Giving Our Pride to God

Giving Our Pride to God

“He that is proud eats up himself: pride is his own glass, his own trumpet, his own chronicle.”

- Troilus and Cressida 2.3.152-4, Agamemnon to Ajax

What killed Desdemona on her wedding night? What drove Menelaus to battle Troy for Helen? What shame made Oedipus to smote his eyes, or Clytemnestra kill her husband? Sin has always framed the drama great stories are made of. The Greeks formed a list of the sins of man, which Pope Gregory I revised to the seven deadly sins. His list has been used as the basis of literature (such as Dante’s The Divine Comedy), movies, and philosophical writing. Fascination with sin is something which humans, especially Christians, immerse ourselves in. As summed up by Pope Gregory, the seven deadly sins are extravagance, gluttony, greed, apathy, envy, wrath, and pride. Modern lists add sins such as lust and sloth to these seven. Though focus should be spread over the entirety of this list I feel, for the sake of clarity, that focusing on just one of these sins is more prudent.

During the past month I was enrolled in the “Developing a Christian Mind: C.S. Lewis” course at Calvin College. The purpose of this course was, as can be inferred from the title, to develop a Christian perspective of the world. This was to be done by combining “Engaging God’s World” - a book written for the course by Cornelius Plantinga JR - with a topic of the professor’s choosing; in this case various essays, speeches, and excerpt of C.S Lewis’s works. During the course of this class I was reaffirmed in many beliefs I had already held, chiefly on pride and its place in the church.

While we as Christians often shy away from “pride” in any form, it cannot be denied that God calls us to have some pride in ourselves as human beings and followers of Him. As Plantinga puts it in chapter two of “Engaging God’s World”, “We are not God, but only images of God.”[1] As creatures created in God’s image [2], we are called to have some self-respect, and even take some pride in ourselves as images, or reflections of God in this world such as taking care of our bodies[3] and respecting others as images of God. That is pride that is within the Natural Law, as C.S. Lewis called the over arching moral law God has written on every human heart.

The pride that I’m talking about is the misplaced sense of entitlement that comes with using God and Christianity as some moral high-ground that raises your pedestal above that of the non-believer’s or your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. That following Christ somehow minimizes the amount of sin that has tainted you, and that you somehow shine brighter to God than the person next to you. As Plantinga states, “Worldly people are often better than we expect, and church people are often worse.”[4] Christians are just as guilty of sin as non-believers are. The only difference between a Christian and a non-believer is faith and God’s promise of redemption. In fact, church going people are far more dangerous to a Christian than non-believers. Satan goes to Church more often than anyone else[5], because he knows that that human pride can be bent to serve him, and where better to play with pride than holy ground?

While Plantinga does not spend much time on the consuming subject of pride, C.S. Lewis does. Pride and the Devil walk hand in hand. In The Screwtape Letters, Lewis shows sin from the perspective of Screwtape, an old devil, who is teaching his nephew how to control his patient (human man) in the proper fashion. Screwtape explains to his nephew, and to us, that the way of the devil is not quick, or even noticeable. It is an easy, safe, slow decent into Hell. “Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”[6] Pride acts in much the same way. A compliment here, an accomplishment there, and soon we are riding high on an ego formed by things we think we are the authors of.

Pride is a confusing, wicked vice. C.S Lewis put it best in “Mere Christianity” when he said, “Pride is spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense.”[7] It is too easy to say, “I am better than my neighbor”, especially in academia. Credentials create an egotistical fog that blocks common sense. The need to be the best takes over and drives away contentment in the gifts God has provided in order to pursue the illusive prize of perfection. And such pride is to be expected the more specialized a field becomes.

But within the church, there is no judge but God, and none is more important than his brother. There are no ordinary people[8], and as brothers and sisters in Christ it is far more important to love one another than it is to be the best. C.S Lewis, writing on pride within the church in “Mere Christianity” in regards to those Christians obviously eaten up with pride, had this to say:

I am afraid it means they are worshiping an imaginary God. They theoretically admit themselves to be nothing in the presence of this phantom God, but are really all the time imagining how He approves of them and thinks them far better than ordinary people: that is, they pay a pennyworth of imaginary humility to Him and get out of it a pound's worth of Pride towards their fellow-men.[9]

I believe it is more important for us to focus on our own prideful nature as humans than it is to focus on the pride of others, or even the nature of sin among unbelievers, for this reason. Doing God’s work for yourself is doing the work of the Devil. We should strive for true humility ourselves instead of evaluating our brothers and sisters to find them lacking. Taking pleasure in criticizing fellow Christians is allowing the Devil to revel in your own folly.

It is the unfortunate nature of humanity to wrap ourselves in pride and shut out what is good in God. Our egos are ever whispering for us to allow the bubble to grow larger. But C.S. Lewis also shows us what true humility looks like.

Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call 'humble' nowadays: he will not be a sort of greasy, smarmy person, who is always telling you that, of course, he is nobody. Probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him. If you do dislike him it will be because you feel a little envious of anyone who seems to enjoy life so easily. He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all.[10]

When true humility wins out, you will not be thinking of yourself. Is not true selflessness the absence of selfishness? The absence of pride is not an absence of self-respect, but rather the absence of an illusion, one that dictates that you are the author of your accomplishment instead of placing God as the author of all.

The only way I can liken C.S. Lewis’s “not thinking about yourself at all” is to selflessness. You are never interested in what could happen to you when you act on behalf of another. The true hero never thinks about how it would serve to push the child out of the way of a speeding car. So too would our actions be in the absence of pride. “How could writing a paper glorify me?” would turn into, “How can writing a paper glorify God and help those who read it?” While most of these thoughts were already present in me before undergoing DCM, I would like to think that being given the time to read C.S. Lewis primarily was a great blessing in furthering my understanding of human nature vs. God’s directive. While no one can boast to know what God’s will for the world truly is, and no one can surpass Him, I would like to think that consciously changing my mindset from “me” to “He” could further His kingdom in our world.

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[1] Plantinga, Engaging God’s World (Wm. B. Ergmans Publishing Co., 2002), 41.

[2] “…Since you have taken off your old self with its practices ¹⁰and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.” Col. 3:9-10, NIV.

[3] ^“19Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;” 1 Cor. 6:19, NIV.

[4] Plantinga, Engaging God’s World (Wm. B. Ergmans Publishing Co., 2002), 60.

[5] Plantinga, Engaging God’s World (Wm. B. Ergmans Publishing Co., 2002), 61.

[6] Lewis, The Screwtape Letters: Letter XII

[7] Lewis, Mere Christianity: The Great Sin (Touchstone, 1996).

[8] Lewis, The Weight of Glory. 9.

[9] Lewis, Mere Christianity: The Great Sin (Touchstone, 1996).

[10] Lewis, Mere Christianity: The Great Sin (Touchstone, 1996).

Bibliography

1. Plantinga, Cornelius JR. Engaging God’s World. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Ergmans Publishing Co., 2002.

2. Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity. 1st Touchstone Book ed.: Touchstone, 1996.

And

The Weight of Glory. 1st Touchstone Book ed.: Simon & Schuster. 1996.

And

The Screwtape Letters. The MacMillan Company. 1961

3. The Holy Bible: New International Version containing the Old Testament and the New Testament. Zondervan Bible Publishers. 1988.

A World Without Pain

“I am only trying to show that the old Christian doctrine of being made 'perfect through suffering'" is not incredible.”- The Problem Of Pain: C.S. Lewis

The old saying goes “ What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.” I think that that is true. Pain is something that shows our mortality. Though annoying sometimes, it reminds us of our frailty. Pain is what keeps us in check. No one can escape it.

In the Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis tries to make the concept of pain compatible with God’s character. I don’t think that pain is a problem. Saying that it is a “problem” implies that it can be solved. But as mortal humans, and pain being a natural reminder of that mortality, it would be impossible to “solve” the pain of losing a loved one, or of being burned by a hot pan, or of a paper cut, on our own. We need an outside force, be it aloe or God, to come in and heal the pain.

It really isn’t that large of a mystery “why” our lives are filled with pain. It is part of the natural order of this world, a fallen world, in which the rule of opposites applies. In order for us to know pleasure, we must first know pain. But more than that, I think that without living in pain, we could never know the gift God has given us in redemption. In order to understand, perhaps not comprehend, the glory of heaven, we must first know what hell is like, or at least sample it through our mortality. How could we possibly understand “grace” if we have not known the difference in “suffering”?

What we all would like to believe is that there can be heaven on this Earth. But I think the truth is that that heaven sailed away long ago. God does not call us to make this fallen world into our own version of paradise, and we should not try to. Accepting “pain”, as strange as it sounds, is ultimately accepting God’s grace (for a Christian). I means that we understand not only our mortality, and the mortality of the things around us, but that He is the one who offers us a world truly free of that pain.

Blessed to Read Inspired Work

“But to evade the Son of Man, to look the other way, to pretend you haven't noticed, to become suddenly absorbed in something on the other side of the street, to leave the receiver off the telephone because it might be He who was ringing up, to leave unopened certain letters in a strange hand- writing because they might be from Him - this is a different matter. You may not be certain yet whether you ought to be a Christian; but you do know you ought to be a Man, not an ostrich, hiding its head in the sand.” – Man Or Rabbit: C.S. Lewis

I used to think that going to church every Sunday with my family was all I needed to do…when I was a child. Then my Grandmother was diagnosed with cancer. Every Sunday I went to church I prayed and prayed that she would get well. I thought that the building of the church was where God lived, and that I could only pray there. She died when I was nine, and I didn’t understand why God didn’t make her well again. I prayed in his house, why didn’t he answer?

Now that I’m older I realize that it is not my will, but God’s that matters most in this world. At that age, however, I decided to act out. I told my parents that I no longer wanted to go to church. I did not want to go to the place where I felt I had been betrayed. Fortunately, my parents made a deal with me. I needed to go to church, but I did not have to stay for Sunday school.

Now, I know this is unconventional, but I am grateful that my parents allowed me some leeway as far as church was concerned. I was at a point in my faith journey where I needed to take ownership of my faith and truly understand it. I couldn’t rely on my church family to shelter my faith for me any longer, now that I had realized that life was more than sunshine, and that faith was something that needed to be a personal project.

I’m still on that journey. I know that my faith journey is not a conventional one, and I am still growing, though that growth is at my own pace. I originally started by rebuilding my faith from the bottom up. I argued for the existence of God, which came hand in hand with morality. How could I have a sense of what is right or wrong if there was nothing to show me and hold me accountable for the wrong? Philosophically, I guess you could say that I became a strong moralist.

When reading Man or Rabbit, I was struck by this quote, as it was something I hadn’t thought about before. “Morality is indispensable: but the Divine Life, which gives itself to us and which calls us to be gods, intends for us something in which morality will be swallowed up.” I’m still coming to grips with the amount of work I have before me. I had never made the connection that morality, or at least an over attention to morality for morality’s sake could hinder the journey to “divine life.”

I think that more than anything I am grateful for the experiences I have had building faith from almost zero. Things like Man or Rabbit awaken in me thoughts I would never have had if I had not needed to grab hold of my beliefs so early on. I hope to continue to learn more, and fully intend to read more C.S. Lewis in order to see how he came to believe as strongly what he dedicated his life to.

A Reward too Small

Can revenge become a God? In Greek Mythology, Nemesis was the goddess of revenge, exacting punishment on those who committed hubris (extreme arrogance). She was unforgiving, punishing everyone equally. The Egyptians worshiped the God Petbe, who also represented and unforgiving vengeance.

The movie “Paradise Now”, revenge and God play an integral role as we follow to suicide bombers, Said and Khaled. Khaled wants to exact revenge on the Israelis for their hubris, the arrogance they show by flaunting their riches and pretending to be “victims” as he puts it. Said wants to prove that, though his father was a weak "collaborator”, he is not, and feels that he must do this in order to bring honor back to his family.

Sadly, the audience also witnesses how used they are. The cell that sends them on this “important mission” to bomb a wedding merely treats them as a means to an end. They show them no support or care, and nothing but what they can do for the “ideal” matters. This is shown through the bumbling manner in which all situations outside of ritual are handled. Before they undergo the cleansing, which involves the cutting of hair and cleaning of the body, they film their martyr tape. What is to be a courageous speech by Khaled on the injustice of Israel and His holy quest is stalled when the camera turns out to be broken and he must repeat himself over and over, while obviously looking unnerved about what he is about to do. Later, he finds out his tape is being sold for next to nothing in the photo shop around the corner, and that he is one of hundreds that have never been seen or sold.

The twist of this movie is when the two, Said and Khaled, are separated at the beginning of their mission after crossing the Israeli boarder. They are spooked when a patrol car passes by and return running back to Pakistan, separating in the process. Unfortunately, this gives them time to really think about what they are doing, having the reminder of plastic explosives tied around their waists wherever they go. Said, unable to find Khaled, returns to Israel, looking to complete the mission. Khaled returns to Pakistan with the cell leader, awaiting Said’s return. During this time, the two make discoveries that later seal their fates at the end of the movie.

But what I find most intriguing is the title. “Paradise Now” sounds like it is a quest to bring paradise to Earth. The quest for paradise, for escape, is brought up in the movie many times. Khaled, when driving with the daughter of a famous martyr in search of Said, says “I’d rather have paradise in heaven than live in this hell.” To which she replied, “So you would turn this into your personal war?” I think that this sums up the heart of the movie’s argument. As the audience watches the actions of these characters, we see that their reasons are not holy at all, but rather selfish. And in the end, a bus full of people does get blown up (I will not give away who goes through with the “mission” as it was only one of them), and the director gives a clear message through the final scene. There is a white light, brightness, and then nothing. Completely black. No paradise. Just darkness.

I believe that this message is something that is made stronger having seen the lives of the two characters. They were not heroes, or courageous. Just men who having been embittered by poverty, grasped at any prospect of hope they could find, even a false one, and in the end, were used and discarded. There was no “paradise now”. They worshiped their revenge, not God, and in doing so, paid a price so high for a reward too small. The one who died is now nothing more than a video, lying dusty on the shelf of a rundown Photoshop, and no one outside of his family will know what he did or who he was.

I definitely recommend this movie to everyone. It is a realistic showing of what vengeance can do to our hearts if we let it.

Means or End

We all have our own inner ring. Our families, friends, classmates, all comprise the ring of people we associate ourselves with. As C.S. Lewis says in his lecture The Inner Ring, “You discover gradually, in almost indefinable ways, that it exists and that you are outside it; and then later, perhaps, that you are inside it”. Sometimes you don’t ask to be admitted into a ring, but just happen to become apart of one.

I agree with Lewis when he says, “Of all the passions, the passion for the Inner Ring is most skillful in making a man who is not yet a very bad man do very bad things.” Who hasn’t, for want of being a part of that one group of kids, gone along with making fun of someone, or playing pranks? We have all succumbed to “wanting” the Inner Ring, and those who say they have not are succumbing to the need to be liked by the ring of people who have.

But I also believe that it should be remembered that it is not the Rings themselves that are evil. It’s easy to think, “Well, I don’t have to be responsible when the Ring that seduced me turned out to be evil, thus tainting my actions to be apart of it.” Being seduced by fame and money, or even the prospect of acceptance does not excuse sin, nor is it a good reason for any personal action. You do not say, “The devil made me brush my teeth” or “The devil made me go to school”. The devil does not control you, nor does he have any sway over your actions unless you let him.

So it is with the Rings. They are good, but like most good things they can also breed Evil in regards to the lengths people will go to be apart of them. They see the ring as their final destination. That being apart of that Ring will bring them everything they ever wanted. They no long see the forest for the trees, focused on that one objective and willing to do anything to complete it. I believe that it is important, as Ring membership is unavoidable, to evaluate your actions by this statement. “Am I joining this Ring as a ‘means’ or as an ‘end’.”

The Friend of Friends

Note: I’m writing this as one who has never been “in love”. Most certainly I have had infatuations, but never “love”

I feel that in today’s society, where casual dating, mating, and marrying are the fades, it is truly difficult to find the type of relationship that is God centered. We are all running forward to the next new thing. Growing up I had a generic view of how events in life were to unfold. 1-18: Grow up and go through grade school. 19-24: College and dating. 25-35: Get married. And after 35? Well, if not married then never married. Now, of course, I realize nothing is generic, especially life. And I’ve also realized that love is not generic either.

While dating is an entity unto itself, I feel that it is a good pre-curser to what it would be like to build a relationship. Like no two people are the same, no two relationships are the same. C.S. Lewis talked about what things need to be present in a workable relationship, and for the most part I am forced to agree. But I also feel that in combining filial, stroge, and eros together, you cannot do them all at once. I think there is a method to there formation.

For me I am someone who does not like taking risks where relationships are concerned. I like to form a friendship first. There is a certainty in a solid friendship that is always present in married couples that have been together for a long, long, time. I really feel that this certainty is more important than any of the other components in a marriage. This is not to say that the other things are not necessary. A triangle is not a triangle without three points. But I do think that for marriage, and relationships in general, there must be a commradery, a friendship, that will last beyond the romantic and glue the people together no matter what life throws there way.

Vocation Vacation

This past year I was offered an opportunity for this coming May to return to Japan. Last summer I was in Japan as a teacher, but now I was being offered the chance to be a student. My first instinct was to cry out, “YES!” but rational won out and I asked my professor the burning questions. “How much will it cost.” and “What will this trip do for me?” As I had every intention of going to Japan, regardless of the cost, I still was compelled to ask, for the sake of logic. Too often I think we are like this when it comes to God.

C.S Lewis brushes over purpose in his speech “Learning in War-time”. He states “ A man’s upbringing, his talent, his circumstances, are usually a tolerable index of his vocation.” Too often when we are presented with an opportunity to better ourselves, as I was with Japan, we focus too much on the minor details. Like Jona, we search for a reason not to go. We search for what we think could be a better vocation than the one God is leading us too.

While we may not realize now the path vocation God has chosen for us, it is still important to grab at any opportunity to discover the answer…even if it means trying something you never thought you would or traveling halfway around the world.

C.S. Lewis And Chapter 3

In C.S Lewis's essay "The Poison of Subjectivism", Lewis brings up a point that is very important. While the essay is not as simple as many of his other argumentative pieces, it is still very informative.

Lewis cautions us not to subjectify religion. "A theology which goes about to represent our practical reason as radically unsound is heading for disaster." This is one of the most important things I feel we should take away. We have been blessed with the ability to discern what is right and what is wrong. As Christians it is so easy to wallow in our imperfection, an imperfection we were given to over come through Christ, and forget that we have some value as humans to God. Why else would he offer us the gift of salvation if we did not have some redeeming qualities? Allowing the doubts about our own imperfections to prevaid the mind only serves the purposes of the Devil, I submit. As C.S Lewis states, "If we once admit that what God means by "goodness" is sheerly different from what we judge to be good, there is no difference left between pure religion and devil worship." We need to give ourselves some credit.

Today in class there was much controversy over Chapter three, which was about what constitutes as sin in the eyes of God. In regards to the fall and it's effect on sin, as a Moravian I do not subscribe to wallowing in my own built in failiars as a human. I see no point in it. It has been stated that I am flawed and nothing I can do will change that. I look to Christ, as he is the only solution, and squabbling about what we as humans think God considers sin is unproductive to what the heart of the matter truly should be. For all we know, every action we make as believers is a sin in the eyes of God. There is no clear cut answer. All we can do is say, "Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner", and pray that His goodness will save us. It is not our duty to say, as the Pharisee did in the temple, "Look at that non-believer, every good action he commits is a sin." It is not our place, nor our calling, and will only bring about discord and petty pride into the hearts of those who deem it necessary to entertain such thoughts. All we can do is ask for forgiveness of our own sins, pray for the rod of sin in our eyes to be forgiven, and leave the judgment of our non-christian brother's sin to God.

I know that this post will breed some discontent for some, but I feel it is nessisary to say as it is what has been playing on my heart.

God is goodness and light. Everything else pales in comparison. It is a non-essential.

Remember the Essential

In the preface to Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis does something which I think many Christians tend to forget. He states the direction from which he is coming; he is dispenses with the non-essential of denomination and moves forward with the purpose to access the essential of religion.

It is so easy, with the abundance of choice available to us when choosing a church family to forget the Christian focus of following Christ for the glory of God. I know when my mother and father were growing up (this is in Green Bay, Wisconsin) the Catholics and the Protestants were at each others' throats. The children would bully each other over nothing but the title as they saw their parents doing. How can we expect people, non-believers, to convert to a faith that on the surface can not even live with its self?

The answer is we can not, and Lewis discerningly states that fact. The denomination is not the essential. But the faith is. Christ is the one essential, and doctrine and denomination come second. We are all brothers and sisters in Christ, and if Brother Catholic prefers his sermon in Latin and Sister CRC prefers John Calvin to Sister Methodist's Wessly, then there should be not gnashing of teeth, for we all are striving for the same goal; salvation through Christ to the glory of God.

While the rest of Lewis's layout of what "mere" Christianity is is beautiful as well, I feel that the introduction is more important than could be realized by simply breezing through it. Lewis sets an example we all should be accountable to as Christians; remembering what is truly essential and not allowing our differences to divide us.

Dim Uneasiness

"He must not be allowed to suspect that he is now, however slowly, heading right away from the sun on a line which will carry him into the cold and dark of utmost space."

The Screwtape Letters represent to me the deepest fears of Christians. Withing the letters, the devil Screwtape lays out the bare escenticals to leading Christians away from God and to him. In letter 12, Screwtape says that the key to the whole game is a man's "dim unease" in reguards to his direction on the path. He says, "If it gets too strong it may wake him up and spoil the whole game".

This fear of falling off the path is something I feel we must treasure. While no one likes to live in fear, and Jesus taught us not to fear God, I feel that this fear is something that should be used as a weapon againt the Devil. By checking our actions against scripture, our faith community, and asking in prayer for guidence, we have the ability to build stairs for ourselves and move that much further out of the pit the Devil is wafting us down.

I realize that this is a very short post in comparison to others that I have posted, but I feel that we drumbed out much of the prominant points in class and I don't wish to preach to the chior anymore than I already do.

In Him

We are a Family

Plantinga discuses in the second chapter of his book, “Engaging God’s World”, the concept of hospitality and what it means to us as Christians. This really hit home to me. I come from a dying church, one that is slowly losing membership. One of the main reasons the church is dying is not because the message of Christ and the importance of that message have been forgotten, but rather because the elderly members of the church have forgotten the importance of hospitality. Visitors are not welcomed in a warm manner, but rather as strangers.

On my faith journey I have met many non-believers, in whose stories of attempted belief runs a common theme. They were not welcomed. Statistics show that there has been a decrease in Church attendance. As our Intervarsity brothers mentioned on Friday, that does not mean that belief in God has diminished as well, but that they simply do not feel welcome. As Christians we are called to be a family, a welcoming, warm, caring family. And we can start that family-esc feel within ourselves through this concept of hospitality.

Plantinga says, “The idea is that if—in a band of disciples, in a family, in a college—people encouraging each other, pour out interest and good will onto one another, favor each other with blessings customized to fit the other person’s need, what transpires is a beautiful burst of shalom”. By imbibing that one thought, of living with others that the main focus of our thoughts, instead of ourselves, and treating them as family, we can bring about the warmth that brings peace in Him. By being examples, not even needing to profess faith openly, but really internalizing the grace of God, we can bring about peace. That is the powerful mandate that we are laden with as Christians. Not to convert as many as we can, but to welcome anyone who seeks peace and security.

The Internal Battle

“But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind)
which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously—no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner—no mere tolerance or indulgence, which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament
itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat—the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.” ~ The Weight of Glory

This quote, I feel, captures the ultimate test of our faith as Christians. Our ultimate calling. To accept one another for the God created creatures we are. It is so easy with the differences that divide us, different languages, denominations, countries, to forget that we are all striving for the same goal; salvation through Christ. While these differences cannot be ignored, as each difference is a beautiful facet of God’s world, they should not be used to reduce that person’s right to be saved.

Being a good neighbor is even more difficult a battle than the skirmishes being fought around our world today. I feel that the on-going battle with our own human selfishness and need for individual vindication. We cannot banish selfishness from our make up as a fallen people, but we can, by humbly baring our back to our neighbors in and not in Chirst, show that we are capable of more than our own selfishness existence, and seek the light that God gifts us with should we choose Him

Liberal Arts=Freedom To Choose+x (Gods will)

I will not deny that two years ago when I sat down to look at colleges, Calvin was not my first choice. I was looking for a specific major, two actually, and specific minor, again two, and a college that would except someone as difficult as myself. The reason I chose Calvin was not because it was private, or Christian, or a good place to find a husband. I chose Calvin for it's Japanese department and the fact that I would be required to take a philosophy course. I am what you could call an academic.

The speech we read for class, which C.S. Lewis no doubt read for his English class, is one I wish had been read to me my first 8 am morning sitting in Calvin's English 101 a year ago. Though it has been stated many time (perhaps too many times) that Lewis is a genius with the English language, I will have to say that objectively, Lewis hit the nail on the head, and most likely scared many freshmen with just how "fish-out-of-water" they were supposed to feel.

The line,"The student is, or ought to be, a young man who is already beginning to follow learning for its own sake, and who attaches himself to an older student, not precisely to be taught, but to pick up what he can", is exactly true. The first time I had to have a one-on-one verbal final exam was the first time I realized just how much I wanted to be an English major. Talking my professor through 17th century literature and my thoughts on the subject opened to door to what I've now found to be an endless barrage of questions that should be answered.

Education for the sake of education is one of the best experiences you can have. Education for the sake of education led me, in high school, to the majors that I now love, and also has enriched my life. When I told my freshmen education adviser that I wanted to be in a music ensemble, even though my requirements said I didn't need to, he looked at me as if I had two heads. His reasoning for why I shouldn't be in an ensemble (and for why I shouldn't be a Japanese major) was simply, "You're a freshmen. You don't know what you want." Needless to say, I found a new advisor.

This brings up my other point (the first being I agree with Lewis).It's so easy to let other people take our "humanity" , as Lewis calls it, away. Monetary constraints, time constraints, all contribute to limiting what knowledge we are capable of getting. How many students we are able to latch on to. I say, don't let it. Libraries are great places for latching to take place. All you need is the drive to learn new things and the world becomes your classroom. And thus, you can create your own curriculum to go with it. When you are given the freedom to control your learning, you are given the freedom to find out what God has planned for you.

But I NEED it!!!

When I was little…like oh say 15 years ago, my mother explained to me as I was about to throw a tantrum in Toys R Us, “You don’t need it. You want it.” That got me thinking. What is a need? What is a want, for that matter? And why is it that wanting to have that new pink and sparkly toy doesn’t get me anywhere when needing nap time lets me go right to bed?

I think the same is true of desiring and longing. Longing is the need of the emotional world. While I may desire (want) a slice of pizza, but thirty to forty years from now the desire I feel for the slice now will no longer exist. Longing is something that stands the test of time. It's not some infatuation that lasts a few days and then never returns. It takes years to build.

Cornelius Plantinga calls us to have this longing for God in the book Engaging God’s World. He claims that from this longing comes hope. I think that this is true…but I do not believe that hope is a product of longing alone. I think that our hope can also be inspired by the hope we see in others.

They say the road to faith is a journey. I believe that while longing for the end of that journey is important, I feel that it is just as important to enjoy the path itself. Not for the cheep roadside theme-parks, but for the people in the car with you. I think that building the longing that fuels the car is something that must be done with others, but the hope is something that fuels you and keeps you in the car.

While longing gets you where you need to go, I feel that without hope, without other people around you to give and receive hope, longing then becomes a curse. God gives us hope…which we could say stems from our longing for Him, as a tool to commune with others and build that hope. And while Plantinga doesn’t say this, I feel that I must mention that hope is not something that should not be horded for self-served longing, but rather, shared to support the burden of maintaining that longing with others.

So in closing, I hope this weekend finds everyone reaching out to people on their floors or in their apartment to invite their fellow students to engage in building hope. It can be as simple as inviting someone to see a movie or play a card game. Inclusion builds hope, and I feel that while building longing is personal, building hope needs to be public.

How to defeat selfishness....

Originally, I had a witty first two paragraph about the movie Bride Wars which was recently released, but I decided to cut that bit out and get to my point.

Marriage has become a fad. Socially, marriage is now portrayed on the big screen as made up of a bunch of expensive stuff and, oh by the way, a life commitment. But the actual couple getting married seems almost a side note to the DJ, wedding photos, reception space, wedding dress designer, and how much money was spent on the wedding invitations. It’s almost as if the actual ceremony is now thrown in just the please the parents. An even the life commitment is now questionably fake as well. When girls are planning their weddings to their second and third husbands, something is wrong.

In C.S. Lewis’s essay We have no right to Happiness, he states, “A society in which conjugal infidelity is tolerated must always be in the long run a society adverse to women.” In our class discussion, someone agreed to that statement, saying, “Just look at the number of single mother.”. Society embraces single parents. Perhaps not whole-heartedly, but you never see the worn out single mother coming home to her crying baby after working triple shift at Cosco. No! No one wants reality on primetime. You always see the up beat, cool single mom miraculously balancing kids, work, and putting herself through school. A woman no longer needs a man to raise her own kids, and girls who get that into their heads are in trouble.

I think what we should worry more about than whether we have the right to be happy or not is how society has lost a sense of shame. We’re almost to the point where we might as well be pre-forbidden fruit and have no concept of the word at all. While I could go on saying how Lewis was right about the man’s infidelity, I must say that men (and women) have been committing adultery for centuries and most likely will continue to. The only way that the amount will go down is if we bring shame back into the equation. Shame is the only means we have to control our own selfish desires, and without it, we are free to do as we please with no consequences.

I know you are but what am I?

“It is the cause, my soul. It is the cause.” ~Hamlet

Bulverism, as C.S. Lewis calls it in his same titled essay, is the illogical, childish counter argument that sometimes comes when people attempt to defeat an argument they haven't thought through. For the questions that have no immediate answers, Bulverism, as Lewis explains, seems to have become the laymen’s means of defeating argument without logic. But is resorting to attacks on character an actual argument defeater? The answer is no.

A classic Bulverist attempt to skirt an argument is an attack on the person arguing. We see is time and again in the news and especially during presidential debates. It the childish answer of, “you shouldn’t trust him because he’s a…” If the answer to what truth is was simply truth, philosophers would have gone home and closed up shop years ago. It would seem that the mainstream’s lack of effort within the field of argument has left a bad taste in Lewis’s mouth.

Logical argument is quantifiable. The facts are true and false. The conclusions valid or invalid. If the logic is not sound then you go back and figure out what is. “I know you are but what am I?” responses do nothing but hinder the pursuit of truth. In fact, these responses do nothing but distract from the actual issue at hand, which is that the person speaking has no answer as to why the argument he is facing is false, and thus is truly a fool.

So if Bulverism is only a means to show your “lack of brightness”, why is it so appealing? It is quick. In one statement, another person’s character has been drug through the mental mud of his audience. It’s the emotional tug of hearing someone is a “republican” or a “foreigner” that creates in the minds of those around them the hatred and distrust that “wins” the debate. That is where Bulverism is truly horrible. The untried audience becomes quick to judge the person, forgetting the argument for their own emotional well-being.

But searching for the motivation of the opponent usually derives this attack on character. The easiest way to combat Bulverism is to examine the motives of the Bulverist, mainly his foolishness, in order to recognize the deceit that is inherit in such general and faulty statements which come from the fear of not having the answer.

Another way to combat the Bulverist is to ignore them. We know they are spouting hot air because they have no argument for their cause, so find someone with an actual argument. C.S Lewis claims that the opponent of the Bulverist is someone whose argument is daunting enough to said Bulverist that all they can do is assault the character of that person. The easiest way to assess for yourself what is truth is to go out and search for it.

In today’s modern society, information free-flows much faster than ever before. Surly with all the advantages we have, Bulverism should not be an option when confronting an argument. And Bulverism should certainly not be treated as an acceptable answer to any argument we have. This mental laziness is something to fear and despise above any type of emotional pay off Bulverism provides.

The Meditation of C.S. Lewis...in tights?

Is there really such a thing as a rebel without a cause? In Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, the central action (or reason everything goes “wrong”) is set about by a character, who doesn’t seem to have any reason to create chaos. Looking at him, as C.S. Lewis calls an outside perspective in his essay, Meditation in a Tool Shed, does not show any reason for his action, and thus makes him seemingly cause-less.

Don Jon, as he is so named, is a prince. Though the illegitimate son of the king, he has all the luxury of his brother the legitimate heir, and none of the responsibilities of state. He lacks for nothing. And yet he purposely ruins reputations and lives wherever he goes. But in only looking at Don Jon, to sit down and have coffee with him let's say, you would never see the pain he has caused others. You would see a sweet, quiet, man who humbly serves his brother and country.

Only when one looks along Don Jon, evaluates the internal, does the true evil in his character become realized. His sole motivation is jealousy and hatred. Jealousy of his brother, jealousy of others' happiness, and hatred of all things. His cause is to make everyone as miserable and hate filled as he is. This evil only comes to light in scenes where he is alone plotting with his followers the demise of his brother.

But C.S Lewis raises a shrewd point in his Mediation. “One must look both along and at everything”. So too is it with Don Jon. Though internally he is vile, if we were only to look along that, we would say, “Oh, he is detestable”, but the emotional investment would not be there. Without seeing on the stage before us the results of the plotting; the emotional upheavals of the people around him and the pain he has caused, we would not have a full understanding of just how vile he is as a character. Vile would not truly be vile.

Likewise, if the audience never looked along his character, was never entreated inside the mind of Don Jon, and only looked at him as the other members of the cast do, we would only see a quiet, disenfranchised man, who, though anti-social, still follows the will of his brother like his duty requires of him, without trouble. And even when it comes to light he is the “perpetrator of all”, only looking at him causes confusion in the minds of the cast, and us, as it is that he has no reason to cause evil.

Thus in order to understand Don Jon, one must both look along and at him. C.S. Lewis, though not at all talking about Shakespeare, provides the key to understanding in his Mediation. A criterion of understanding. One could almost see it written out on some ancient cracked scroll: “When has looked at and along an issue, only then does one understand.” And the criterion holds true. Though I apply his criterion to literature, it can be applied in other aspects of life as well.

For instance, I look at someone publicly speaking out on the importance of cancer research. While I can see that they are adamant about their cause, I have never known anyone with cancer and have never had it myself. But if I were to look along them, feel the pain of seeing their loved one die slowly minute by minute, see them caring for and finally laying that person to rest after years of physical and mental pain, only then would I truly understand how important cancer research is.

Without evaluating the inside and the outside perspective, internal and external, looking at and looking along an issue, we cannot truly say we understand something. With one of the two, only knowledge or empathy can exist, but not understanding. Sometimes, all we can hope for is knowledge or empathy. I can know that cancer is a painful and horrible disease, but without having had it I can only empathize with that pain, linking it with things in my own life that were painful. I cannot presume to understand it, as the pains are different. The pain of a bloody knee and the pain of cancer are very different.

C.S. Lewis lays down the groundwork for humility in this way. Only looking at or looking along does not understanding make. In fact, to think that one is enough is quite foolish and is often the subject of much comic relief in fiction. C.S. Lewis thus urges us to be humble, to understand when we do not understand, and to seek the truth. I believe that too often this is forgotten when assessing issues in our world.

Therefore it is important that within all aspects of life we keep in mind "looking at and looking along", situations, issues, etc. and when we cannot have or do both, to understand the truth of that knowledge and walk humbly and with empathy.