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Sunday morning musings
Jul. 31st, 2005 07:11 amI've heard people (including a former colleague who specializes in modern poetry and has a degree in philosophy) state that they like living in a world where they are free to fail. Apparently, for these people, it is things and people going wrong that make life exciting.
Then I look at statements like these:
- "It is things going right that is poetic." (GKC, The Man Who Was Thursday)
- "For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, 'Do it again' to the sun; and every evening, 'Do it again' to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite for infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our father is younger than we." (GKC, Orthodoxy)
- "There is nothing so perilous and exciting as orthodoxy." (GKC, Orthodoxy)
- "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." (CSL, "The Weight of Glory")
Lewis goes on to talk about the "inconsolable secret" that is our memory of our pre-Fall glory and how hard it is for us to bear the weight of each other's potential glory. And he points out that we have the promise that that glory will one day be restored to us through Christ, but that at present we are on "the wrong side of the door" (just as Chesterton says in Thursday that "we have only seen the back of the world").
And then there's what Lewis called Joy or Sehnsucht and what Tolkien portrays in the Sea-longing--that deep yearning for something better that nothing in this world can satisfy. No Elf with Sea-longing really wanted just the sea; he wanted to go West, to return to the Blessed Realm, to leave the failures and heartaches of Middle-earth behind.
I think that maybe, if we ever comprehend even a minute fraction of the inexpressible wonder of true Perfection--that "grace beyond the reach of art," as Pope called it--and understand that Heaven is not just sitting around playing harps and being bored but being freed from all the things that tie us down here below to do the things we were meant to do and, even better, being able to see fully the terrible beauty of God that now overwhelms us if we even see a part of it... if we can grasp that, we won't be content with failure. We'll want to go Home.
Beulah land, I'm longing for you,
And someday on thee I'll stand,
Where my home shall be eternal,
Beulah land, sweet Beulah land.
Then I look at statements like these:
- "It is things going right that is poetic." (GKC, The Man Who Was Thursday)
- "For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, 'Do it again' to the sun; and every evening, 'Do it again' to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite for infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our father is younger than we." (GKC, Orthodoxy)
- "There is nothing so perilous and exciting as orthodoxy." (GKC, Orthodoxy)
- "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." (CSL, "The Weight of Glory")
Lewis goes on to talk about the "inconsolable secret" that is our memory of our pre-Fall glory and how hard it is for us to bear the weight of each other's potential glory. And he points out that we have the promise that that glory will one day be restored to us through Christ, but that at present we are on "the wrong side of the door" (just as Chesterton says in Thursday that "we have only seen the back of the world").
And then there's what Lewis called Joy or Sehnsucht and what Tolkien portrays in the Sea-longing--that deep yearning for something better that nothing in this world can satisfy. No Elf with Sea-longing really wanted just the sea; he wanted to go West, to return to the Blessed Realm, to leave the failures and heartaches of Middle-earth behind.
I think that maybe, if we ever comprehend even a minute fraction of the inexpressible wonder of true Perfection--that "grace beyond the reach of art," as Pope called it--and understand that Heaven is not just sitting around playing harps and being bored but being freed from all the things that tie us down here below to do the things we were meant to do and, even better, being able to see fully the terrible beauty of God that now overwhelms us if we even see a part of it... if we can grasp that, we won't be content with failure. We'll want to go Home.
Beulah land, I'm longing for you,
And someday on thee I'll stand,
Where my home shall be eternal,
Beulah land, sweet Beulah land.
