Tag Archives: C.S. Lewis

So Much Warmth

poetry, ,


We’re having a lovely Indian Summer this week, maybe a good time to post this poem by Robert Frost, one that I copied for my own re-reading from a library book, back when the children were copying their own selections to memorize.

I hadn’t yet read the quote from C.S. Lewis that I can’t locate at the moment, where he also points out (here’s my very rough paraphrase) how life is mostly full of troubles, but that God sprinkles in enough joy-filled moments to keep us from losing heart. This poem speaks of that experience.

*Happiness Makes up in Height What it Lacks in Length*

Oh, stormy stormy world,
The days you were not swirled
Around with mist and cloud,
Or wrapped as in a shroud,
And the sun’s brilliant ball
Was not in part or all
Obscured from mortal view —
Were days so very few
I can but wonder whence
I get the lasting sense
Of so much warmth and light.
If my mistrust is right
It may be altogether
From one day’s perfect weather,
When starting clear at dawn,
The day swept clearly on
To finish clear at eve.
I verily believe
My fair impression may
Be all from that one day.
No shadow crossed but ours
As through the blazing flowers
We went from house to wood
For change of solitude.

–Robert Frost

Honey and Rest

quotes,


For a few days I’ve been under the weather, miserable with those common winter cold symptoms. But no, not miserable! God has given me many joys: happy family news, hugs, music, the comfort of friends and grandchildren, and the loving attentions of my husband.

I had to bow out of several duties and other people were able to take over for me. It is annoying to be weak and disabled, but if I can give in and give up, and see the situation as just a more blatant expression of my usual stance before God….probably I need the reminder.

It seems the perfect opportunity to read All Those Books….but I am so dull of brain, nothing is easy enough, or if it is, it’s too boring to be worth turning the pages. So I’ve been typing more of Aunt Ida’s letters — a lot of them. And I thought I might take some more snippets and make of them a fun blog post. But staring at the words doesn’t magically organize them into any kind of order.

Next I browsed through the quote files a bit, and I see a short one I can handle. It relates to some things I have been doing, or at least could/should do. I can enjoy the sky from where I sit; I was greatly soothed by a hot shower and continue to drink mug after mug of tea or hot water. Sleep has been delicious, aided by various drugs — thank God for them.

And after reading the lines below, I branched out and added to my steaming drink — which sits now nearby — some fresh lemon juice and honey.

Something of God…flows into us from the blue of the sky, the taste of honey, the delicious embrace of water whether cold or hot, and even from sleep itself.

— C.S. Lewis

 

Two to Remember

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Today is the birthday of C.S. Lewis, and that’s a good reason to post a thought-provoking quote from him. Lewis was born in 1898 and died on Nov. 22, 1963, the same date as President John F. Kennedy and author Aldous Huxley. Peter Kreeft wrote a book based on his imagination of what a conversation among these three people might sound like if they met after death; it is titled Between Heaven and Hell: A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death with John F. Kennedy, C. S. Lewis & Aldous Huxley.

I don’t think I’ve read that book yet, but today is Lewis’s birthday. Maybe I’ll read the book prompted by the date of his death before next November 22 and have some thoughts on it then. For now, I’d like to think on this:

  Gratitude looks to the Past and love to the Present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead.

The first clause describes what characterized our family’s Thanksgiving celebration so recently. The second describes what I have daily to turn from, to put off from my thoughts just as I might drop an icky thing from my hands, so that I can freely touch and hold, really be present with, what and who is right here now.

While I’m remembering people who inspire, let me not forget to mention St. Andrew The First Called, whose feast day is tomorrow. I learned last year about how he is the patron saint of Scotland. We don’t have our priest-intern Fr. Andrew any longer but we are having Vespers tonight and Liturgy tomorrow for Saint Andrew all the same, which makes me happy right now.

In thinking about Lewis’s quote above, I realized that one reason we plan for the future is just so we will be able to love and serve when the future has become the present. It’s the way we can look ahead in love and faith and not in those other ways. But what a lot of Love I have to live in today.

Can’t say anything good enough.

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Actually it seems to me that one can hardly say anything
either bad enough or good enough about life. 
–C.S. Lewis

The Christian life includes both joy and sorrow, and it seems that the intense experience of either aspect can’t adequately be described. Each of us has our own unique pain or bliss.

What comes to us on the journey is meant to be shared with and offered to our God; He’s the only one who knows our heart, without us saying a word. Christ endured shame, abuse, the Cross, and hell, for the joy that was set before Him. He does know what we are going through, and He went through worse, and the Love in the Holy Trinity is the Sun of which our happiness is only a ray.

Right now I’m walking on the sunny side of life, and I’m glad to say so here, but I won’t try to describe my giddiness. I can’t say anything good enough about Life. He is the Source, He is the Life, I know that, and I am finding His goodness and kindness in so many things: my husband’s love, the warmth of my home, the fatigue from housecleaning, the hope of the tulips I planted blooming in the Spring, the rest at night.

The photo is of a vase that was my grandmother’s, with some snippets from my garden. A bit of this and that, a unique medley that reminds me of my blessed life.