Sweet Essence

It's been a little bit since I have shared my thoughts on Smalltowns.  The last time I wrote, I was in a congregation and growing insecure in my faith more and more.  As of right now I find myself in a hallway as CS Lewis so eloquently states in "Mere Christianity".  I started this book for the fourth time but in quite a different season in my life. I believe this is the first book I read which is quite peculiar because I thought I gave it to someone else to read.  Not sure why it came back in my possession but I'm grateful. I get to glance at my thoughts as a baby christian and compare it to my thoughts now and see if I still agree.  One of my favorite quotes is just in the Preface at the beginning.  I wrote on the side of this quote, "that God can move such words inspires me."  

"I hope no reader will suppose that "Mere Christianity"  is here put forward as an alternative to the creeds of the existing communions -- as if a man could adopt it in preference to Congregationalism or Greek Orthodoxy or anything else. It is more like a hall out of which doors open into several rooms. If I can bring anyone into that hall I shall have done what I attempted.  But it is in the rooms, not in the hall, that there are fires and chairs and meals."  (Mere Christianity; CS Lewis)

This last statement was hard for me to dwell on because I remembered the last two years of my so called room and realized that my room was empty for me and I was starving because of the lack of care. I find that the  hallway is a good place for me at this time because I can wonder in and out of different rooms and the Lord gives me fellowship with people that are like minded and sometimes in the sweetness I get fed and get comfy in a chair close to the warm fire. My heart rejoices in these moments sometimes it's just a sweet fellowship among friends dwelling on the Greatness of the Lord.

My prayer today; Heal hearts today let the broken reside in You, fix our sharp edges and help us to bring forth a clear image of you Lord. 

Smalltowns

" Six pennies are quite separate and very alike: my nose and my lungs are very different but they are only alive at all because they are parts of my body and share its common life.  Christianity thinks of human individuals not as mere members of a group or items in a list, but as organs in a body-- different from one another and each contributing what no other could. When you find yourself wanting to turn your children, or pupils, or even your neighbors, into people exactly like yourself, remember that God probably never meant them to be that.  You and they are different organs, intended to do different things.  On the other hand, when you are tempted not to bother about someone else's troubles because they are 'no business of yours', remember that though he is different from you he is part of the same organism as you.  If you forget that he belongs to the same organism as yourself you will become an individualist. If you forget that he is a different organ from you, if you want to suppress differences and make people all alike, you become Totalitarian.  But a Christian must not be either a Totalitarian or an Individualist.

I feel a strong desire to tell you -- and I expect you feel a strong desire to tell me -- which of these two errors is the worse.  That is the devil getting at us.  He always sends errors into the world in pairs -- pairs of opposites. And he always encourages us to spend a lot of time thinking which is the worse. You see why, of course? He relies on your extra dislike of the one error to draw you gradually into the opposite one.  But do not let us be fooled. We have to keep our eyes on the goal and go straight through between both errors. We have no other concern than that with either of them. "
 CS Lewis
Mere Christianity

Sweet Essence

Well, my heart has dived into Mere Christianity again going on number 4.  I hope when I meet this man in the future that he remembers his heart that was for the Lord.  Quote of the Day

     "If I find myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.  If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a FRAUD. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.  If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand,  never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of COPY, or ECHO, or MIRAGE.  I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help OTHERS TO DO THE SAME.

     There is no need to be worried by FACETIOUS people who try to make the Christian hope of 'Heaven' ridiculous by saying they do not want 'to spend eternity playing harps.'  The answer to such people is that if they cannot understand books written for grown-ups, they should not talk about them. (Best of many quotes, hold this in your heart when people ridicule your HOPE in God)   
All the scriptural imagery (harps, crowns, gold, etc.) is, of course, a merely symbolical attempt to express the inexpressible. Musical instruments are mentioned because for many people (not all) music is the thing known in the present life which most strongly suggests ecstasy and infinity.  Crowns are mentioned to suggest the fact that those who are united with God in eternity share His splendor and power and joy. Gold is mentioned to suggest the timelessness of Heaven (gold does not rust) and the preciousness of it.  People who take these symbols literally might as well think that when Christ told us to be like doves, He meant that we were to lay eggs."

CS Lewis

Smalltowns

"Now No Feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity, or even to last at all. Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last, but feelings come and go"

CS Lewis

Smalltowns

"We learn, on the one hand, that we cannot trust ourselves even in our best moments, and, on the others,  that we need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven. The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection. "
CS Lewis