When I asked for book recommendations, a friend named A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken. I am, Kindle tells me, 36% of the way through the book. Everyone -- put down what you are reading and get this book.
It was, apparently, a bestseller, but I had never heard of it. I don't even want to bother telling you what it's about -- you can follow the link above and read the summary there. I want to share this, though. Vanauken, not a Christian, has written a letter to C. S. Lewis in which he is discussing his feelings about Christianity. He thinks he would like for it to be true (he would also like for it not to be true) and he mentions the ugliness of the materialist universe. Lewis responds with:
"You say the materialist universe is 'ugly'. I wonder how you discovered that! If you are really a product of a materialistic universe, how is it you don't feel at home there? Do fish complain of the sea for being wet? Or if they did, would that fact itself not strongly suggest that they had not always been, or wd. not always be, purely aquatic creatures? Notice how we are perpetually surprised at Time. ('How time flies! Fancy John being grown-up & married! I can hardly believe it!') In heaven's name, why? Unless, indeed, there is something in us which is not temporal."
I just love that. I do believe it's true, that we were created for eternity and have never quite shaken the knowledge of that. Imprinted on our DNA is the memory of walking with God in the Garden -- how can we ever completely get over something as profound as that?
More later...
No comments:
Post a Comment