A bit more on Lewis' thoughts...

For those who have not read my past two blog posts, I am taking apart some correspondence between C.S. Lewis and Sheldon Vanauken. Sheldon is exploring the idea that Christianity may be what he needs to embrace and he is asking questions of Mr. Lewis. One of the things that Sheldon expresses to Mr. Lewis is that he does not know if he wishes to learn that Christianity is his new truth or whether he hopes to find that Christianity and its ideas mean nothing. I adore Mr. Lewis' response...

"But what does the existence of the wish suggest? At one time I was much impressed by Arnold's line 'Nor does the being hungry prove that we have bread.' But surely, though it doesn't prove that one particular man will get food, it does prove that there is such a thing as food! i.e. if we were a species that didn't normally eat, weren't designed to eat, would we feel hungry? You say the materialist universe is 'ugly'. I wonder how you discovered that! If you are really a product of a materialistic universe, how is it you don't feel at home there? Do fish complain of the see for being wet? Or if they did, would that fact itself not strongly suggest that they had not always been, or would not always be, purely aquatic creatures? Notice how we are perpetually surprised at Time. ('How time flies! Fancy John being grown-up and married! I can hardly believe it!) In heaven's name, why? Unless indeed, there is something in us which is not temporal."

INDEED!! We are not wholly temporal creatures. What a beautiful thought, this idea that we have an inherent sense of the eternal and we therefore do indeed bristle against time as being a restraint that is not natural for us. I love this idea of seeing very graphically that I am made of eternal stuff.

C.S. Lewis had an unbelievable way of seeing truth and presenting it in such a way that it makes so much sense to me. I am so grateful for his bold and open choice to write his thoughts down. And he paid such a price for being bold in his views. In fact, Mr. Vanauken relates that he once found himself walking behind two Oxford dons as they discussed that day's vote to make C.S. Lewis the head of poetry. These two men were not going to miss the vote, not because they felt strongly about a man who is a great candidate, they felt strongly that the absurd Christian, Lewis, should not be given such an important post. But Mr. Lewis did not allow this to drive him from writing what he felt God wanted him to write.

Thank you Mr. Lewis. You have saved me so many times because you chose to follow the Holy Spirit. I owe you.