JSYK

I have another blog which I'm currently updating. It's an online devotional for conference workers with the company for which I work. If you're interested in those posts, you can go here.

I have about 1.5 weeks before I turn in all of my work for my final semester and, at that point, I'll be free to add to this blog again (for those 3 of you who follow).

Until then, you have the other blog - I hope you find the posts enjoyable.

Lewis on Praising

You've probably guessed I love CSLewis. I'm somewhat convinced that staying in a CSLewis book on a regular basis should be a spiritual discipline. (Please forward the idea to Richard Foster and Dallas Willard if you know them.) Maybe I'll write out an apologetic on why I think this, but for now, I'll just pass on some quotes from his essay "A Word on Praising" from his book 'Reflections on the Psalms'.

'The most obvious fact about praise - whether of God or anything - strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honour. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless (sometimes even if) shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check it. The world rings with praise - lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favourite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favourite game-praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians or scholars.

'I had not noticed how the humblest, and at the same time most balanced and capacious, minds praised most, while the cranks, misfits and malcontents praised least. ... I had not noticed either that just as men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it: "Isn't she lovely? Wasn't it glorious? Don't you think that magnificent?"

HERE IT IS:

'I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation.

'It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not to be able to tell anyone how good he is; to come suddenly, at the turn of the road, upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur and then to have to keep silent because the people with you care for it no more than for a tin can in the ditch; to hear a good joke and find no one to share it with.

'If it were possible for a created soul fully (I mean, up to the full measure conceivable in a finite being) to "appreciate," that is to love and delight in, the worthiest object of all, and simultaneously at every moment to give this delight perfect expression, then that soul would be in supreme beautitude.'

I rest my case.

The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Each chapter merits the purchase of the entire book and is better than the previous (the last chapter alone (on 'Charity') makes you want to just sit and curl up in the blood-red and sugar-sweet beauty of its contents). The friendship chapter should be printed on its own and handed out to every person when they realize that (1) there are such things as friends and (2) they should be treasured and kept like your last breath.

View all my reviews >>

Friendship in Prayer

I have two things to say about prayer and friendship.

First:

C.S. Lewis wrote the following in a chapter on Friendship:

"Lamb says somewhere that if, of three friends (A, B and C), A should die, then B loses not only A but 'A's part in C,' while C loses not only A but 'A's part in B.'  In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out.  By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets.  Now that Charels is dead; I shall never again see Ronald's reaction to a specifically Caroline joke. Far from having more of Ronald, having him 'to myself' now that Charles is away, I have less of Ronald.  Hence true Friendship is the least jealous of loves.  Two friends delight ot be joined by a third and three by a fourth, if only the newcomer is qualified to become a real friend.  They can then say, as the blessed souls say in Dante,' Here comes one who will augment our loves.' For this love 'to divide is not to take away.' . . . We possess each friend not less but more as the number of those with whom we share him increases.  In this, Friendship exhibits a glorious 'nearness by resemblance' to Heaven itself where the very multitude of the blessed . . . increases the fruition which each has of God.  For every soul, seeing Him in her own way, doubtless communicates that unique vision to all the rest.  That, says an old author, is why the Seraphim in Isaiah's vision are crying 'Holy, Holy, Holy' to one another (v. 6:3).  The more we thus share the Heavenly Bread between us, the more we shall all have."

One's personal times of prayer are well to be commended.  Both from the pulpit and devotional writings, the benefit and necessity of the prayer closet are highlighted - indeed our Lord Himself shows the Father's delight in this practice (Matt. 6:5-6).  Private prayers reveal to us the intimacy with Christ that we may have forgotten throughout the day.  It allows us to disclose and expose the contents of that private, inner chamber which only the two of us see (thoughts, desires, pains, joys).  But there is something wonderful, too, about corporate prayer.

Corporate prayer allows a different sort of intimacy - that of allowing Christ to reveal more of Himself.  When I pray alone, I see Christ as I see Christ, but when I pray with you, we get glimpses of Christ through each other's eyes.  Perhaps this is a small part of what our Savior meant when He pledged to be "among us" when we gather "in His Name."

________

Second:

Our friend, CS, surfaced the difference between friendship love and romantic love through a distinction of focusing.  In romance, the pair faces each other in transfixion - each gazing into the other's soul - one gets the picture of deep and intimate knowing.  Friends stand shoulder to shoulder, having a common gaze, but of a different sort than that of the lovers for, while the latter shares a common causeway of vision (i.e., that of looking along the same corridor into the other's eyes), the former has a common object of sight.  The friends aren't necessarily drawn to one another because of an appreciation of the intricacies of the other's soul (though the quality of the soul is doubtlessly an essential component), but out of mutual appreciation for something other than themselves.

This is why a group of friends can be so diverse - the main requirement for membership hasn't been a demographic of the past or of circumstances, but a demographic of desire.  And, perhaps, this too gives us some insight into why we find praying together to often bond us - we come together because we mutually desire Christ and, in traversing the same road towards Him, those that travel alongside us become valued companions.

Thus, I think our Lord and His friend, C.S. Lewis, commend praying together to us all, for it is in such activity that we get more of Him and He gives us more of each other.

A picture for Joey

I drew a lot in middle school and some of those past times spilled over into my high school days. One of my friends asked for a picture of Spider-Man and I said that would be no problem - surely it wouldn't.  About 12 years later, he got one and here it is.  Much to his credit, he never gave up on getting it and paid me the compliment of hanging this in his office.  What a pal.