Seeing what's broken

I'm glad to have the time to rejoin the journey with Sarah and Jason and others through Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis.  This week we look at Book III Chapter 4 Morality and Psychoanalysis.  Here, Lewis says:

One last point.  Remember that, as I said, the right direction leads not only to peace but to knowledge.  When a man is getting better, he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him.  When a man is getting worse, he understands his own badness less and less.  A moderately bad mans knows he is not very good; a thoroughly bad man thinks he is all right.  This is common sense really.  You understand sleep when you are awake, not while you are sleeping.

So then it seems I am getting better
for each day I see more of my imperfection.
As His hand works filling chips
smoothing cracks
I notice my brokeness
in ways deeper, more profound.
May I not, all at once
view myself as whole
complete
only to find myself
more shattered than before.
I pray each day
for more surrender
each day to trust
more of the pieces to His care.
In imperfect brokeness
I am more truly His.

Stop by Jason's to see what others are sharing about this week's reading.

Visit Emily's to read prose of the broken, imperfect and redeemed.

Practicing in imperfection

This week in our journey through Mere Christianity we are looking at Book III Chapter 2 The "Cardinal Virtues".  These are prudence, temperance, justice and fortitude.  After describing each, C. S. Lewis writes:

We might think that the “virtues” were necessary only for this present life – that in the other world we could stop being just because there is nothing to quarrel about and stop being brave because there is no danger.  Now it is quite true that there will probably be no occasion for just or courageous acts in the next world, but there will be every occasion for being the sort of people that we can become only as the result of doing such acts here.

So these moments - days, months and years

pile one upon the other
each an opportunity, an exercise, a lesson
time and time again to learn how to live
in all our imperfection, virtuous, victorious
and when the day arrives
that we look into the face of true perfection
all striving will cease in glorious peace
when the voice we have strained to hear says
"well done, well done indeed come and enter into your rest
My good, My faithful one"

now, still in pieces, there is work to be done
lessons to be learned, and learned well
for who knows when will come our reward.

His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant Matthew 25:21a NKJV

Jason is hosting us this week at Connecting to Impact

linking also with Emily and the imperfect

He, not me...

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This week we finish Book II of Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis with Chapter 5 - The Practical Conclusion.  Here Clive writes:

This is why the Christian is in a different position from other people who are trying to be good.  They hope, by being good, to please God if there is one; or - if they think there is not - at least they hope to deserve approval from good men.  But the Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him.  He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us; just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it.

Any good in me
is not me
but He
Who loves me.
Yes, this is
my heart's confession
yes, this is
what I know of truth.
It is not me
that shines
but a mirror
of His brightness
but oh, underneath
that light
what goodness grows.

Jason is hosting us this week at Connecting to Impact.  Come join us as we journey on.

Moved by His hand

Our journey into Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis continues as Jason and Sarah lead us in Book II Chapter 4 The Perfect Penitent.  In the middle of trying to explain his views on why and how we need and receive salvation through Christ, Lewis penned these words:

Yes, but what do we mean when we talk of God helping us?  We mean God putting into us a bit of Himself, so to speak.  He lends us a little of His reasoning powers and that is how we think; He puts a little of His love into us and that is how we love one another.  When you teach a child writing, you hold its hand while it forms the letters; that is, it forms the letters because you are forming them.  We love and reason because God loves and reasons and holds our hand while we do it.

So stirs the desire of my heart
to be a willing pen in His hand

My heart is overflowing with a good theme; I recite my composition concerning the King; My tongue is the pen of a ready writer.  Psalm 45:1 NKJV

to surrender to His lead
as He shapes His will
within me, without me,
through me.

Anything of worth
or beauty
is that which He deposits
and what blessing
to be a vessel
where He might
choose His goodness
to dwell.

Not because of who I am
but to glorify His name
my spirit moves
to the beating of His heart.

Sarah is hosting us today at Living Between the Lines.

Holy fuel

Jason and Sarah continue to walk with us through Mere Christianity.  This week we are chewing on Book II Chapter 3 The Shocking Alternative.  Here C. S. Lewis says:

God made us; invented us as a man invents an engine.  A car is made to run on gasoline, and it would not run properly on anything else.  Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself.  He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on.  There is no other.  That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion.  God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there.  There is no such thing.

We sing songs that share this same idea, worshipping, telling our God that "You are the air I breathe" and "You're all I want, You're all I ever needed".  Sadly, all too often we follow-up on our singing by trying to live life on our own, denying the very truth we just confessed.

There is indeed a profound emptiness within each of us that itches, aches and screams to be filled.  This void is not a mistake, but planned by God to expand to take in more and more and more of what He created it to hold; His presence, His Spirit and His love.  I know that nothing else can flood my life with joy.

I pray that I do not allow the world or the enemy of my soul to convince me that I have enough.  Even as the Holy Spirit fills me, may I continue to be consumed by hunger for another taste, another moment, more of Him. 

Keep me desperate, Lord, so that I am not able to take another step without You, for only in my total dependance on You do I find peace.

You're blessed when you're ravenously hungry. Then you're ready for the Messianic meal  Luke 6:21 The Message

Stop by Jason's Connecting to Impact to join in the discussion.

A peculiar reality

This week in our journey through Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis, Jason and Sarah lead us to Book II – Chapter 2 The Invasion

Early this morning, I sat in my usual chair and spent time journaling with the Lord before I read this weeks portion. I am stunned once again that Jesus knew what I would be delving into and spoke about an upside down world. I share the words of C. S. Lewis first:

Reality, in fact is usually something you could not have guessed. That is one of the reasons I believe Christianity. It is a religion you could not have guessed. If it offered us just the kind of universe we had always expected, I should feel we were making it up. But, in fact, it is not the sort of thing anyone would have made up. It has just that queer twist about it that real things have.

And here are the words the Lord gave to me, inviting me to walk with Him and see from His perspective that things are not always as they appear:

Take My hand. When you walk with Me you can go where I go. We can step up on the clouds, higher, where you can see what I see.

From here – see the poverty of those who think themselves rich and the wealth of those who have nothing but find joy in Me.

From here – see what people think they do in secret – both the evil and the good.

From here – all the masks people hide behind become transparent and hearts shine through – those filled with light and ones blocked by darkness,

Up here nothing is concealed. Always there are cries of pain and need, shouts of joy, sobs of anguish, gasps of revelation.

Will you take My hand? Will you walk with Me? Up here, where what you think you know is often turned upside-down, inside-out?

Up here you will find My heart that never stops beating for you, for all of you.

Will you come?

Stop by Sarah's Living Between the Lines to join the discussion.

Finding light

This week, as Jason and Sarah continue to lead us, we are looking at Mere Christianity Book II What Christians Believe; Chapter 1. The Rival Conceptions of God.  Here C. L. Lewis concludes:

If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning; just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. 

I chose to seek the light
hungry for sense in the nonsense
wanting to taste meaning, purpose
something deeper
than the random scattering
of life's events.

Yes, if I could notice
the darkness growing darker
than surely I had eyes to see.

Grace, it was, and grace it is,
yes grace indeed
that keeps those same eyes open now
to drink in light and life and love
blinking in tune
with His heartbeat.

Then he turned to his disciples and said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see." Luke 10:23 NIV 


Come on over to Jason's Connecting to Impact to join this week's discussion.

Disturbed but pleasant, randomly

Slate coloured Junco in our yard

Well, since Duane Scott is hinting that this might be the very last Pleasantly Disturbed Thursday I really must jump in with my own random splatterings...

Yesterday, here in my post on Mere Christianity I quoted C. S. Lewis talking about architects not being the walls in the houses they build...

ever since I can not, simply can not get an old Burt Bacarach song out of my head --

A chair is still a chair
Even when there's no one sitting there
But a chair is not a house
And a house is not a home
When there's no one there

Around and around swirl the words, with new questions popping up.

Is a squirrel still a squirrel if the dog doesn't care?
Would they jump from the branches to sit on a chair
if the chair was still a chair?
If I put out a chair
would the juncos sit there
that keep flying about and will perch anywhere?
And what kind of name is junco anyway?
When I hear it I can think only "junk"
and that's not a nice thing to call a bird, is it?

Take a few minutes to visit Duane and add your own form of random and disturbed pleasantry.  Perhaps we can persuade him that these times of silliness are vital to our mental health!

Is a house still a house?

This week Jason and Sarah lead us thru the 4th chapter of Mere Christianity: What Lies Behind the Law.

Here Lewis talks about science's inability to prove or disprove truth about creation.  He speaks of facts, experiments and it all seems to lead to more questions.

If there was a controlling power outside the universe, it could not show itself to us as one of the facts inside the universe - no more than the architect of a house could actually be a wall or staircase or fireplace in that house.

I am attempting to follow Clive's train of thought, but my thoughts wander.  As a believer in One Creator Who Is all and Is in all, I think:

while the wall is not an architect
God Is the wall
the staircase
the flames burning hot
and the fireplace that contains them
He Is the house
and the One who built it.

Somehow I can't help but think that Mr. Lewis would agree.

yet for us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live.  1 Corinthians 8:6 NKJV

Stop by Jason's Connecting to Impact for more discussion of this weeks chapter.

Do I do what I should do?

This week we're looking at Chapter 3 of Mere Christianity, The Reality of the Law, where C. S. Lewis writes:

The law of gravity tells you what stones do if you drop them; but the Law of Human Nature tells you what human beings ought to do and do not.  In other words, when you are dealing with humans, something else comes in above and beyond the actual facts.  You have the facts (how men do behave) and you also have something else (how they ought to behave).  In the rest of the universe there need not be anything but the facts.

I can but only
stop
and rest a moment
in the place of gratitude
for grace
seeds freedom
allowing me to be
what nature would not

So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.

And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t.  I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.  I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong.  Romans 7:14-21 NLT

By His Spirit alone
alive in me
am I anything
that is good,
holy, loving

Breathe in the joy
of being His.

Stop by Sarah's Living Between the Lines to join today's discussion, where I find her pondering the same passage of scripture.

Higher ground

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I’m pressing on the upward way,

New heights I’m gaining every day;
Still praying as I onward bound,
“Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.”
words by Johnson Oatman, Jr.

Think once again of a piano.  It has not got two kinds of notes on it, the "right" notes and the "wrong" ones.  Every single note is right at one time and wrong at another. The Moral Law is not any one instinct or set of instincts; it is something which makes a kind of tune (the tune we call goodness or right conduct) by directing the instincts.  C.S. Lewis

Moral compass, higher ground, black and white, right and wrong.  C. S. Lewis continues to discuss the "thing" within us all that is drawn like a magnet to "be better".

I know, beyond knowing, in a deep place, that there is a seed, a core, something that is always right, something that is always true.  It is not created by the hand of man, it is often misunderstood by the mind of man and it seeks to lay hold of the heart of man.

It is the mind of Christ.  Today I am asking the Lord for His help, that I might be better able to surrender to His ways, to turn up the heat that I would be drawn, just like a moth to His flame.

for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
1 Corinthians 2:16 NIV

Join Jason and Sarah as we press on in discussion of Mere Christianity.  This week the links are posted on Jason's blog.

No more excuses

Jason and Sarah have again chosen the task of leading us through weekly discussions.  This time they have chosen the classic Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis.  Always charmed, enlightened and often pierced by Lewis's words I've decided to join in.

This week in Chapter One - The Law of Human Nature Lewis' writes:

I hope you will not misunderstand what I am going to say. I am not preaching, and Heaven knows I do not pretend to be better than anyone else. I am only trying to call attention to a fact; the fact that this year, or this month, or, more likely, this very day, we have failed to practice ourselves the kind of behavior we expect from other people.

He then goes on to talk about how we make excuses, for indeed we do know the difference between right and wrong, and long to think of ourselves as right. If we can blame someone else or something else for our “wrongness” then we can continue to believe the illusion of our “rightness”.

An illusion it is indeed, for not a single one of us is "right" as Paul teaches in his letter to the Romans:

There's nobody living right, not even one, nobody who knows the score, nobody alert for God. They've all taken the wrong turn; they've all wandered down blind alleys. No one's living right; I can't find a single one.  Romans 3:10-12 The Message

Shades of gray

Can we really be surprised
at those things surrounding us
that cause our jaws to drop
the harshness of the actions of man
when shades of gray
have blurred the lines
and black and white disappear?

I am tired of excuses
yours, thiers
mostly sick in my depths
of those I utter with my own lips.

I have His Word
I contain His Spirit
I can not say I do not know.

I can strip off the covering of
my own sinful nature
and choose
yes, I choose
to wrap myself in the clothing
of His righteousness.

He chose the cross
to offer me this very choice.
Can I continue to deny that sacrifice?

Join in the discussion at Sarah's Living Between the Lines