half spirit and half animal

Humans are amphibians - half spirit and half animal. 

As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time. 
This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object,
 their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, 
for to be in time, means to change. 

~  C. S. Lewis

from The Screwtape Letters

surrender is the first step

.

[Since nature’s] beauties were such that even a fool

 could not force them into competition,

 this cured me once and for all of the pernicious tendency

 to compare and to prefer -an operation that does little good

 even when we are dealing with works of art

 and endless harm when we are dealing with nature.

 Total surrender is the first step towards the fruition of either.

 Shut your mouth; open your eyes and ears. 

Take in what is there and give no thought

 to what might have been there or what is somewhere else. 

That can come later, if it must come at all.

~ C. S. Lewis
 from Surprised by Joy

the secret signature

 

 

 

 

 

All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it -

 tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away 

just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest -

 if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself -

 you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say

 'Here at last is the thing I was made for.'

We cannot tell each other about it.

 It is the secret signature of each soul,

 the incommunicable and unappeasable want,

 the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work,

 and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds,

 when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work. 

While we are, this is. If we lose this, we lose all.

 

~ C. S. Lewis
from The Problem of Pain

 

 

 

the longing

The sweetest thing in all my life 

has been the longing - to reach the Mountain, 

to find the place where all the beauty came from - 

my country, the place where I ought to have been born. 

Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? 

The longing for home? 

For indeed it now feels not like going, 

but like going back.

~ C.S. Lewis

a secret thread

 

 

 

You may have noticed that the books you really love are bound together by a secret thread. 

You know very well what is the common quality that makes you love them,

 though you cannot put it into words: but most of your friends do not see it at all,

 and often wonder why, liking this, you should also like that.

 

 Again, you have stood 

before some landscape, which seems to embody what you have been looking for

 all your life; and then turned to the friend at your side who appears to be seeing 

what you saw - but at the first words a gulf yawns between you, and you realize

that this landscape means something totally different to him, that he is pursuing 

an alien vision and cares nothing for the ineffable suggestion by which you 

are transported.

 

 Even in your hobbies, has there not always been some secret

 attraction which the others are curiously ignorant of - something, not to 

be identified with, but always on the verge of breaking through, 

the smell of cut wood in the workshop

 or the clap-clap of water against the boat’s side?


Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet

 another human being who has some inkling (but faint and uncertain 

even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring, 

and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences

 between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood 

to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for? You have never had it. 

 

 

All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints

 of it - tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away

 just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest - if there ever

 came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself 

you would know it.

 

 Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say

 “Here at last is the thing I was made for.” We cannot tell each other about it. 

It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable

 want, the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends

 or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, 

when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work. While we are,

 this is. If we lose this, we lose all.

~ C.S. Lewis
from The Problem of Pain

art by Stushie

with thanks to Love is a Place

 

 

 

the look of its landlord

For in this house, everything

has the look of its landlord.

While the hand moves

the shadow must follow.

Since the shadow gains its substance

from the hand

it has none of itself,

That which derives existence

from something else 

how can we say

it truly exists?

It has a name, yes,

but is not that existence

which subsists through God.

~ Fakhruddin Iraqi

from Divine Flashes

Some thought that all these loves were copies of 

our love for the landlord.

~ C.S. Lewis 

from God in the Dock

notice to quit

John had a disreputable old uncle who was the tenant of a poor little farm beside his father's.  One day when John came in from the garden, he found a great hubbub in the house.  His uncle was sitting there with his cheeks the colour of ashes.  His mother was crying.  His father was sitting very still with a solemn face.  And there, in the midst of them, was the Steward with his mask on,  John crept round to his mother and asked her what the matter was.

'Poor Uncle George has had notice to quit,' she said.

'Why?' said John.

'His lease is up.  The Landlord has sent him notice to quit.'

'But didn't you know how long the lease was for?'

'Oh, no, indeed we did not.  We thought it was for years and years more.  I am sure the Landlord never gave us any idea he was going to turn him out at a moment's notice like this.'
'Ah, but it doesn't need any notice,' broke in the Steward. 'You know he always retains the right to turn anyone out whenever he chooses.  It is very good of him to let any of us stay here at all.'

'To be sure, to be sure,' said the mother.
'That goes without saying,' said the father.
'I'm not complaining,' said Uncle George.  'But it seems cruelly hard.'
'Not at all, ' said the Steward.  'You've only got to go to the Castle and knock at the gate and see the Landlord himself.  You know that he's only turning you out of here to make you much more comfortable somewhere else.  Don't you?'
Uncle George nodded. He did not seem able to get his voice.


...


'Mother.'
'Well, dear?'
'Could any of us be turned out without notice like that any day?'
'Well, yes.  But it is very unlikely.'
But we might be?'
'You oughtn't to be thinking of that sort of thing at your age.'
'Why oughtn't I?'
'It's not healthy.  A boy like you.'
'Mother.'
'Yes?'
'Can we break off the lease without notice too?'
'How do you mean?'
Well, the Landlord can turn us out of the farm whenever he likes.  Can we leave the farm whenever we like?'
'No, certainly not.'
Why not?'
'That's in the lease.  We must go when he likes, and stay as long as he likes.'
'Why?'
'I suppose because he makes the leases.'
'What would happen if we did leave?'
'He would be very angry.'
'Would he put us in the black hole?'
'Perhaps.'
'Mother.'
'Well, dear?'
'Will the Landlord put Uncle George in the black hole?'
'How dare you say such a thing about your poor uncle? Of course he won't.'
'But hasn't Uncle George broken all the rules?'
'Broken all the rules? Your Uncle George was a very good man.'
'You never told me that before,' said John.




~ C. S. Lewis
from The Pilgrim's Regress

the secret signature

.

There have been times when I think we do not desire heaven but more often I find myself wondering whether, in our heart of hearts, we have ever desired anything else. You may have noticed that the books you really love are bound together by a secret thread. You know very well what is the common quality that makes you love them, though you cannot put it into words: but most of your friends do not see it at all, and often wonder why, liking this, you should also like that. Again, you have stood before some landscape, which seems to embody what you've been looking for all your life; and then turned to the friend at your side who appears to be seeing what you saw - but at the first words a gulf yawns between you, and you realize that this landscape means something totally different to him, that he is pursuing an alien vision and cares nothing for the ineffable suggestion by which you were transported. Even in your hobbies, has there not always been some secret attraction which the others are curiously ignorant of - something, not to be identified with, but always on the verge of breaking through, the smell of cut wood in the workshop or the clap-clap of water against the boat's side? Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for? You have never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it - tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest - if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself - you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say 'Here at last is the thing I was made for.' We cannot tell each other about it. It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work. While we are, this is. If we lose this, we lose all.

~  C. S. Lewis

excerpt from The Problem of Pain

There are no ordinary people

It is a serious thing to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.

~ C.S. Lewis