i love his humility, his open-mindedness, and having read his autobiography, i can definitely identify with some of his misgivings with organized religion. lewis, however, makes me want to believe. his faith warms my heart, and if what he believes to be christianity is true, then i embrace it with open arms. a lot of his beliefs do not sync with many christian doctrines, or at least how it is practiced in the mainstream today. however, if lewis' beliefs are accurate, i can be a good, moral being with a faith in a higher power and still have the opportunity for salvation in his heaven, even if i do not practice christianity traditionally, or at all.
i think we should all focus on ourselves, not on judging or persecuting others, so all of the inherent fighting and squabbles that arise from denominations and sects seems pointless and detrimental to me. i do not want to be a part of a religion where you damn others without giving much regard to how you live your own life. we all make mistakes, and religions make mistakes. what matters is taking care of ourselves before we pass judgment on others. salvation is subjective anyway.
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we are not living in a world where all roads are radii of a circle and where all, if followed long enough, will therefore draw gradually nearer and finally meet at the centre: rather in a world where every road, after a few miles, forks into two, and each of those into two again, and at each fork you must make a decision.
i do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road.
it gave me a feeling of freedom, but also of exposure, possibly of danger, which continued to accompany me through all that followed. it is the impossibility of communicating that feeling, or even inducing you to remember it as you proceed, which makes me despair of conveying the real quality of what i saw and heard.
the beliefs are sincere in the sense that they do occur as psychological events in the man's mind. if that's what you mean by sincerity they are sincere, and so were ours. but errors which are sincere in that sense are not innocent.
don't you remember on earth - there were things too hot to touch with your finger but you could drink them all right? shame is like that. if you will accept it - if you will drink the cup to the bottom - you will find it very nourishing: but try to do anything else with it and it scalds.
heaven is reality itself. all that is fully real is heavenly. for all that can be shaken will be shaken and only the unshakable remains.
ye cannot fully understand the relations of choice and time till you are beyond both.
there is always something [we] insist on keeping, even at the price of misery. there is always something [we] prefer to joy - that is, to reality.
but my teacher reminded me that the pleasure of frightening is by no means unknown on earth, and also of Tacitus' saying: 'they terrify lest they should fear.' when the debris of a decayed human soul finds itself crumbled into ghosthood and realises 'i myself am now that which all humanity has feared, i am just that cold churchyard shadow, that horrible thing which cannot be, yet somehow is'. . .for to be afraid of oneself is the last horror.
when you painted on earth-at least in your earlier days-it was because you caught glimpses of heaven in the earthly landscape. the success of your painting was that it enabled others to see glimpses too. but here you are having the thing itself. it is from here that the messages came. there is no good telling us about this country, for we see it already. in fact we see it better than you do.
the demand of the loveless and the self-imprisoned that they should be allowed to blackmail the universe: that till they consent to be happy (on their own terms) no one else shall taste joy: that theirs should be the final power; that hell should be able to veto heaven.
son, son, it must be one way or the other. either the day must come when joy prevails and all the makers of misery are no longer able to infect it: or else for ever and ever the makers of misery can destroy in others the happiness they reject for themselves.
the action of pity will live for ever: but the passion of pity will not. the passion of pity, the pity we merely suffer, the ache that draws men to concede what should not be concede and to flatter when they should speak truth, the pity that has cheated many a woman out of her virginity and many a statesman out of his honesty - that will die.
time is the very lense through which ye see - small and clear, as men see through the wrong end of a telescope - something that would otherwise be too big for ye to see at all. that thing is freedom: the gift whereby ye most resemble your maker and are yourselves parts of eternal reality. but ye can see it only through the lens of time, in a little clear picture, through the inverted telescope. it is a picture of moments following one another and yourself in each moment making some choice that might have been otherwise.
for every attempt to see the shape of eternity except through the lens of time destroys your knowledge of freedom.
his face flashed with a new light. a fern, thirty yards behind him, turned golden. the eastern side of every tree-trunk grew bright. shadows deepened. all the time there had been bird noises, trillings, chatterings, and the like; not now suddenly the full chorus was poured from every branch; cocks were crowing, there was music of hounds, and horns. . .
one dreadful glance over my shoulder i essayed - not long enough to see (or did i see?) the rim of the sunrise that shoots time dead with golden arrows and puts to flight all phantasmal shapes. . .' i am caught by the morning and i am a ghost.' but it was too late. the light, like solid blocks, intolerable of edge and weight, came thundering upon my head.
i do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road.
it gave me a feeling of freedom, but also of exposure, possibly of danger, which continued to accompany me through all that followed. it is the impossibility of communicating that feeling, or even inducing you to remember it as you proceed, which makes me despair of conveying the real quality of what i saw and heard.
the beliefs are sincere in the sense that they do occur as psychological events in the man's mind. if that's what you mean by sincerity they are sincere, and so were ours. but errors which are sincere in that sense are not innocent.
don't you remember on earth - there were things too hot to touch with your finger but you could drink them all right? shame is like that. if you will accept it - if you will drink the cup to the bottom - you will find it very nourishing: but try to do anything else with it and it scalds.
heaven is reality itself. all that is fully real is heavenly. for all that can be shaken will be shaken and only the unshakable remains.
ye cannot fully understand the relations of choice and time till you are beyond both.
there is always something [we] insist on keeping, even at the price of misery. there is always something [we] prefer to joy - that is, to reality.
but my teacher reminded me that the pleasure of frightening is by no means unknown on earth, and also of Tacitus' saying: 'they terrify lest they should fear.' when the debris of a decayed human soul finds itself crumbled into ghosthood and realises 'i myself am now that which all humanity has feared, i am just that cold churchyard shadow, that horrible thing which cannot be, yet somehow is'. . .for to be afraid of oneself is the last horror.
when you painted on earth-at least in your earlier days-it was because you caught glimpses of heaven in the earthly landscape. the success of your painting was that it enabled others to see glimpses too. but here you are having the thing itself. it is from here that the messages came. there is no good telling us about this country, for we see it already. in fact we see it better than you do.
the demand of the loveless and the self-imprisoned that they should be allowed to blackmail the universe: that till they consent to be happy (on their own terms) no one else shall taste joy: that theirs should be the final power; that hell should be able to veto heaven.
son, son, it must be one way or the other. either the day must come when joy prevails and all the makers of misery are no longer able to infect it: or else for ever and ever the makers of misery can destroy in others the happiness they reject for themselves.
the action of pity will live for ever: but the passion of pity will not. the passion of pity, the pity we merely suffer, the ache that draws men to concede what should not be concede and to flatter when they should speak truth, the pity that has cheated many a woman out of her virginity and many a statesman out of his honesty - that will die.
time is the very lense through which ye see - small and clear, as men see through the wrong end of a telescope - something that would otherwise be too big for ye to see at all. that thing is freedom: the gift whereby ye most resemble your maker and are yourselves parts of eternal reality. but ye can see it only through the lens of time, in a little clear picture, through the inverted telescope. it is a picture of moments following one another and yourself in each moment making some choice that might have been otherwise.
for every attempt to see the shape of eternity except through the lens of time destroys your knowledge of freedom.
his face flashed with a new light. a fern, thirty yards behind him, turned golden. the eastern side of every tree-trunk grew bright. shadows deepened. all the time there had been bird noises, trillings, chatterings, and the like; not now suddenly the full chorus was poured from every branch; cocks were crowing, there was music of hounds, and horns. . .
one dreadful glance over my shoulder i essayed - not long enough to see (or did i see?) the rim of the sunrise that shoots time dead with golden arrows and puts to flight all phantasmal shapes. . .' i am caught by the morning and i am a ghost.' but it was too late. the light, like solid blocks, intolerable of edge and weight, came thundering upon my head.
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