Introduction: C. S. Lewis: The Weight of Glory
This splendid collection of Lewis’s essays, containing some of the addresses he gave during WWII and first published in 1949, presents many of his most provocative and insightful thoughts on Christian behavior. Don’t neglect to read the Introduction, in which Hooper recalls many of his interactions with Lewis.
We will post considerations of the essays on the following schedule: Please comment and interact.
March 6: The Weight of Glory
13: Learning in War-Time
20: Why I Am Not a Pacifist
27: Transposition
Apr 3: Is Theology Poetry?
10: The Inner Ring
17: Membership
24: On Forgiveness and
A Slip of the Tongue
Comments
Can't wait to read your blog posts on the Weight of Glory! This short collection of essays packs so much wisdom in so little space--it's one of my favorites.
"There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations— these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit– immortal horrors or everlasting splendours."
"Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat — the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden."
"To please God…to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness…to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son—it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is."
"When I began to look into this matter I was shocked to find such different Christians as Milton, Johnson and Thomas Aquinas taking heavenly glory quite frankly in the sense of fame or good report. But not fame conferred by our fellow creatures—fame with God, approval or (I might say) “appreciation” by God. And then, when I had thought it over, I saw that this view was scriptural; nothing can eliminate from the parable the divine accolade, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” With that, a good deal of what I had been thinking all my life fell down like a house of cards."
"The work of a Beethoven, and the work of a charwoman, become spiritual on precisely the same condition, that of being offered to God, of being done humbly “as to the Lord”.
"The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come."
"The promises of Scripture may very roughly be reduced to five heads. It is promised (1) that we shall be with Christ; (2) that we shall be like Him; (3) with an enormous wealth of imagery, that we shall have “glory”; (4) that we shall, in some sense, be fed or feasted or entertained; and (5) that we shall have some sort of official position in the universe—ruling cities, judging angels, being pillars of Cod’s temple."
And so much more...
Bob