“Say your prayers in a garden early, ignoring steadfastly the dew, the birds and the flowers, and you will come away overwhelmed by its freshness and joy; go there in order to be overwhelmed and, after a certain age, nine times out of ten nothing will happen to you.”
– The Four Loves by C. S. Lewis
I’ve been busy, and I will probably be taking an internet hiatus soon. I recently finished The Four Loves, by C. S. Lewis. As always, when I read him, I was overwhelmed by his ability to express himself. Over all, I found the book fascinating and enlightening. I also wish I could get in touch with the man and debate some things with him, but ah well.
The above quote is something that struck me, when I read it, for I’ve had just the experience he is talking about. My relationship with God effects every single aspect of my life, even the ones that, on the surface, would seem to have nothing at all to do with spirituality, religion or faith. Prayer effects the taste of an apple and the sound of my cats’ asking for breakfast.
There’s another quote I will share, soon, but I figured I would go ahead and post this one.
jubilare 
April 28th, 2013 at 9:08 pm
Lewis is one of the most quotable writers ever. My copy of Mere Christianity is so dog eared and underlined that I’m thinking of getting a new copy just for reading. Haven’t read The Four Loves yet, but I will eventually. Thanks for sharing this.
Hope your hiatus won’t be too long. Take care.
April 29th, 2013 at 7:46 am
I’m re-reading Mere Christianity right now. I read it first about ten years ago. It’s one that really makes me wish I could sit down with Lewis over tea and debate. Usually I either completely or mostly agree with points he makes, but half the time there is something that I want to prod. Sadly, by the time I expect to meet him, debating will probably be moot. I can hope there will still be tea (maybe even a cup big enough for Jack). ;)
I definitely recommend The Four Loves. It’s a very thoughtful look at human relationships and how they can go both right and wrong.
I’m not on hiatus just yet. I have a few things to attend to first, but I feel the need for one. For one thing, I want to pull up my sleeves and write like a furious writing beastie.
April 28th, 2013 at 10:57 pm
I am so glad I got to read bits of it over your shoulder this past month.
April 29th, 2013 at 7:47 am
You should pick it up and read it yourself. You would blow through it in less than a day, I expect.
April 29th, 2013 at 7:50 pm
The ability to express oneself is what makes a good writer, I think :) And yes, just about everything CSL writes is brilliant. Like many authors of the same time period. I wonder what in that time engendered such apt loquacity?
April 30th, 2013 at 6:08 am
I certainly doubt one could be a good writer without that.
It was a cultural crossroads, I think… or maybe there was something in the water. ;) I find it interesting, and a little comforting, that there was a lot of crap written in their time, but that we simply don’t read it any more for the most part. The sand washes away leaving the gold behind. We’re still slogging through the sand of our own time looking for the gold.
April 29th, 2013 at 9:17 pm
Gotta love my Lewis. I have this great volume (including Four Loves) that has a year-long daily devotional type thing with excerpts from all kinds of Lewis works, so I get to read from a lot of his essays and things I hadn’t heard of before.
I hope you’re not on hiatus long – I hope everything’s alright? Take it easy.
April 30th, 2013 at 6:15 am
He has a way with words and thoughts, and unlike most great thinkers, he never (in my experience) comes off as arrogant. :) I need to read his essays, but at present I recently acquired a hefty tome containing a couple of his larger works that I have read and about five that I have not. Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, Miracles, The Great Divorce, The Problem of Pain, A Grief Observed, and The Abolition of Man. I’ve only read the first two, and that was a long time back.
I shouldn’t say h-i-a-t-u-s until the moment I am actually ready to do it. XD I’m not vanishing just yet. Nothing is wrong save that my time is getting away from me, and that usually means I need to cut out the internets and re-focus.
May 4th, 2013 at 1:08 pm
I’ve read the same two, plus Great Divorce, and bits and pieces of the others. Great Divorce can be pretty mind blowing. It takes the “further up and further in” concept from Last Battle to a deeper level.
The internets are like the black hole of time. Are you on Pinterest? That one’s particularly bad for me. And YouTube. And Netflix Instant. Why do all those things I’m supposed to be doing when I can watch three episodes of Alias back-to-back?
May 4th, 2013 at 2:03 pm
I can’t wait to get to that one, or to read the biting Screwtape Letters again.
Yes… sadly, yes. I am on pinterest, but I have managed to avoid it a lot lately. I avoid Facebook, too. Marathons are harder for me to avoid, but at least those sometimes spark story ideas. :P Black holes! But then, if it weren’t for the internets, I wouldn’t be talking to you, and that would be sad. :)
January 29th, 2015 at 11:52 am
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