As I think I mentioned in my earlier post, providentially on the way down to Florida we managed to stop at a bookseller, and I had the good fortune to buy the first two volumes of The Collected Letter of C.S. Lewis. They stood me in good stand nearly the whole week. I’ve underlined quite a few good quotables. Take this, for example, from a letter dated Jan 8th 1936 to Dom Bede Griffiths (whom, by the bye, my friend Jon Kessler, knew personally): Have you found, or is it peculiar to me, that it is much easier to pray for others than for oneself? Doubtless because every return to ones own situation involves action: or to speak more plainly, obedience. That appears to me more and more the whole business of life, the only road to love and peace—the cross and the crown in one.
That's often true, and is one of the reasons why I drift to the Litany or some version of it in the evening. Praying for ones self (in reading the letters, I notice that Lewis often left out a good bit of punctuation; you shan't mind either, I hope) is difficult. I find it requires silence, considerable interior focus, and not a little careful examination as to motives, intensions, desires, and the like. After ten or minutes of such reflection, I find myself agreeing with Arsenius:
My God, do not abandon me. I have done nothing good before Thee, but grant me, in Thy compassion, the power to make a start.
1 comment:
Welcome back, Andy! What an interesting quote from C. S. Lewis. I sometimes find it's easy enough to pray for my selfish wants (in Chapter 19 of our text, Yancey says we should pray for our heart's desire - we determined in class yesterday that his first three things to pray for were of the selfish/me-centered variety), but definitely much harder to pray about who I am, who I should be and what my role is or should be in drawing closer to God and doing His works on earth. Hope you feel better soon!
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