Letter Eight of this book has this:
“Humans are amphibians – half spirit and half animal… As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time. This means that while their spirits can be directed toward an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change – for to be in time means to change.
Therefore, their nearest approach to constancy is undulation – the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back. It is a series of valleys and peaks. Ifyou watched your patient carefully you would have seen this undulation in every area of his life: his interest in his work, his affection for his friends, physical appetites, all go up and down. As long as he lives on earth, periods of emotional and physical prosperity will alternate with periods of depression and poverty. The dryness and dullness through which your patient is now going are not, asyou fondly suppose, your workmanship. They are merely a natural phenomenon which will do us no good unless you make good use of it.
To decide how to best use this unstable condition, you must ask what use the Enemy wants to make of it and then do the opposite. Now it may surprise you to learn that in His efforts to get permanent possession of a soul, He relies on the valleys even more than on the mountain tops. Some of His special favourites have gone through the longer and deeper valleys than anyone else…
You must have often wondered why the Enemy does not make more use of His power to be physically present to human souls in any degree He chooses and at any moment. But you now see that the irresistable and the indisputable are the two weapons which th every nature of His scheme forbids Him to use. Merely to override a human will (as His felt presence in any but the slightest degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot dominate them. He can only woo. For His idea is to eat the cake and have it; the creatures are to be one with Him, but yet themselves. To neutralize or assimilate them will not serve His purposes…
I dont know why I took that book out again. I have borrowed a book called “Daughters of Galilee” and have been toying with Alex Ferguson’s autobiography again so I certainly have entertaining stuff to read for now. CS Lewis’ work however, has always provided a solid intellectual basis for my beliefs and the above passage somehow struck a very rational chord in my mind. I wont try to articulate it for now (and would appreciate anyone assisting with that task) except to say it has centered me, at least for now.
“So, I commend the enjoyment of life.” (From the Bible – really. Eccl 8:15)
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Ante 