A Life Worthy

Tag: C.S. Lewis

  • One-a-Day Friday, 9/26/14

    number 1And thus ends a week of C.S. Lewis poetry.  Thank you for indulging me as I shared a few of my favorites.  I hope you found them as worthwhile as I.

    After Prayers, Lie Cold

    Arise my body, my small body, we have striven

    Enough, and He is merciful; we are forgiven.

    Arise small body, puppet-like and pale, and go,

    White as the bed-clothes into bed, and cold as snow,

    Undress with small, cold fingers and put out the light,

    And be alone, hush’d mortal, in the sacred night,

    –A meadow whipt flat with the rain, a cup

    Emptied and clean, a garment washed and folded up,

    Faded in color, thinned almost to raggedness

    By dirt and by the washing of that dirtiness.

    Be not too quickly warm again.  Lie cold; consent

    To weariness’ and pardon’s watery element.

    Drink up the bitter water, breathe the chilly death;

    Soon enough comes the riot of our blood and breath.

  • One-a-Day Thursday, 9/25/14

    number 1It’s time for Thursday with C.S. Lewis!

    Have you ever really considered what Lazarus gave up when Jesus called him forth from the tomb?  It was more than we can comprehend.

    Stephen to Lazarus

    But was I the first martyr, who

    Gave up no more than life, while you,

    Already free among the dead,

    Your rags stripped off, your fetters shed,

    Surrendered what all other men

    Irrevocably keep, and when

    Your battered ship at anchor lay

    Seemingly safe in the dark bay

    No ripple stirs, obediently

    Put out a second time to sea

    Well knowing that your death (in vain

    Died once) must all be died again?

  • One-a-Day Wednesday, 9/24/14

    number 1C.S. Lewis Week—Day Three

    Prayer

    Master, they say that when I seem

    To be in speech with you,

    Since you make no replies, it’ all a dream

    –One talker aping two.

     

    They are half right, but not as the

    Imagine; rather, I

    Seek in myself the things I meant to say,

    And lo!  The wells are dry.

     

    Then, seeing me empty, you forsake

    The Listener’s role, and through

    My dead lips breathe and into utterance wake

    The thoughts I never knew.

     

    And thus you neither need reply

    Nor can; thus, while we seem

    Two talking, thou art One forever, and I

    No dreamer, but thy dream.

     

    He understands you better that you do, Beloved.  Enjoy your Wednesday with him.

  • One-a-Day Tuesday, 9/23/14

    number 1Here it is, Beloved—Day 2 of C.S. Lewis week. 

    I must admit…I identify with this poem far more than I would like.

    Pilgrim’s Problem

    By now I should be entering on the supreme stage

    Of the whole walk, reserved for late afternoon.

    The heat was to be over now; the anxious mountains,

    The airless valleys and sun-baked rocks, behind me.

    Now, or soon now, if all is well, come the majestic

    Rivers of foamless charity that glide beneath

    Forests of contemplation.  In the grassy clearings

    Humility with liquid eyes and damp, cool nose

    Should come, half tame, to eat bread from my hermit hand.

    If storms arose, then in my tower of fortitude—

    It ought to have been in sight by this—I would take refuge;

    But I expected rather a pale mackerel sky,

    Feather-like, perhaps shaking from a lower cloud

    Light drops of silver temperance, and clover earth

    Sending up mists of chastity, a country smell,

    Till earnest stars blaze out in the established sky

    Rigid with justice; the streams audible; my rest secure.

    I can see nothing like all this.  Was the map wrong?

    Maps can be wrong.  But the experienced walker knows

    That the other explanation is more often true.