C.S. Lewis – FROM THE SHOE

Frolicking in the Autumn Mist

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Every year it seems, I write a blog about autumn. Last year I wrote The Warmth of the Sun, the year before, The Intimations of Autumn, and others that include Autumn Days are the Best, Autumn and Joe Montana and Delicious Autumn! My Soul is Wedded to it. There may be others as well. Evidently, I love autumn. What is it about this season that produces such nostalgia, such longing, such remembrance of things past?

Monday I was in a kinda funk. So to feel better, I played around on my phone, checking out social media. I posted some of my favorite pictures, and updated one of the aforementioned autumn themed blogs. Still feeling a little out-of-sorts, maybe I was looking for “my own spot to stand,” to quasi-quote Jim Weatherley lyrics. I stumbled on some very cool Autumn themed Facebook pages, joined a few and was greeted by other fall-a-philes.

Finding these pages reminded me of my love for this season and some of my favorite memories. As I frolicked, like Puff, in this kind of autumn mist of misty-colored memories of the far past, my out-of-sorts sorted itself out. When I reconnected with things I loved and others that loved them too, I got re-grounded. There’s more than just memories here.

I consider myself in the autumn time of my life, being past 50. And as I age, I appreciate this season more and more. I know my autumns are numbered, as all of ours are, and I’m determined to extract all the joy and pleasure I can from its colors, its celebrations, its sensations, its weather and its memories. True pleasures are few and far between.

However, C.S. Lewis said something interesting in The Weight of Glory, when speaking of a universal sense of elusive longing, a longing which appears to be related to nostalgia, but not necessarily so:

We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter.

Wordsworth’s expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his own past. But all this is a cheat. If Wordsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering. The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing.

These things – the beauty, the memory of our own past – are good images of what we really desire….For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.

I believe this is what autumn does to me…those good memories I have are really like beautiful phantoms. If I went back to those days, granted many joyful moments remain, but the beauty that Mr. Lewis speaks of, the longing, the saudades according to the Portuguese, sehnsucht to the Germans, is elusive; it is a reminder and longing for something else. It’s the thing I long for when I look for a home. Mr. Lewis continues:

We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is a bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words – to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become a part of it…

For if we take the imagery of Scripture seriously, if we believe that God will one day give us the Morning Star and cause us to put on the splendor of the sun, then we may surmise that both the ancient myths and the modern poetry, so false as history, may be very near the truth as prophecy.

At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendors we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumor that it will not always be so. Someday, God willing, we shall get in.

In the meantime, and during my remaining autumns, I will frolick in the autumn mist of my happy childhood memories of Santa Rosa, my summers at the Russian River. I will remember school, mud football, Halloween, Thanksgivings and Christmases with my grandmother. The old memories. I will also remember, misty-eyed, the lean Christmases with my babies, listening to Evie’s Come On, Ring Those Bells while decorating the house and making homemade Christmas presents. Running around now with four grandchildren, I have NO IDEA how I managed to tend to ten kids. Grace abounding, glory to God….seriously.

And as I remember, I understand swirling about those memories are gleanings of a far away country, a place where He is preparing for me an eternal abiding place. Something wonderful this way comes….

Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”

Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.”

Revelation 21:1-5

Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

C.S. Lewis – The Weight of Glory

God Loves You…So What?

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“For God so loved the world….” so goes the most famous of Bible verses. Its reference can be found on posters in end zones at football games. Its short message”God loves you” can be found on bumper stickers and coffee mugs, and its greeting is repeated in church services all over the country. God loves you…yeah, so what? It seems to have become a trite slogan, a shallow sentiment, a cheap Christmas present.

How many times have you heard this phrase? I’ve heard it so much that it seems to have lost its meaning. It’s fallen not so much on deaf ears, as unhearing ears; like when water falls on polyester, those words bead up and roll right off my ears. My ears are a poor conduit to my heart and mind in relaying the profound magnitude of the simple fact that God loves me. This Person, Who many of us believe in, loves us. Wow! The One who not only defines Love, but is, quintessentially, Love. All that we cherish in life originates with this Being who happens to, according to the Bible record, love us.

How can a simple phrase carry such power? A couple years ago, I was at work and it was toward the end of the day. It was March. As I was sitting at my desk, a text came from my son-in-law. It was a photo and it was uploading. I wondered what he could be sending me. Now mind you, I was just sitting there finishing up some work, looking forward to going home. Within seconds after I received the picture – a sonogram scan with a lovely caption “Congrats Grandma!” – I was crying, afraid, excited and stunned all at once. The couple that was not going to have children was going to have a child.

I use that example to illustrate how a simple communication can dramatically change one’s life. So does “God loves you” and as it should be. God loves you….from the gospel writers, Paul, the early fathers and down through history, this is the church’s banner. A banner she has dropped over the centuries, but a fact nonetheless. A fact that has survived.

If you want to believe, if you chose to believe or even are compelled to believe like C.S. Lewis did when “in the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England” then you get to unwrap the greatest of all Christmas presents – the love of God in Christ Jesus. This is the greatest gift. Ever. The price – well, that’s the Easter Story.

And there are other gifts in that box, you get the light of the world, the fountain of living waters, the gate to the pasture, the bread of life, mercy, grace, faith, hope and charity to name a few of the unsearchable riches in Christ. Not a bad haul.

Are you tired? “Come unto to me all who are weak and heavy laden.” Are you doubtful? “Come, let us reason together.” Are you thirsty? “Let him come to Me and drink.” Are you lonely? “I will be with you always.” Are you shackled in sin? “Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more.” Amen. And to the church today, tomorrow and everyday, I say, “Come let us adore Him.”We only know love because He first loved us.

God loves you, so what? Well, that’s what. The greatest of all simple sentences is gloriously true and life-changing. Merry, merry Christmas!

The Weary World Rejoices!

Christmas 2022 – Merry Christmas from the Shoe!

November 2019 – Even now, more so, we need to remember these lyrics.

Previously posted – December 2011

“The weary world rejoices!” say the lyrics of “O Holy Night” “Weary world” – he got that right! I’m tired, aren’t you? Just listening to the news every evening wears me out. Economic distress, social unrest, solutions that are obscure at best dominate the newscasts contributing to a weary mood, to a weary world. And, alas, it’s Christmas time. A time of cheer, excitement and joy. But the weariness remains, aches if you will, like a tooth just starting to pain.

I confess my children help me maintain the joy of Christmas. They are still young, they are still creating those holiday memories that will pleasantly haunt them in adulthood. For them, I can slough off my weariness and sing…and bake and shop and wrap.

But Christmas isn’t about me or the kids; it is about Someone’s birthday. Someone whose humble birth in a barn two millennia ago changed the world. C.S. Lewis wrote, “The birth of Christ is the central event in the history of the earth – the very thing the whole story has been about.” Remembering that and what He did and what He said grounds me.

Remembering the things He said: “I have come that they might have life.” and “Come unto to Me, all who are weak and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” and one of my favorites, “I am the way, the truth and the life….” He was, and He continues to be. Amen!

The gifts and the glitter, the lights and the laughter and the music and the magic are sweet by-products of this “central event”. Although these delightful paraphernalia of the holiday give a sense of joy, beauty and excitement; it is fleeting like the energy from a Snickers bar.

It is this historical event that gives the weary world true and permanent joy, true and permanent hope and true and permanent peace. His birth is “the good tidings of great joy”. And that joy spills over into every area we allow it. Not a fleeting feeling of happiness, but a deep abiding joy. A joy that can endure hardship, a joy that can sustain tragedy and a joy that can hope during the dark night. A joy I define as an internal place I liken to a plateau I have reached after a long and arduous hike. It may be stormy or it may be sunny; but regardless, I have reached a higher land and fresher air.

The true meaning of this blessed holiday brings greater joy to happy Christmases and comfort through the inevitable sad and lonely ones. This Christmas I hope your joy will deepen and provide greater comfort and peace to you and your family and friends. Happy Christmas from the Shoe.