. All sorts of nice things which we thought our own, but which were really due to a good digestion, will fall off some of us: all sorts of nasty things which were due to complexes or bad health will fall off others. We shall then, for the first time, see every one as he really was. There will be surprises.

- C. S. Lewis

God is All in All, or No God at All

Either not a sparrow falls to the ground without Him, or there is no God, and we are all fatherless children. Those who attempt to live in such limbo as lies between the two are only driven of the wind and tossed.

- George MacDonald

Hard Driving

If you are a nice person - if virtue comes easily to you - beware! Much is expected from those to whom much is given. If you mistake for your own merits what are really God's gifts to you through nature, and if you are contented with simply being nice, you are still a rebel: and all those gifts will make your fall more terrible, your corruption more complicated, your bad example more disastrous...But if you are a poor creature - poisoned by a wretched upbringing in some house full of wretched jealousies and senseless quarrels - saddled, by no choice of your own, with some loathsome sexual perversion - nagged day in and day out by an inferiority complex that makes you snap at your best friends - do not despair. He knows all about it. You are one of the poor whom he blessed. He knows what a wretched machine you are trying to drive. Keep on. Do what you can. One day (perhaps in another world, but perhaps far sooner than that) He will fling it on the scrap heap and give you a new one. And then you may astonish us all - not least yourself: for you have learned your driving in a hard school. (Some of the last will be first and the first will be last)

- C. S. Lewis

The Value of a Good Heart

Before the throne of the Almighty, man will be judged not by his acts but by his intentions. For God alone reads our hearts.

- Mohandas Gandhi

Husbands Love Your Wives

...Christian law has crowned [the man] in the permanent relationship of marriage, bestowing - or should I say inflicting? - a certain "headship" on him. ...Christian writers (notably Milton) have sometimes spoken of the husband's headship with a complacency to make the blood run cold. We must go back to our Bibles. The husband is the head of the wife just in so far as he is to her what Christ is to the Church. He is to love her as Christ loved the Church - read on - and give his life up for her (Eph V, 25). This headship, then, is most fully embodied not in the husband we should all wish to be but in him whose marriage is most like a crucifixion; whose wife receives most and gives least, is most unworthy of him, is - in her own mere nature - least lovable. For the Church has no beauty but what the Bride-groom gives her; he does not find, but makes her, lovely. The chrism of this terrible coronation is to be seen not in the joys of any man's marriage but in its sorrows, in the sickness and sufferings of a good wife or the faults of a bad one, in his unwearying (never paraded) care or his inexhaustible forgiveness: forgiveness, not acquiescence. As Christ sees in the flawed, proud, fanatical or lukewarm Church on earth that Bride who will one day be without spot or wrinkle, and labors to produce the latter, so the husband whose headship is Christ-like (and he is allowed no other sort) never despairs. He is a King Cophetua who after twenty years still hopes that the beggar-girl will one day learn to speak the truth and wash behind her ears.

To say this is not to say that there is any virtue or wisdom in making a marriage that involves such misery. There is no wisdom or virtue in seeking unnecessary martyrdom or deliberately courting persecution; yet it is, none the less, the persecuted or martyred Christian in whom the pattern of the Master is most unambiguously realized. So, in these terrible marriages, once they have come about, the "headship" of the husband, if only he can sustain it, is most Christ-like.

The sternest feminist need not grudge my sex the crown offered to it either in the Pagan or in the Christian mystery. For the one is of paper and the other of thorns. The real danger is not that husbands may grasp the latter too eagerly; but that they will allow or compel their wives to usurp it.

- C. S. Lewis

Extreme Errors

[The devil] always sends errors into the world in pairs - pairs of opposites. And he always encourages us to spend a lot of time thinking which is the worse. You see why, of course? He relies on your extra dislike of the one error to draw you gradually into the opposite one. But do not let us be fooled. We have to keep our eyes on the goal and go straight through between both errors. We have no other concern than that with either of them.

- C. S. Lewis

What Vampires and God Have in Common

God will not force any door open to enter the house of our hearts. He might send a violent storm on every side; the wind of his admonishment may burst doors and windows, indeed, shake the house to its foundations; but not even then will He enter. The door must be opened by the willing hand; then and only then will the foot of Love cross the threshold. He watches and waits to see the door open from within. Every storm sent by God is an assault in the siege of Love. The terror of God is only the other side of His love; it is love outside that would be inside - love that knows the house is no house at all, but only a place, until He has entered.

- paraphrased from George MacDonald

So, what can He do? What power has He allowed Himself over us? How free is our free will? I'm afraid I don't really know. MacDonald's quote seems to suggest that He's limited Himself to some extent. Lewis has said before that for whatever reason He has limited Himself, and with the allowance of all the suffering and pain that come with free will, He thought it worth it. That's as far as I know Lewis to have gone with the thought. Just because God thinks free will worth it does not make its consequences any easier to deal with: perhaps easier to accept in the long run, but not easier to take in the moment. Do the tools God does allow Himself to use indirectly influence our will, our 'free' will? Can a 'storm' break our resolve? Can the 'winds of admonishment' sway us to relent our vice grip on the doorknob of our hearts? I don't know the answer to any of these questions. I hope some day either I will know, or else that they won't matter anymore.

I Owe Myself

- "But does a man owe nothing to himself?"

- "Nothing that I know of. I am under no obligation to myself. How can I divide myself and say the one half of me is indebted to the other? To my mind, it is a mere fiction of speech."

- "But [from where], then, [does] such a fiction [come]?"

- "From the dim sense of a real obligation, I suspect - the object of which is mistaken. I suspect it really springs from our relation to the unknown God, so vaguely felt that a false form is readily accepted for its embodiment..."

- George MacDonald

Unbreakable Heart

There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make 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 [agitations] of love is Hell.

- C. S. Lewis

Why does this version of Hell seem so tempting to me? Can I have it both ways? Can I protect my heart from being 'wrung' and 'possibly broken' while at the same time allowing for love to come in? Must I risk in order to receive the reward in this case? What when I have lost it all on a yet another risk of vulnerability? How much can one heart take before it dies from another beating? Will the chance to risk again be presented to infinity, or will the heart's endurance finally fail? I feel I must leave my heart open...otherwise not only will it petrify and finally die, but it will do the same to the innocent hearts it meets. In theory I can endure my lone pain, I can't endure causing it in others for very long with much success.

The Secret of Your Heart

It is only in Him that the soul has room. In knowing Him is life and its gladness. The secret of your own heart you can never know; but you can know Him who knows its secret.

- George MacDonald

First Things First

I may repeat 'Do as you would be done by' till I am [blue] in the face, but I cannot carry it out till I love my neighbor as myself: and I cannot learn to love my neighbor as myself till I learn to love God: and I cannot learn to love God except by learning to obey Him.

- C. S. Lewis

By obeying one learns how to obey.

- George MacDonald

Had he done as the Master had told him, he would soon have come to understand. Obedience is the opener of eyes.

- George MacDonald

Obedience is the one key of life

-George MacDonald

I have experienced the ease that obedience yields with practice. It is getting past the first two or three hurdles of initial obedience that's the trick. When I figure out a formula that's consistent, I'll let the world know. Until then, all I can offer you is to pray. He has the power to lend us for the task of perfect obedience. For some reason He doesn't find it prudent (at least not at this stage of our existence) to keep the power flowing in a continuous stream. He also seems to think prayer a good thing for transmitting that power to us.

God's Humility

It is a poor thing to [pledge our allegiance] to God when the [ship of our lives is sinking under us]; a poor thing to come to Him as a last resort, to offer up 'our own' when it is no longer worth keeping. If God were proud He would hardly have us on such terms: but He is not proud, He stoops to conquer, He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to Him, and come to Him because there is 'nothing better' now to be had.

- C. S. Lewis

When I'm floundering in sin, I find myself hopeless, with the attitude of indifference (at best). In these times I've noticed that I really have no interest in turning to God at the cost of turning from my sin. Give me both and I can, with little difficulty, persuade myself to believe that all is well, or rather, that all is not all that bad. In this all too frequent condition, I see little if any merit in turning fully from my sin to Him. It takes an experience of my world being knocked of off its axis to move me from this half kneeling-half standing position of pseudo submission to Him - which is really no submission at all - to help me realize that I had been sleepwalking all the while. The haze of the daze I was in had blinded me from the truth that there is only merit in one way of life. I'm glad He's not proud, and that He puts up with this pattern of mine over and over again without contempt or malice. He greets me like the prodigal father of the great parable without fail, even while embracing me in my still 'pigpenish' condition.

Letting Go

Ask God - He is there - to take over your life. Tell Him that you give up...and He will take over, I know He will. It won't feel like He will, many times it won't...you will wonder time after time if He's there. Take heart, He's like that. He pulls away to let you see what you can do on your own...mostly I think He does it because He delights in hearing His children cry out for His help when they fail. And they do fail, over and over again. He knows a little secret that's really frustrating to us right now: what we need most at this stage in our development as humans is to cry out to Him and have Him teach us to succeed, with his hand guiding ours, and gently letting go, time after time, lest we think we can succeed in such an impossible task as life without Him. When you think He's not there, yell at (for) Him...tell Him that you don't think He's doing what you asked, tell Him that you are counting on Him, and tell Him to do his job or you'll die. The main thing is, don't stop talking to Him...give Him a piece of your mind every day, whether you're asking Him for the same thing over and over again, complaining about how you can't see Him or feel Him making a difference, or in the rare but so very spectacular moments when he throws a miracle in your face to remind you who's got things under control, tell Him thank you for being there when you had no reason before to believe He was. If He's never thrown a miracle in your face before, and you are upset enough about it, tell Him - He wants your complaints as well as your dependence.

"Complaint against God is far nearer to God than indifference."
- George MacDonald

Passage from The Great Divorce

Student: "Is it really tolerable that she should be untouched by his misery, even his self-made misery?"

Mentor: "Would ye rather he still had the power of tormenting her? He did it many a day and many a year in their earthly life."

Student: "Well, no. I suppose I don't want that."

Mentor: "What then?"

Student: "I hardly know, Sir. What some people say on Earth is that the final loss of one soul gives the lie to all the joy of those who are saved."

Mentor: "Ye see it does not."

Student: "I feel in a way that it ought to."

Mentor: "That sounds very merciful: but see what lurks behind it."

Student: "What?"

Mentor: "The demand of the loveless and the self-imprisoned that they should be allowed to blackmail the universe: that till they consent to be happy (on their own terms) no one else shall taste joy: that theirs should be the final power; that Hell should be able to veto Heaven."

Student: "I don't know what I want, Sir."

Mentor: "Son, son, it must be one way or the other. Either the day must come when joy prevails and all the makers of misery are no longer able to infect it: or else for ever and ever the makers of misery can destroy in others the happiness they reject for themselves..."

Student: "But dare one say - it is horrible to say - that Pity must ever die?

Mentor: "Ye must distinguish. The action of Pity will live for ever: but the passion of Pity will not. The passion of Pity, the Pity we merely suffer, the ache that draws men to concede what should not be conceded and to flatter when they should speak the truth, the pity that has cheated many a woman out of her virginity and many a statesman out of his honesty - that will die. It was used as a weapon by bad men against good ones: their weapon will be broken."

Student: " And what is the other kind [of Pity] - the action?"

Mentor: "It's a weapon on the other side. It leaps quicker than light from the highest place to the lowest to bring healing and joy, whatever the cost to itself. It changes darkness into light and evil into good. But it will not, at the cunning tears of Hell, impose on good the tyranny of evil. Every disease that submits to a cure shall be cured: but we will not call blue yellow to please those who insist on still having jaundice, nor make a midden of the world's garden for the sake of some who cannot abide the smell of roses."

- paraphrased from C. S. Lewis

Rx for Despair and Madness

Instead of so knowing Christ that they have Him in them saving them, they lie wasting themselves in soul-sickening self-examination as to whether they are believers, whether they are really trusting in the atonement, whether they are truly sorry for their sins - the way to madness of the brain, and despair of the heart.

- George MacDonald

Self-Denial

The self is given to us that we may sacrifice it: it is ours, that we, like Christ, may have somewhat to offer - not that we should torment it, but that we should deny it; not that we should cross it, but that we should abandon it utterly: then it can no more be vexed. "What can this mean? - we are not to thwart, but to abandon? ...It means this: - we must refuse, abandon, deny self altogether as a ruling, or determining, or originating element in us. It is to be no longer the regent of our action. We are no more to think "What should I like to do?" but "What would the Living One have me do?"

- George MacDonald

I Corinthians 13:4-8

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails...
- Saint Paul
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Am I capable of loving someone? Really loving someone? I usually think I am, but sometimes I wonder if I'm fooling myself. Love, as far as I can tell from what I take as reliable sources, is a selfless act. It is an act, not a feeling - though feelings can and most often do come with it in the lower and more particular strands of love. The 'not a feeling' part is not hard for me. I can operate without feelings and still do what I believe is right. It's in some of the particulars of real Love, true Love, that worry me sometimes. How can I exhibit what C. S. Lewis lays out as traditional 'Christian Love' (see The Greatest of These is Love post)? More importantly, how can I exhibit in its entirety what Saint Paul defines as Love? Fortunately, by God's grace I presume, patience, kindness, humility, civility, truth and hope come to me relatively easy when anything loving comes to me at all. These seem to be the raw materials that God entrusted me with as my strengths. My first weakness with Love leaps to life with the attribute where it 'does not take into account a wrong suffered'. My name's Jeff, and I keep account of wrongs (there, I was finally able to admit it) - not necessarily because I want to, but because for every wrong, there's a wound that would seem to not let me forget them when I try. I question myself and whether or not I am truly loving if I keep account of wrongs. On the one hand, I believe I have to let them go if I'm to love. On the other hand, how can I dismiss the pain? How can I directly and immediately will feelings out of existence? I can't. No one can. So where does that pain go? If loving, really loving, is not keeping an account of wrongs, then how do I reconcile their connection with my pain? Is pain of this sort temporary, does it last forever, does it heal? All these are selfish questions - they are wonderings about my pain, wrongs that I suffered. If, truly, Love 'does not seek its own', maybe I can get an answer by looking at it from the other side. How immemorial to me are the wrongs that I've done to others, how unforgettable though are they to those I've harmed? If I am the one that wronged you, you will remember it in more detail and with more reality than I. With the brief passing of time I may not even remember it at all. In worse moments I will remember and be indifferent about it, in the worst of all possible moments I may find myself mocking you. If I'm fortunate (i.e., unselfish) enough to recognize that I wronged you, or honest enough to finally admit that I did, I will still be the one more eager to clear it from the record than you, and usually will, unless you make a move to impede my efforts. So if it is so easy for me to forget the pain I caused you, how is it fair, how does it make sense, that you are expected by Christianity to forget? Maybe that's not what's expected. This whole time I've been writing, I've been thinking to 'keep no account of wrongs' means to forget them, and to somehow magically wish away the pain they've caused. The more I think about it, the more I take it to mean not holding someone in your debt. Maybe that makes more sense. To not require, expect, or want the person to pay back to you what they took. The pain I suffer may take a while to heal, it may not heal - I honestly don't know. I do know that I honestly can't make it go away. This aspect of Love must not mean that I can't properly feel feelings and acknowledge pain. It's not selfish to feel pain (or feelings for that matter), it's honest, it's true - there are no two ways about it: being done wrong hurts. The selfish part, the unloving part, comes in when I pridefully expect that I am entitled to exact revenge on you before we can be, as they say, even. Keeping no account of wrongs must mean instead that I am not to try and balance the scales. I think I'm supposed to try my best to forget the idea of scales altogether. It is not my job (and more importantly against His will) for me to set things right. How could anyone except the ultimate Judge above all judges, the maker of the Law, set things right? What, except selfish pride, could even carry me to the thought that I'm qualified for such a task?
My other significant weakness in loving, as far as I can see, is jealousy. To examine this weakness in further detail, and to come to an honest evaluation, will require a new post.

The Whole Purpose of Becoming a Christian

Christ is the Son of God. If we share in this kind of life we also shall be sons of God. We shall love the Father as [Christ] does and the Holy Ghost will arise in us. He came to this world and became man in order to spread to other men the kind of life He has - by what I call 'good infection'. Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else.

- C. S. Lewis

So here, in one paragraph, Lewis boils things down to the base purpose of becoming a Christian.  I'll be honest, when asked, I have a hard time explaining the purpose of Christianity to others.  As much as I've seen, as much as I've read, as much as I've been taught, and as much as I've experienced, I have a hard time communicating my faith to others.  I fumble, I falter, and I fear.  I wonder if people will think I'm silly.  I wonder if I'll start to doubt what I believe based on their reaction.  I wonder if I'll make any sense at all.  Part of the reason is because while things like what Lewis wrote above seem pretty straightforward in what they are trying to say, in my estimation, there's still a mystery to it.  "Little Christ"?  "Sons of God"?  Holy Ghost "arising" in us?  I fully realize that Lewis' quote is taken out of context, and that with a larger sample of his writing he explains these terms with more exquisite clarity.  However, as clear as he is sometimes, I have difficulty hanging on to the concepts after I put what he wrote back on the shelf.  To love the Father as Christ does sounds like a really good thing, and to be sure, I believe it is not only a very good thing, I think it is the best thing.  The big question though is why is it the best thing?  What does loving God like Christ look like, and why in the world would it matter one hill of beans to me and to my next door neighbor if I were doing it?  I suppose that if I think about it hard enough I come to this realization:  God is the source of all goodness, the source of all joy, peace, happiness, and goodwill.  If I have goodwill towards myself, towards another, those things do not exist apart from God: they are Him, they are his qualities.  Now, without a strong connection to Him, and in some cases, with no conscious connection at all, these things can still work through me, and bless others, but only in very small and limited degrees.  If I am able to love the Father the way that Christ does - perfectly - then I would be in perfect  touch with and have full access to all his blessings, have the unending ability to stream love, care, compassion, grace, peace, goodwill, and joy from Him to anyone in my sphere of influence, including my neighbor.  It would seem to me that something like that would matter a whole hill of beans to me and to my neighbor (maybe even more than a whole hill of beans, maybe more than one iota).  Maybe becoming a Christian, and the purpose of Christianity is to reach our full potential as carriers of God's qualities, and to then shower those qualities on all creation so that it is awash in His brightness; the poison that permeates everything in this world in its current state having been eradicated by it all.  The better I am able to love God, the better I am able to obey Him, and thus the better I am able to open myself up as a channel for His qualities to flow through myself and on to others.  The purpose of becoming a Christian? I think is to cure creation.  Does that make any more sense than what Lewis said?  I don't know - I'm fumbling right now, and I feel a slight falter coming on...

Everything Matters

Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or a railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible.

- C. S. Lewis

What we decide matters. What we do matters in the arena of right and wrong. No matter how small, there is an impression left on our souls, left on who we are at our cores, when we choose between good and evil. Our souls are left to either get better or worse. Each choice we make in the direction of evil makes evil easier the next time around. Good works the same way. One will grow in us as the other dies. They are inversely proportionate. The better or worse we choose to be, the better or worse we are becoming.

The Weight of Resistance

A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives into temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about their badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows the full what temptation means - the only complete realist.

- C. S. Lewis

I have found out the strength of the evil impulse within me. I have resisted, but only long enough to know that it's there. My ability to resist is paltry. My urge to give in is strong. The impulse wins 9 out of 10 times. It is because of my awareness of its strength and my weakness in the face of it that I make, and pray for, efforts to stay away from situations that inflame my evil impulse. Someone told me not long ago that I am the strongest person they've ever known. I told them it is because I know how weak I really am that I make efforts to avoid temptation rather than resist it. I do this because I've learned that resistance is futile (at least 90% of the time).

The Right to Surrender

Lest it should be possible that any unchildlike soul might, in arrogance and ignorance, think to stand upon his rights against God, and demand of Him this or that after the will of the flesh, I will lay before such a possible one some of the things to which he has a right...He has a claim to be compelled to repent; to be hedged in on every side: to have one after another of the strong sharp-toothed sheep dogs of the Great Shephard sent after him, to thwart him in any desire, foil him in any plan, frustrate him of any hope, until he come to see at length that nothing will ease his pain, nothing make life a thing worth having, but the presence of the living God within him.

- George MacDonald

Every last distraction I chase down to avoid the obvious, the presence of the living God within me and thus the doing of His will above my own, will only lead to futility. Frustration lies at the end of all roads but one. I find pleasure in many things. I find pain relief in fewer things. In my search for pleasure, for happiness, for relief from the pains of life, I find only despair and disappointment when they are not leading to Him. He is ultimate fulfillment. Things in this life will fizzle out. The glitz and excitement of the greatest experiences and possessions of this world have one thing in common with this world that I don't: they are transitory. My soul was made for eternity. My fallen condition leads me to things that will fade away and die, no matter how much I love them. He is my only hope. He is the eternal answer to my eternal craving. Bring on the sharp-toothed sheep dogs: I will wander away and die without them to remind me of the only Way home.

Self-Conceit

There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconcious of in ourselves. And the more we have it in ourselves, the more we dislike it in others.

- C. S. Lewis

If what Lewis says is true, then I am in great danger. I hate self-conceit in others. I hate it when I believe to have detected it in myself as well. I wonder what Lewis would think that meant.

The Greatest of These is Love

Christian Love, either towards God or towards man, is an affair of the will. If we are trying to do His will we are obeying the commandment, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.' He will give us feelings of love if He pleases. We cannot create them for ourselves, and we must not demand them as a right. But the great thing to remember is that, though our feelings come and go, His love for us does not. It is not wearied by our sins, our indifference; and, therefore, it is quite relentless in its determination that we shall be cured of those sins, at whatever cost to us, at whatever cost to Him.

- C. S. Lewis

I posted this because it further emphasizes my belief that love is not a feeling, and a relationship should not be abandoned (either physically or emotionally) due to the absence of feelings. When I love someone, and I dedicate my love, I commit it, I'm not promising that I will always feel a certain way about them. I promised that, because the love I had for them was real, I would continue to love them and be committed to them despite whatever feelings come my way. I know that I am not in control of my feelings. I can't order them up and get a custom made feeling delivered on demand. If I could, I would promise to feel a certain way about someone else forever. Feelings are not something that I generate. I am only in control of how I respond to them. I recognize that on some levels, we are not in control of how we respond to them 100% of the time. Depending on our conditioning, depending on our upbringing, our environment, our schooling, our relationship experiences, our psychological make-up, our heads do not consistently control our emotions. Sometimes our feelings take the steering wheel from our brains. I understand this. Nonetheless, I'm striving to fight my feelings off sometimes and to align them (and subsequently my actions) with what my convictions are, with what my mind knows is right and virtuous. 'Relentless determination' is what I have for those I truly love. True love is what He lends to me. Is what He does through me. When He takes that away, that's when my love will die, not when feelings are no where to be found.

Hate the Sin Not the Sinner

For a long time I used to think this a silly, straw-splitting distinction: how could you hate what a man did and not hate the man? But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life - namely myself. However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself. There had never been the slightest difficulty about it. In fact the very reason why I hated the things was that I loved the man. Just because I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things...[Christianity] does want us to hate [cruelty and treachery and the like] in the same way in which we hate things in ourselves: being sorry that the man should have done such things, and hoping, if it is anyway possible, that somehow, sometime, somewhere he can be cured and made human again.

- C. S. Lewis

Hate the sin, not the sinner is something that I remember hearing quite a bit growing up in various baptist and penticostal churches, and while attending a Christian private school for one year. I remember seeing it on some fat guy's cheesy 'Christian' T-Shirt. I remember hearing it used by well meaning people as a reminder not to get caught in the trap of seeing one set of people as 'sinners' and therefore as second class citizens. The thought made sense to me. Hate the act(s). The act(s) are deplorable, and you may pass judgement on them based upon their own merit. But the person that comitts the act, that's a much tougher call. Better to err on hating the sin, but not the sinner. Part of me right now wants to say that it is based on a particular Bible verse, but my memory of its source eludes me. One thing is certain: the quote above is from a chapter in Mere Christianity called "Forgiveness." Short of the little I've been able to make of the concept of forgiveness in the Bible, Lewis presents the best and most practical view on the subject that I think I've ever read. I have, most of my life, understood that I should love all men. There's a certain passage in Scripture that's stuck with me, Christ's words I believe, or is it Paul?...either way, it says that we can all be nice to people that are nice to us: the real challenge is to pray for those who condemn us, to show goodness and decency to those who speak ill of us, or commit ill against us. That taught me that the people who deserved the least love were the one's that I ought to love the most, in part because it would be pleasing to my Father that I was doing something difficult and right, but moreso because those that need love the most are the ones that exhibit it the least. Forgiveness is what makes this possible for me. Hating the sin and not the sinner is the only way that I'm able to rationalize doing good to those that do evil to me. It is the sin in them that I hate, not them: it is them and the goodness in them that I love. It is the sin in them that's corrupting them, that's making them into the mean callous person that might wound me. I love the person because I don't want that sin in them to choke them and to overrun their heart and mine completely. I want my neighbor cured of their illness, and I can only hope that they want the same for me. Even if they don't, I will continue, with His help, to love my neighbor as myself.

Spiritual Cancer

...many a man has overcome cowardice, or lust, or ill-temper, by learning to think that they are beneath his dignity - that is, by Pride. The devil laughs. He is perfectly content to see you becoming chaste and brave and self-controlled provided, all the time, he is setting up in you the Dictatorship of Pride - just as he would be quite content to see your chilbains cured if he was allowed, in return, to give you cancer. For Pride is spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense.

- C. S. Lewis

I often get a sense that when I'm doing something well, there's some other part of me, or my life, or the task at hand that I've ignored and is completely falling to pieces. I am often on guard about appreciating something that I'm successful at, or enjoying the act of doing a good deed. I have this thought in the back of my mind, that I think is in Scripture somewhere, which says that when a man is confident that he's reached sure footing, he has reached the moment most likely for the ground to fall out from under him. This makes me hypervigilent. I fear self conceit; so much so that my especial dislike of it draws me into the opposite error of low self confidence. I wonder which is the worse? Surely it must be self conceit. Can't self conceit creep in to those who have low self confidence? Isn't telling me that I am very good for thinking myself lowly and others better than me a strong and stealthy weapon in self conceit's arsenal? I don't think myself better than others. I do think myself more capable at times, but I am humbled by the strengths and gifts of others every day. Being humbled and losing confidence in yourself is probably a strong preliminary tool of God's. He smashes our sense of confidence in ourselves alone, and shows us real confidence as we experience our true selves and our true abilities when tapped into Him and aligned with His will. Real self confidence builds from that base level because it is grounded in the ultimate Source of confidence. I don't think self conceit can survive alongside true self confidence. True self confidence is confidence in the Power that makes self possible at all.

Highway to Hell

Perhaps my bad temper or my jealousy are gradually getting worse - so gradually that the increase in seventy years will not be very noticeable. But it might be absolute hell in a million years: in fact, if Christianity is true, Hell is the precisely correct technical term for what it would be.

- C. S. Lewis

This post reminds me of the philosophy that our character is always getting worse or always getting better, never standing still. It makes the idea of a bad temper, or the inability to forgive, a much scarier thing if you think of it in terms of something that can become worse, become stronger and more damaging with time. This idea is a part of what motivates me to give my heart up for renovation, for re-creation to God. If there is an ugliness in there (there are probably more than I want to imagine) that He can clean out, and kill before it grows large enough to kill me, I want Him to take it away. My trouble is, the things that will kill me, once I'm able to recognize them, happen to be things that I have the most trouble letting go of.

Perfection

"I cannot be perfect; it is hopeless; and He does not expect it." - It would be more honest if he said, "I do not want to be perfect: I am content to be saved." [People of this mindset] do not care for being perfect as their Father in heaven is perfect, but for being what they call 'saved'.

- George MacDonald

If you will here stop and ask yourself why you are not as pious as the primitive Christians were, your own heart will tell you, that it is neither through ignorance or inability, but purely because you never thoroughly intended it.

- William Law

That no keeping but a perfect one will satisfy God, I hold with all my heart and strength; but that there is none else He cares for, is one of the lies of the enemy. What father is not pleased with the first tottering attempt of his little one to walk? What father would be satisfied with anything but the manly step of the fullgrown son?

- George MacDonald

The command Be ye perfect is not idealistic gas. Nor is it a command to do the impossible. He is going to make us into creatures that can obey that command. He said (in the Bible) that we were 'gods' and He is going to make good on His words. If we let Him - for we can prevent Him, if we choose - He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or a goddess, a dazzling, radiant, immortal creature, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine, a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God perfectly (though of course, on a smaller scale) His own boundless power and delight and goodness. The process will be long and in parts very painful, but that is what we are in for. Nothing less. He meant what He said.

-C. S. Lewis

The idea of perfection among Christians seems to be one that none are very clear on, at least not in any clear agreement on. You will hear one set say that once you become a Christ follower, that does not make you perfect, only forgiven. As a matter of fact, you will probably hear most mainline denominations tell you that. I posted this series of quotes because they present an idea that was never presented to me (teachers and preachers of my youth please forgive a faulty memory if it now fails me) growing up. The idea is that perfection is possible. The idea is that perfection is the intent, is the end result that He has in mind for all of us that will allow Him to finish his work. There's a quote above that says we are not as "pious" as the first Christians because we never fully intended to be. There is a trap that I've fallen in that goes something like this: "I'm not perfect, I can't be perfect, so I will just keep on doing X and God will forgive me for it." The trap is that I never really took it to God during the moments of truth, during the times that temptation was at its peak and asked Him to help me escape. Why? Because I never fully intended to escape the temptation. Part of me wanted out, I guess...but the stronger part of me, the part that intended the pleasure promised by the temptation was the part that would win out, again and again. Not long ago, during the peaks of temptation, I began hitting my knees and praying to God for strength. I would pray to Him for the ability to overcome the temptation, to actually escape. More times than not, the temptation went away, or something else came up that made it impossible for me to follow through. Perfection, I think, is possible. We can't do it ourselves though. We can continually call out His name to help us in the direction of perfection. It is something that must happen over a course of time, and perhaps over the course of several lifetimes. He intends to make us perfect. We have no excuse to throw up our hands and say that perfection is something that happens after we die, and give up any resistance to imperfection we have in this lifetime. Perfection may be very impossible in this lifetime, but it is up to Him to decide how far from it we are to be. The only thing I think I can do that's right is to throw up my arms and say I am defeated...I need your help, Lord, to be what you want me to be; to be the best that you know I can be.

Waiting is the Hardest Part

Perhaps, indeed, the better the gift we pray for, the more time is necessary for its arrival. To give us the spiritual gift we desire, God may have to begin far back in our spirit, in regions unknown to us, and do much work that we can be aware of only in the results; for our consciousness is to the extent of our being but as the flame of the volcano [is] to the world-gulf [from] whence it [comes]; in the gulf of our unknown being God works behind our consciousness. With His holy influence, with His own presence (the one thing for which [we] most earnestly cry) He may be approaching our consciousness from behind, coming forward through regions of our darkness into our light, long before we begin to be aware that He is answering our request - has answered it, and is visiting His child.

- George MacDonald

The thought that God could be answering my prayer in a way that is unknowable to me until the work He has to do is already done makes waiting a little easier. Waiting is, like the song says, the hardest part. I ask for something now, because I need it now. I don't ask for something 10 years down the road. It is frustrating to have to wait, and wait, and wait, and then wonder if what I'm asking for is being worked on, or if it is something that God doesn't see fit to give. When I was in middle school, I went away to a church camp. There was a basketball tournament, and my team made its way to the championship game. Before the game, I prayed that if God would only allow my team to win, I promised Him that I would do something in return. He followed through immediately, giving us the victory - with me hitting the winning shot. He gave me what I asked and more. I failed Him, and though I tried, was not able to follow through on my promise. He answered my prayer immediately, despite the fact that I made Him a promise and He knew that I wouldn't keep it. In this case, it was a minor request. The response came quickly, and I saw the result, and I knew that it was a direct answer to a specific prayer. In the case where I've prayed for a change of heart, either in myself or someone else it has not been that easy. There's not a definitive point in time (like a scheduled sporting event) where I can look and say, yep, there it is...my prayer has been answered. I think changes of heart classify best with the supposition that MacDonald is making. There are parts of me that I don't know. All I am aware of about myself is the tip of the iceberg. I am not even conscious for a large part of my existence. I spend a bulk of my life asleep. Where am I then? God knows me entirely. If I ask for something that requires work deep in the basement of my soul, in parts of me that I don't even know exist, then there's a chance that I may not know that He is working on me until the work is already done. The results of His work may start to flow unnoticiable at first. The old result, the thing that I was asking Him to remove, may be a mix with the new result. Slowly though, what He has changed in me will become more and more noticeable. This thought keeps me going. It gives me hope to be patient, and to wait on Him. It doesn't always work, but it is a much needed help when it does.

Deadlock

Man finds it hard to get what he wants, because he does not want the best; God finds it hard to give, because He would give the best, and man will not take it.

- George MacDonald

How often have I been intent on getting what I want and in the process prevented, or actually refused, what He had to give me? How often have I ignored His voice to follow the voice of my feelings and my impulses to satisfy needs my way instead of His? Of the times I've been aware, this has, regretfully, happened far too often. How many more times has it happened that I've not been aware? He has things in store for me, He has things that He wants to give me, if only I'd give up what I'm striving for. If only I would give up what I call good. If only I would empty my hands to receive, He would hand me something He calls great. I want to be able to do that with more consistency. Feelings and moods are hard things to beat. I believe that I can only win against them with His power. It is only with His help that I can overcome myself, and move to a place where I can freely receive what He intends to give me. I wish I were not so bullheaded and blind sometimes.

The True Man

The true man trusts in a strength that is not his, and which he does not feel, does not even always desire.

- George MacDonald

It inspires me to think that even when I do not desire God, it doesn't mean that He's given up on me. It doesn't even mean that I am lost or hopeless. This quote gives me courage to think that even when I don't feel Him, I can still trust in Him. It helps to think back on the times that I felt Him at his strongest, to think back on the times in my life where I know I could not have survived without feeling His strength. I want to be the true man. I know that there is a power greater than my own that has made my endurance through the most difficult of circumstances possible. I am in a lonely place, and things look and feel horrible the moment that I write this. The good is that He is there, and He is moving in some way, as of now, unseen. I have confidence that He will reveal His plan to me as He sees fit, and will give me feelings and desire for Him and His will at 'divine intervals', not based on my moods. My prayer is to be true to Him, as He is true to me - Amen.

For Stacy...

He jumped up, as he thought, and began to dress, but, to his dismay, found that he was still lying in bed. "Now then I will!" he said. "Here goes! I am up now!" But yet again he found himself snug in bed. Twenty times he tried, and twenty times he failed; for in fact he was not awake, only dreaming that he was.

- George MacDonald

Stacy had a dream that spawned much interpretation. She believed that she had finally woken up, but soon found out that she was still asleep, still dreaming. When she told me about it, it reminded me of this quote. So I posted it to share.

The first time I read this quote, it meant something different to me that I can't fully call back from memory now. It said something to me about our perception of reality. The ability to confuse a dream with reality seems like it shouldn't be able to happen. I think about how clear and 'real' the consciousness I'm in right now seems. Waking life, being in it at this moment, seems so much more solid than the environments and textures I know from my dreams. For some reason though, when I'm dreaming, I can be easily fooled into thinking that I'm awake. That makes me wonder how 'real' this reality really is. If, while in a dream state, I am usually able to accept it as reality while in it, is there another consciousness, another 'reality' beyond what I know now as my waking life? Since there is something that seems more real than my dreams, is there something more real than this reality? If so, does this level of consciousness pale in comparison to it? I think that if we can use what we know about our current reality, and take the liberty to speculate a little, we might be able to imagine it. Even if only very dimly, I like to try and imagine another existence that is the next step up from what we now call 'being awake'.

Infallible Fallibility

This story may not be just as the Lord told it, and yet may contain in its mirror as much of the truth as we are able to receive, and as will afford us scope for a life's discovery. The modifying influence of the human channels may be essential to God's revealing mode.

- George MacDonald

I've always thought that the Bible is God's word...I have always been uncomfortable with the idea some people have had that there are certain things you can just ignore or exclude from the Scriptures because they don't seem to be congruent with your personal world view. I do however believe that God used the imperfect vessel of the human mind and channel of human communication to articulate His word to humanity. Things probably have changed in oral communication, and in the transcription to the written word. Peoples own biases and prejudices possibly have made their way into the copies of Scripture that we have today. But the God who has the genome completely mapped can handle all of these imperfections. He uses the imperfection of humanity every day to achieve His greater and specific purposes. It seems to me that He can compensate for our mistakes, for our miscommunications, for our jealousies and our fears, and can overcome them all to communicate His message to the full extent and revelation that He sees as appropriate.

Matthew 7:20

The world does not consist of 100% Christians and 100% non-Christians. There are people (a great many of them) who are slowly ceasing to be Christians but who still call themselves by that name: some of them are clergymen. There are other people who are slowly becoming Christians though they do not yet call themselves so. These are people who do not accept the full Christian doctrine about Christ but who are so strongly attracted by Him that they are His in a much deeper sense than they themselves understand. There are people in other religions who are being led by God's secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it. For example, a Buddhist of good will may be led to concentrate more and more on the Buddhist teaching about mercy and to leave in the background (though he might still say he believed) the Buddhist teaching on certain other points. Many of the good Pagans [such as Plato, and maybe the radical Pharaoh Akhenaten who attempted to introduce Monotheism to ancient Egypt] long before Christ's birth may have been in this position. And always, of course, there are a great many people who are just confused in mind and have a lot of inconsistent beliefs all jumbled up together.

- C. S. Lewis

About two and a half years ago, I was questioning a lot of the beliefs I held. I wasn't questioning my faith in God, or that there was a God, or even that Christ is who He and the Gospels claim He is. I was however struggling with church. With pastors' sermons. With strenuous arguments about what the speaker considered "essential Christian doctrine". I was hearing blatant contradictions between pastors of the same denominations. There weren't contradictions about who Christ was, or the nature of God; the contradictions were far from what even I considered 'essential' topics of discussion. That's one of the reasons why when one pastor in particular claimed without any doubt, that one specific view on 'the end times' was "clearly stated" in the Bible, I was thrown for a loop. If it is not an essential doctrine, I thought, why not just say "this is a particular view that different Christians have differed on for a long time, and still do," instead of glibly saying that it is clearly spelled out in Scripture? I let that get to me. I stopped going to church, and I took a little spiritual vacation - it was time to relax from all the stress. What I call a 'vacation' was actually me forgoing any concern for the spiritual aspects of my life. During this time, I still had an interest in finding out some different Christian viewpoints than the ones I'd been raised in, but I was not interested in just throwing myself back into church still saddled with the questions and frustrations that had developed in me. When visiting a friend out of town, he gave me the book A New Kind of Christian by Brian D. McLaren. Some of the things in there pissed me off. Some of the things in the book scared me. As I kept reading, I could feel the parts of me that were taught to think a certain way about Christianity, and the practice of it through what I knew about church, screaming out in protest. On my flight home from the visit, I came across a passage in the book which brought me to tears. There I sat, alone on my row, flying from Minneapolis to Dallas, sobbing. While in a marital counseling session some time later, I shared the passage and my reaction to it with my wife and the therapist. My wife was upset that I wasn't able to share that with her before. I think the reason why I didn't share it with her was because I couldn't understand why it impacted me the way it did, so I didn't feel like I knew what I would say. I think I better understand now why it hit me the way it did. I have since misplaced the book, but by good fortune, the passage that hit me was quoting from another author, C. S. Lewis (surprised?). The quote was from the final installment of Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia, The Last Battle. Towards the end of the story, Aslan, the Christ figure in the Chronicles is welcoming some of the main characters of the series into the afterlife: into His country, into Heaven. An unlikely character named Emeth turns up in Aslan's Heaven. Unlikely, it seems, because he spent his life earnestly following and serving a false god named Tash. Here's a passage from The Last Battle (which I do have in my possession) where Emeth comes to the undeniable realization that Tash is a false god because he is personally greeted by Aslan. Here is Emeth's account of their meeting:

But the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said , 'Son, thou art welcome.' But I said , 'Alas Lord, I am no son of thine but the servant of Tash.' He answered, 'Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me.' Then by reason of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, 'Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one?' The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, 'It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites - I take to me the services which thou hast done for him. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath's sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. Dost thou understand, Child?' I said, 'Lord, thou knowest how much I understand.' But I said also (for the truth constrained me), 'Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days.' 'Beloved,' said the Glorious One, 'unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.'

The reason this excerpt pierced me the way it did is because it presented God the way I had always hoped deep in my heart He would be. Yes, I know it was just a story, but the character I recognized in the story was the same Person I recognized as the ruler of my heart. This, I think is the first time I personally experienced what J.R.R. Tolkein calls a eucatastrophe. He defines it as, "the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears." He goes on to explain that a eucatastrophe has the effect it does because "it is a sudden glimpse of truth", and "it perceives...that this is indeed how things really do work in the Great World for which our nature is made." I felt overjoyed at the possibility that this is how God practices his judgement with non-Christians. It added a level of fairness and justice to the whole Christian idea relating to those that are not confessed believers in Christ. I like the idea of a secret influence, God's influence, that was echoed in this Lewis passage. It satisfies my longing for and my expectation of justice that I know is in the character of the God I serve.

Closest to the Truth

I have been asked to tell you what Christians believe, and I am going to begin by telling you one thing that Christians do not need to believe. If you are a Christian you do not have to believe that all other religions are simply wrong all through. If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake. If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all those religions, even the [strangest] ones, contain at least some hint of the truth. When I was an atheist I had to try and persuade myself that most of the human race have always been wrong about the question that mattered to them most; when I became a Christian I was able to take a more liberal view. But of course being a Christian does mean thinking that where Christianity differs from other religions, Christianity is right and they are wrong. As in arithmetic - there is only one right answer to a sum, and all other answers are wrong; but some of the wrong answers are much nearer being right than others.

- C. S. Lewis

This quote seems very contrary to the attitude that I sense in contemporary Christian culture today. Christians today seem to be on guard about saying anything in favor of what is virtuous in another religion. I'm not sure why this is, but based on my own experience, I have an idea. For me, when the urge to say that the other religions were false, and the urge to be unreasonably unwilling to give any ground to their ideas came upon me, I felt a sense of insecurity about my own faith. I felt like if I were to admit that there were truths and valid use of ideas in other religions, I would somehow be opening a door to 'compromise', and to the question, no, to what seemed the strong possibility that what I believe is actually not true. The biggest fear: "What if it turns out that I am wrong?". If Christianity is wrong, it's wrong - right, Reality, will win out over all else. I see the fear that I have held, about being open to the fact that there could be other people in other religions that are partially right with their answers to the fundamental questions of life, and I think about how taxing that fear has been on my life. It has been freeing to let go and just pursue Him. It has not shaken my faith. It has not changed who I believe He is. It has not reduced one iota my belief that Christ is God, the begotten son of the eternal cause of all causes. Can I explain why I believe that I'm right and the other religions are wrong on that count? No, not really, and I'm not really all that concerned that I can't. If it is true, again, truth will win out. That doesn't mean I won't tell people that's what I believe. I have done so, and I will continue to do so. I believe beyond anything else in this reality that there is a God who made me, who made this world, and who has a plan for revealing Himself to me, and that He has expectations of me. I believe he made me for Him, not that He was made for me. I believe that every person's heart has been made for Him, and he speaks to every living soul, calling them back home, by whatever means He deems necessary, until He knows that they are never going to come home. I think that has less to do with religions and more to do with the relationship between creature and creator. I realize that this post beyond all others may have created more questions than it answered...and this I think is one of those times where if I'm asked to back up or argue the point on anything that I've said here, that I will just get tired head and give up. There is another post on this blog, Matthew 7:20, where some ideas about who is 'on God's side' and who is not is expanded on, regardless of which religion they claim allegiance to. Maybe by the time I get around to commenting on that post, some questions that have been raised here in the reader's mind will be afforded some more clarity. Thanks for stopping by.

Idolatry in Marriage

But these lapses will not destroy a marriage between two "decent and sensible" people. The couple whose marriage will certainly be endangered by them, and possibly ruined, are those who have idolised Eros [i.e., being in love]. They thought he had the power and truthfulness of a god. They expected that mere feeling would do for them, and permanently, all that was necessary. When this expectation is disappointed they throw the blame on Eros or, more usually, on their partners.

- C. S. Lewis

This is a further delineation of Lewis' treatment of Eros love in The Four Loves. The idea set forth is that Eros will rise and will fall over the course of any relationship between lovers. His point is that the lovers who do not place Eros on the throne of love, in place of Charity, in place of the highest ruling authority love of God, can sustain a relationship, and find a deeper and stronger love than even Eros could promise at it's highest points. I posted this one to make another veiled attempt at commentary. Once I was confronted about it, I began to realize that in my relationship, I placed Eros on the throne, and even after he was unable to rule as he promised, I went chasing after, longing for, and demanding that he give me the feelings that he originally delivered and promised me forever. I was neither "reasonable" or "sensible" much of the time, and sometimes still am not. I blamed Eros, and I blamed my partner, and I am sorry I did. I idolized Eros, instead of recognizing the true ruling authority of Charity. You see, Charity is a sacrificial love that moves beyond all the others. Charity is sustainable in the face of all else. Charity is the fuel that all the other loves run off of whether they are lacking in and of themselves, or not. Charity is what we should turn to when all else fails, because it never will: I Cor 13:4-7

Eros as King; or Falling In Love

The event of falling in love is of such a nature that we are right to reject as intolerable the idea that it should be transitory. In one high bound it has overlapped the massive wall of our selfhood; it has made appetite itself altruistic, tossed personal happiness aside as a triviality and planted the interests of another in the centre of our being. Spontaneously and without effort we have fulfilled the law (towards one person) by loving our neighbor as ourselves. It is an image, a fortaste, of what we must become to all [to everyone] if Love Himself rules in us without a rival. It is even (well used) a preparation for that. Simply to relapse from it, merely to "fall out of" love again, is-if I may coin the ugly word-a sort of disredemption. Eros is driven to promise what Eros himself cannot perform. Can we be in this selfless liberation for a lifetime? Hardly for a week. Between the best possible lovers this high condition is intermittent. The old self soon turns out to be not so dead as he pretended...

- C. S. Lewis

Honesty, right? That's what I'm aiming for here, that's what the post More Me seemed to claim. Well, here goes. This post is from the book The Four Loves. I posted it in an attempt to make a (very poorly) veiled commentary about the relationship between someone I care deeply about and someone else - to be as generic as possible. Before I get into my motivation for posting this specific quote, I will try as best I can to describe the context of the quote, and what it means to me. Lewis' book focuses on 4 different types of love experienced by us humans. The four loves he lays out are Affection, Eros, Friendship, and Charity. He claims that all these loves are wonderful gifts from God. Affection is what we feel for those we have a special kinship towards. They have a likeable quality or likeable set of qualities that we find ourselves drawn to and wanting (yet almost embarrassed) to show an appreciation for. Eros is not sex. Eros is the state of being in love. Eros can exist without and long before (if ever) the sexual act takes place or the impulse for it enters the thoughts of a lover's mind. Friendship is commonality between at least 2 people that draws them closer without getting into levels of detail, without the specifics about what goes on in peoples' day to day lives, it is simply having fun with someone that has a common interest or set of interests with you. Charity is the King of all loves. Charity is the love that's referred to when people say of God that He is Love. Charity is God's love. Charity is God.

Like all gifts from God, they can either be used for good or ill, depending on how far they are taken in one direction before being governed by the King love, Charity. Lewis says of Eros that it is the one that most claims itself to be King over any of the other loves, but he says that it cannot keep its promises. He says it is fickle when left on its own. It is under the influence of Eros that Lewis says we "...intend...and promise lifelong fidelity." I don't doubt this. Eros is not a bad thing. I've made the same vows under the same influence. Eros is a wonderful gift. In Lewis' quote above he explains why Eros is such a great thing. The way it brings about 'naturally' the unnatural ability to love our neighbor as ourselves is one of the highest blessings beyond our asking. I guess the thing I was trying to show by originally posting this quote is that being in love can naturally fade...that it is true love, Charity, God loving through us, that makes a love really live and grow for a lifetime. A lifetime love is what I want, and I hope that someday that person I care so deeply about is able to share in it with me - but I also realize that is out of my hands. For God is the King of all loves, mine notwithstanding.

The Limit of Forgiveness

"I thank you, Lord, for forgiving me, but I prefer to stay in the darkness: please forgive me of that too." - No; that can't be done. The one thing that can't be forgiven is the sin of choosing evil, of refusing to be rescued from the all too comfortable darkness. It is impossible to forgive that. To forgive a willingness to stay in the dark and refuse the light, would be to take part in it.

- Based on a quote by George MacDonald

This is important to me because it helps me deal with a struggle I know I share with some Christians that are close to me. It is the struggle about forgiveness. I think most Christians believe that we are to follow God's lead, to use Christ and the life He lived as presented in the Gospels as a template for our lives. One difficult lead to follow is His teaching on forgiveness. Most people who have read the Bible or been around church know what I mean when I say 7 times 70. If you're unfamiliar, it is from instruction that Jesus gave to one of the disciples who asked him how many times he should forgive someone that sins against him. Christ tells Him via hyperbole that the forgiveness we should offer is, in essence, unlimited. If I remember right, the question is framed in a way that presupposes the person needing forgiveness actually comes to you and confesses a wrongdoing against you. There would seem to be an out there on forgiveness. Only forgive if they are willing to come to you and confess. If they do that, do not run out of forgiveness for them. If that's not the case. then this poses a difficulty that I don't know if even MacDonald's quote gets us out of. What if someone knows what they did hurt you, but they are unwilling to turn from the hurtful behavior. What if they're unwilling to turn away and seek forgiveness and reconciliation with you? What are you to do? I don't fully know. An option that seems right is to stay open to that person. Stay willing to forgive. Don't let your heart turn to stone against them. Maintain the attitude of openness, of willingness to take them in when they come to you, for at least as long as with God's help that attitude can be sustained. Logic seems to dictate that forgiveness can't be grasped and used for the better of all by a person unwilling to grasp it.

Sola Scriptura

But herein is the Bible itself greatly wronged. It nowhere lays claim to be regarded as the Word, the Way, the Truth. The Bible leads us to Jesus, the inexhaustable, the ever unfolding Revelation of God. It is Christ "in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge," not the Bible, save as leading to Him.

- George MacDonald

This post is certain to raise eyebrows for anyone that was raised in a religious environment similar to mine. If you were raised, or have ascented to the beliefs about the Bible as proclaimed by most Fundamental Christian denominations, the only thing that I ask of you is to consider one thing before dismissing this quote out of hand as absolute hogwash. If you really think about it, doesn't it make sense? Check the claims of the quote against the Bible. Does the Bible make the claims about itself that many Fundamental Christian teachers seem to present? It never has, in my study of it, made claim to be God Himself - though many teachers would appear to almost treat it as it is. It never claims to be Christ in any way shape or form. It should be revered as God's word...I don't dispute that, but I don't find any grounds to elevate the wonderful and mysterious records it contains to the level of God...certainly not to the level of something demanding worship, and more importantly, our ultimate, absolute loyalty. He and He alone demands and deserves our praise and worship. As so eloquently stated by MacDonald and echoed by my friend Robert in his commentary on this post, the Bible leads us to Him...it puts us on His trail (or maybe, puts Him on ours). It is Him that we are to be loyal to, and nothing else before Him.

What's He Waiting For?

God will invade. But I wonder whether people who ask God to interfere openly and directly in our world quite realize what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks on to the stage the play is over.

- C.S. Lewis

I like the analogy Lewis uses here. He's called God the author of a play in other writings as well (I think his book Miracles is one of them), and it's fun for me to think of our reality in terms of that possibility. If I remember right, this quote is from Mere Christianity, and Lewis is addressing the want in all of us for justice, for the wrongs of this world to be righted: 'C'mon, what's He waiting for?' seems to be a universal sentiment no matter if you believe in an actual 'He' or not. I would assume that most atheists or agnostics see things in the world that they are not happy about - for some (specific names elude me), that's one of the very reasons they can't honestly say there is a God.

One thing that Lewis points out which I tend to agree with is that a great deal of the wrongs in this world come from us. They come from me and my want to be comfortable, and to have things my way, running up against the very same thing in you. God wants us to turn to Him for our happiness, to turn to Him for our comfort, and to trust Him to provide for our needs and our wants, our security. One thing I think God sees which we don't most of the time (there are many) is that the things we want, the things we need are all God given deisres. He placed them in us as clues to lead us back to Him. Lewis believes that God will come back some day, and right all the wrongs, but before He does, He wants all who will to turn to Him, to follow the clues back to Him, and declare that they want to be on His side...that they want Him to be their provider, and their source of life. It would appear that in order for that to happen, for God to return and rid the world of its self-made misery, reality as we know it will have to be changed - we will be on another level then, we will have direct access to God. Then we will know - not wonder or believe or hope or dread or doubt, but really know - what He is and what He wants. I hope for my own sake it's not too much of a surprise for me to take.

Why?

What is the meaning of life? The author of Ecclesiastes says it has none, absent of one all encompassing duty: "Fear God and obey his commands."

Life can't have meaning unless we know the purpose behind it. Can we know our own life's purpose if we didn't make ourselves? Our purpose seems to me to be to know our designer and His purpose for us. The meaning of life is to, by increasing degrees each day, know God, and to be known by Him as what He fully intends us to be. To be known by Him is to willingly participate in the process He directs to make us fully into what He intends, to be like Him: perfect. 'Be ye perfect': that is our ultimate fulfillment. The hard part is that it won't happen in this life. He won't be done making us into what He wills until after we've died, dying to imperfection seems to be an integral part of the process. The other hard (the hardest) part is that He won't bring us to ultimate fulfillment without our consent. If we will not be refined to perfection by the Master, we will not be refined at all. The canvas cannot paint itself into a masterpiece. A masterpiece necessitates the work of a master, in our case the Master of all men (the Master of all that exists), to bring it to completion.

This post almost assumes that someone was asking a question that I was making an attempt to answer. That was not the case. Thinking back, I now remember that this post was spawned by a thought that came to me after stepping out of the shower. It seemed to me important enough of a thought at the time to make a mental note that I write it down later. I don't know how much of that original thought made it into the post. I do know that I have had the question, "What's the meaning and or the purpose of life?" floating around in my head for a long time. And for a long time I haven't felt that I've been able to answer it. I think when I got out of the shower that day, I felt like I had some form of an answer that was in development. That's the origin of this post...and it was my first attempt at posting my own thoughts, instead of an excerpt or quote of another person.

Creeping Christians

We are and remain such creeping Christians, because we look at ourselves and not at Christ; because we gaze at the marks of our own soiled feet, and the trail of our own defiled garments...Each, putting his foot in the footprint of the Master, and so defacing it, turns to examine how far his neighbor's footprint corresponds with that which he still calls the Master's, although it is but his own. Or, having committed a petty fault, I mean a fault such as only a petty creature could commit, we mourn over the defilement to ourselves, and the shame of it before our friends, children, or servants, instead of hastening to make the due confession and amends to our fellow, and then, forgetting our own paltry self with its well-earned disgrace, lift up our eyes to the glory which alone will quicken the true man in us, and kill the peddling creature we so wrongly call our self.

- George MacDonald

This post is the namesake of this blog, the flagship post, if you will. The quote is from a C. S. Lewis book where the author compiled different sayings and excerpts from one of his most favorite Christian authors, George MacDonald. This quote seems to me to be talking about how Christians look at others to determine how well they are doing in their attempt to follow Christ. It reminds me of the passage in Scripture where Jesus instructs us to take the plank out of our own eye before trying to help our brother get the speck out of his.

The term "creeping christian" hung in my mind for a while after reading this quote for the first time. When no matches came back during the blog naming process, I ran with it. The term makes me think that if we were better at looking to Christ instead of our circumstances (by the way, I don't really know how to do that, although I do believe it's possible), instead of wallowing in the fact that we sinned instead of repenting it and making the necessary amends as best we can , we would grow spiritually at a faster rate than we are right now. Many people because they judge what they see their brother doing against what they have done end up only creeping along, because they are most often judging their own life against another frail human, instead of THE example, what MacDonald calls "the footprint of the Master." I think Christians are too critical of others. Too often we criticize those walking closest to us, not realizing that we are defacing the image of God in ourselves, and calling the standard that we judge our neighbors by "God's example" when in reality it is just what we mistakenly think to be His example.