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Til We Have Faces by CS Lewis 

16/20 

CS Lewis's The Problem of Pain. Fascinating. Challenging. Surprising. 

Lewis is an evolutionist.  Chew on that.  

The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one's 'own', or 'real' life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one's real life—the life God is sending one day by day: what one calls one's 'real life' is a phantom of one's own imagination.


—CS Lewis, from a letter to Arthur Greeves, 20 December 1943

My address book is about to get a full on make-over.  It seems most everyone in my life is either getting married (new address and new last name) or moving!  Seriously.  Pretty much everyone.  And then there are all the "maybe" movers too!  I'm holding myself in the posture of 'excited' and fighting the panic, because when I stop to reflect on each of them individually, I am so excited to see the people I love stepping in to the callings on their lives.  They're coming alive.  I think this is why so many of us have had this steady flow in to our minds and hearts that we need courage.... that we need to take risks.  It was so that we'd make these moves, we'd say yes, take chances and fight for the dreams that have been dormant in our hearts.  We're a generation of travelers - of movers - of reconcilers - of bridge-builders.  I can count off people who are deeply grafted in my heart and life all across the country - and some in other countries.  And I'm not unique in that... I think it's part of what our generation is to be about.  We can build deep and still build far.  And we can stay connected and grounded and still spread out. 

That said, when I take a step back and survey this mass movement, I smile.  You know, there's a rumor going 'round.  ;)

“This world is a great sculptor’s shop. We are the statues and there’s a rumor going around the shop that some of us are someday going to come to life.”


― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Clive Staples Lewis

29 November 1898 - 22 November 1963

"You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream."

An author who changed most all of our lives.  I've never met a person who's said "Oh yes, Lewis, I read his books but never cared for one."  No, he seems to be all of our favorite, creating worlds for us as children and unveiling truths and priorities for us as adults. 

"Nothing you have not given away will ever really be yours."  

CS Lewis, Mere Christianity*

*one of my all-time favorite books.  I've read it 3 or 4 times now... and probably due for another round.

"The happy Trinity is her home; nothing can trouble her joy...a thousand fail to solve the problem, ten thousand choose the wrong turning, but she passes safely through...He fills her brim-full with the immensity of life, He leads her to see the world's desire."

-C. S. Lewis: The Great Divorce via Rose Ruiz ;)

"When your own heart's been broken it will be time for you to think of talking. But someone must say in general what's been unsaid among you this many a year: that love, as mortals understand the word, isn't enough. Every natural love will rise again and live forever in this country: but none will rise again until it has been buried."

"The saying is almost too hard for us."

"Ah, but it's cruel to not say it. They that know have grown afraid to speak. That is why sorrows that used to purify now only fester."

....

"Nothing, not even the best and noblest, can go on as it now is. Nothing, not even what is lowest and most bestial, will not be raised again if it submits to death."

-The Great Divorce, CS Lewis (my favorite lines, from one of my favorite books... and what I referenced in a recent post)

I'm rejoicing in this, that all around I feel much dying in me, and that from it can come life, and a love that can live forever. Oh Lord, let these sorrows purify.

I've long believed that great pains and hurts, gently responded to, are what make a great woman: tender and gentle and strong. But in the past couple months, I've learned that it is as much by receiving love as by loving when your heart is broken. I keep repeating to myself (almost in surprise), "love has done a work in me." It's true. The love and gentleness of many in my life even just in the past few months, has done a great work in me. It's made me something different, and it's begun a discontent with my lack of love for others. My prayer's always been to be an act of love, that I'm more love than me... and that when people encounter me, they encounter tangible, real, embodied love. I'm so far from that. And I'm so desperate to become it. And that is why, as I feel death, I celebrate that love may be being birthed, love that is stronger than me.

CS Lewis Quotes, a handful of my favorites:

There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, "All right, then, have it your way."

Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.

Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.

Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.

Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become.

Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.

We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.

We are what we believe we are.

Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours.

What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step.

You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.

You can't get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me.

You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.

If you didn't know it already- CS Lewis is one of my heroes! What a man- What a writer- What a believer! The man's brilliant.