c.s lewis & some thoughts

today I have to read an excerpt from Mere Christianity for my religious beliefs class. it was very intriguing, and therefore I want to share some things with you all. here are some excerpts from an excerpt:


"If two instincts are in conflict, and there is nothing in a creature's mind except those two instincts, obviously the stronger of the two must win. But at those moments when we are most conscious of the Moral Law, it usually seems to be telling us to side with the weaker of the two impulses."

"In religion, as in war & everything else, comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth--only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair." (For this excerpt I would like to add "love," to the list, or at least what we sometimes think of as love, or desire as love. And by love I also mean earthly love.)


In this class we also have to do these weekly essays, and they are graded by one of the TAs. He always leaves comments, and the comment he left on mine this week I found pretty interesting. I also wanted to share:


[In response to my idea of our beliefs and how sometimes, and I would argue most often, they are hardest for us to distance ourselves from, because they are such a part of who we are.] "Gravity, for example: what kind of imagination does it take to conceive of such an idea? It's like the fish realizing: Water! How does a mind appreciate the intensely obvious. Yet, they are things I desperately want to appreciate. Weird! Thomas Merton said something that I like: "We do not fail to appreciate God because he is so far but because he is too near: indeed, he is the eye out of which we see." Pretty good, no? I like to think about God in quite this way, though. Your personal examples are very good, too. I guess we pray, in part, to be able to see what is so hard for us to see, to gain distance somehow from what surrounds us, in order to see it better, not necessarily to destroy what the eye beholds, though. Prayer, yes, closing our eyes, giving ourselves distance from our nearest surroundings. It's a real gift to close our eyes a lot and enter farther and farther into the silence."

I really enjoyed his insights, although I'm not too sure about Merton's comment...I'm not sure if I could fully say that my eye is also God's eye. nevertheless, I really enjoyed what he had to say.

edit: In response to sammy's comment, I do have to say that I think God is inside of us. but I think also...that God is seperate from me. I am not God. but I know that God is in me. but there is also ME in me, too, and that is the part of me that tends to get things wrong. I am not saying that God is not in me, but I do not think that I "see out of His eye" all of the time. does this make sense?

anyways, thanks for reading my thoughts as always. if you'd like the entire excerpt to Mere Christianity, I'd be happy to send it to any of you!

hope your day is filled with peace and joy and love! and the delight of autumn smells.