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Archive for March, 2014

On Fundamental Deception

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on March 29, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Men are not angered by mere misfortune but by misfortune conceived as injury. And the sense of injury depends on the feeling that a legitimate claim has been denied. The more claims on life, therefore, that your patient can be induced to make, the more often he will feel injured and, as a result, ill-tempered. 
 
Now you will have noticed that nothing throws him into a passion so easily as to find a tract of time which he reckoned on having at his own disposal unexpectedly taken from him. It is the unexpected visitor (when he looked forward to a quiet evening), or the friend’s talkative wife (turning up when he looked forward to a tête-à-tête with the friend), that throw him out of gear. Now he is not yet so uncharitable or slothful that these small demands on his courtesy are in themselves too much for it. They anger him because he regards his time as his own and feels that it is being stolen. You must therefore zealously guard in his mind the curious assumption ‘My time is my own’. 
 
Let him have the feeling that he starts each day as the lawful possessor of twenty-four hours. Let him feel as a grievous tax that portion of this property which he has to make over to his employers, and as a generous donation that further portion which he allows to religious duties. But what he must never be permitted to doubt is that the total from which these deductions have been made was, in some mysterious sense, his own personal birthright.
 
The Screwtape Letters. Copyright © 1942, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Copyright restored © 1996 C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. A Year With C.S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works. Copyright © 2003 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers
 
Our time, as ourselves, does not belong exclusively to us. We are here by the grace of God to commune with and share our time, talents and treasures. To think or do otherwise is to take from God that which has been God’s all along. he just loans it to us for his good purpose.
 
Sharing time,
Z gardener

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On Depression

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on March 27, 2014| Leave a Comment »

 
 
My own idea, for what it is worth, is that all sadness which is not either arising from the repentance of a concrete sin and hastening towards concrete amendment or restitution, or else arising from pity and hastening to active assistance, is simply bad; and I think that we all sin by needlessly disobeying the apostolic injunction to “rejoice” as by anything else. Humility, after the first shock, is a cheerful virtue: it is the high-minded unbeliever desperately trying in the teeth of repeated disillusions to retain his “faith in human nature” who is really sad.
 
The Problem of Pain. Copyright © 1940, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Copyright restored © 1996 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.Words to Live By: A Guide for the Merely Christian. Copyright © 2007 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
 
It is very difficult for someone in the midst of great loss or pain to hear that we are to “rejoice in all things.” However, the degree of difficulty in it’s hearing does not diminish its truth. The challenge therefore, is to continue believing, expecting and searching for the blessing hidden in the pain. If we can cling to that truth, and search for it, we will almost always find it, and it will be the best path through our present difficulty.
 
Seeking the joy,
Z gardener

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Screwtape Reveals The Nothing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on March 26, 2014| 1 Comment »

 
The Christians describe the Enemy (Screwtape’s term for God) as one ‘without whom Nothing is strong’. And Nothing is very strong: strong enough to steal away a man’s best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, in drumming of fingers and kicking of heels, in whistling tunes that he does not like, or in the long, dim labyrinth of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them a relish, but which, once chance association has started them, the creature is too weak and fuddled to shake off.
 
You will say that these are very small sins; and doubtless, like all young tempters, you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness. But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy. It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.
 
The Screwtape Letters. Copyright © 1942, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Copyright restored © 1996 C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. A Year With C.S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works. Copyright © 2003 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
 
The “Nothing” referred by Screwtape as “strong” is better said as “no thing”. That is what evil is. It the the “no thing”, the lack of light, the absence of  communion, the void, the not. God, on the other hand is light and constitutes “every thing that is”, and without which nothing that is would even exist. 
 
Sin is the absence something. It is a state of being in which we attempt to exist without God in our lives. Sin is a lie, the false illusion of separation from God, and it is truly nothing. It is the absence of something, just as the dark is no thing, but is only the absence of something, light. Treat sin as such and find true peace, joy and love that is in every thing.
 
Loving every thing,
Z gardener

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On Demons

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on March 18, 2014| Leave a Comment »

 
I believe (in the existence of the devil) not in the sense that it is part of my creed, but in the sense that it is one of my opinions. My religion would not be in ruins if this opinion were shown to be false. Till that happens—and proofs of a negative are hard to come by—I shall retain it. It seems to me to explain a good many facts. It agrees with the plain sense of Scripture, the tradition of Christendom, and the beliefs of most men at most times. And it conflicts with nothing that any of the sciences has shown to be true.
 
The Screwtape Letters. Copyright © 1942, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Copyright restored © 1996 C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.Words to Live By: A Guide for the Merely Christian. Copyright © 2007 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
 
It has been my experience that there is a malevolent, intelligent and designing entity that afflicts mankind now, as it has throughout our common history. It tried to separate itself from God (which is impossible) and fell from grace (existing in the illusion of separation from God) as did mankind. This negative spirit enters our physical world in the tempter’s voice that urges us to do that which we know or feel is wrong. Just as God’s, who enters the physical world through the voice of our conscience (the Holy Spirit), urges us to do that which is is right.
 
We can be wrong in our opinions about that which is right or wrong, but we should never second guess our conscience. That too is the tempter trying to separate us from God. You see, the tempter’s pride, as did Man’s, caused its fall. Rather than repent and return to God, the tempter refused to accept being wrong and creates it’s own hell, futilely attempting to confound or confuse God’s children, attempting to bring us into this its self-imposed hell (this illusion of separation from God). Misery loves company, as does the wrong and unrepentant.
 
When choosing the right, I have experienced firsthand this tempter. Most every time I chose to turn away from the wrong and toward the right, the tempter’s voice and many obstacles appeared to turn me away. It was usually uphill, hard, frustrating, alienating and often frightening, And when I attempted to turn away from the good, that same voice was there, talking over my conscience, providing sensory stimulation, easing my descent and turning my path down toward the wrong. I attest as surely as anything I know, that everyone would do well to heed the Bible’s wisdom and Man’s common experience on this subject.
 
As a rationalist by nature, I find this no harder to believe than the strange reality of Quantum Physics or the Big Bang Theory or the Intelligent Design Theory. I personally ascribe to each and find them all in perfect harmony with each other; unified and indivisible in this wonderful creation. 
 
It is no harder for an educated and enlightened person to believe this than it is to believe in new technologies, modern science or mind-boggling discoveries! And be assured brothers and sisters, it is much more important and will be much better to believe in this also. Remember, “Their wisdom will make them foolish, but our foolishness will make us wise”. 
 
Of conscience,
Z gardener 

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On Acting On the Light One Has

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on March 17, 2014| Leave a Comment »

TO MARY NEYLAN, who had told Lewis she was going to resume the prac- tice of her faith after years of alienation and theological struggle: 
 
On acting on the light one has; on the unreliability of religious emotion; on confession of sins to a spiritual director; and on daily spiritual and Bible reading.
 
 
Congratulations . . . on your own decision. I don’t think this decision comes either too late or too soon. One can’t go on thinking it over for ever; and one can begin to try to be a disciple before one is a professed theologian. In fact they tell us, don’t they, that in these matters to act on the light one has is almost the only way to more light. Don’t be worried about feeling that, or about feeling at all. 
 
s to what to do, I suppose the normal next step, after self-examination repentance and restitution, is to make your Communion; and then to continue as well as you can, praying as well as you can . . . and fulfilling your daily duties as well as you can. And remember always that religious emotion is only a servant. . . . This, I say, would be the obvious course. If you want anything more e.g. Confession and Absolution which our church enjoins on no-one but leaves free to all—let me know and I’ll find you a director. If you choose this way, remember it’s not the psychoanalyst over again: the confessor is the representative of Our Lord and declares His forgiveness—his advice or ‘understanding’ though of real, is of secondary importance.
 
For daily reading I suggest (in small doses) Thomas à Kempis’ ‘Imitation of Christ’ and the ‘Theologia Germanica’…and of course the Psalms and New Testament. Don’t worry if your heart won’t respond: do the best you can. You are certainly under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, or you wouldn’t have come where you now are: and the love that matters is His for you—yours for Him may at present exist only in the form of obedience. He will see to the rest.
 
This has been great news for me I need hardly say. You have all my prayers (not that mine are worth much).
 
The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume II: Family Letters 1905-1931. Copyright © 2004 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. Yours, Jack: Spiritual Direction from C. S. Lewis. Copyright © 2008 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
 
Obedience is the first step of true enlightenment. In order to appreciate and accept the light, we must understand that we are in the dark. Obedience shows that we are prepared to be led. Faith is the manifestation of God’s call. Joy, peace and love are the results of God’s leadership in our lives.
 
Obedient first,
Z gardener

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On the four kinds of love; on the various forms of charity; on pride as the pleasure of self-approval; and on self-forgetfulness.

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on March 13, 2014| Leave a Comment »

 
 
 
Of course taking in the poor illegitimate child is ‘charity’. Charity means love. It is called Agape in the New Testament to distinguish it from Eros (sexual love), Storgë (family affection) and Philia (friendship) [E.g., I John 4:9]. So there are 4 kinds of ‘love’, all good in their proper place, but Agape is the best because it is the kind God has for us and is good in all circumstances. (There are people I mustn’t’ feel Eros towards, and people I can’t feel Storge or Philia for; but I can practice Agape to God, Angels, Man and Beast, to the good and the bad, the old and the young, the far and the near.
 
You see Agape is all giving, not getting. Read what St. Paul says about it in First Corinthians Chap. 13. Then look at a picture of Charity (or Agape) in action in St. Luke, chap 10 v. 30–35. And then, better still, look at Matthew chap 25 v. 31–46: from which you see that Christ counts all that you do for this baby exactly as if you had done it for Him when He was a baby in the manger at Bethlehem: you are in a sense sharing in the things His mother did for Him. Giving money is only one way of showing charity: to give time and toil is far better and (for most of us) harder. And notice, though it is all giving—you needn’t expect any reward— how you do gets rewarded almost at once.
 
Yes, I know one doesn’teven want to be cured of one’s pride because it gives pleasure. But the pleasure of pride is like the pleasure of scratching. If there is an itch one does want to scratch: but it is much nicer to have neither the itch nor the scratch. As long as we have the itch of self-regard we shall want the pleasure of self-approval; but the happiest moments are those when we forget our precious selves and have neither, but have everything else (God, our fellow-humans, animals, the garden and the sky) instead.
 
Yes, I do believe people are still healed by miracles by faith: but of course whether this has happened in any one particular case, is not so easy to find out.
 
The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume III: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy 1950-1963. Copyright © 2007 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. Yours, Jack: Spiritual Direction from C. S. Lewis. Copyright © 2008 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
 
Agape is the closest human equivalent to God’s love for us. When we give unconditionally, the God in us is sovereign in our lives and all good things will be multiplied. All bad things will be diminished or turned to good.and that which is unclear will become transparent. This is life in Eden as God created us to live it.
 
Living it,
Z gardener

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On Conversion

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on March 12, 2014| Leave a Comment »

 
Before I became a Christian I do not think I fully realized that one’s life, after conversion, would inevitably consist in doing most of the same things one had been doing before, one hopes, in a new spirit, but still the same things.
 
The Weight of Glory: And Other Addresses. Copyright © 1949, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Copyright renewed © 1976, revised 1980 C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. Words to Live By: A Guide for the Merely Christian. Copyright © 2007 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
 
When we accept God, it is our spirit that changes, not our physical circumstances. However, when we remain true to our relationship with God, our physical world begines to refelect our spiritual world until both are one and the same. Then, we do live in a different world because our perpective is correct and our understanding is true. That world is called Eden and it is the garden beautiful. As within, so without.
 
In conversion,
Z gardener

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On Being That For Which What We Were Made

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on March 11, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for? You have never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it—tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. 
 
But if it should really become manifest—if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself—you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say ‘Here at last is the thing I was made for.’ We cannot tell each other about it. It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work. While we are, this is. If we lose this, we lose all.
 
The Problem of Pain. Copyright © 1940, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Copyright restored © 1996 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. A Year With C.S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works. Copyright © 2003 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

 

When we discover “the thing we were made for”, we must seek it and become it to discover who and what we were made to be. If we quit, fail or get misdirected, we will not become that being God created us to be. If we succeed, then grace, peace and joy will find us wherever we go and whatever we do.
 
Being what God meant us to be,
Z gardener

 

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On The Presence Of The Departed

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on March 10, 2014| 1 Comment »

My friendship is not ended. His death has had the very unexpected effect of making death itself look quite different. I believe in the next life ten times more strongly than I did. At moments it seems almost tangible. Mr. Dyson, on the day of the funeral, summed up what many of us felt, ‘It is not blasphemous’, he said ‘To believe that what was true of Our Lord is, in its less degree, true of all who are in Him. They go away in order to be with us in a new way, even closer than before.’ A month ago I would have called this silly sentiment. Now I know better. He seems, in some indefinable way, to be all around us now. I do not doubt he is doing and will do for us all sorts of things he could not have done while in the body. 
 
The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume II: Family Letters 1905-1931. Copyright © 2004 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. Yours, Jack: Spiritual Direction from C. S. Lewis. Copyright © 2008 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
 
When this writer’s Mother passed away, for days I felt her presence in every droplet of mist and every raindrop. How much more she was with me then than in the last days she was here physically. And while her physical presence is certainly missed, her spiritual presence is with me in a different and better way. May it be so for all those who have lost one they love. And may each of you feel them with you in a better way this day.
 
In a better way,
Z gardener

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On Comfort

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on March 7, 2014| Leave a Comment »

 
 
Talk to me about the truth of religion and I’ll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I’ll listen submissively. But don’t come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don’t understand.
 
A Grief Observed. Copyright © 1961 by N. W. Clerk, restored 1996 C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Preface by Douglas H. Gresham copyright © 1994 by Douglas H. Gresham. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. Words to Live By: A Guide for the Merely Christian. Copyright © 2007 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
 
Yes, religion creates more discomfort than comfort in our daily lives. However, in our hearts, minds and spirits, it creates the ultimate comfort…peace.
 
Christ’s Peace to you,
Stan

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