Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Viewing Ourselves: The Final Frontier

We've now dealt with several issues: Gods love of us, God lack of need for us, the potential of others, and the potential of ourselves. We've dealt with humility and given some practical examples. In this, my final blog about viewing ourselves, I want to discuss what all of this would look like from the outside. If someone has these balances in their life, what should they 'feel' like if we saw them.

Again, I find that I must quote C.S. Lewis for the answer:

"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 a 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."

Humility is not about denying our own talents. In fact, humility frees us to enjoy ALL talents, others' as well as our own. This quote is fairly straightforward, but the next one needs some clarification:

"Already the new men are dotted here and there all over the earth. Some, as I have admitted, are still hardly recognizable: but others can be recognized. Every now and then one meets them. Their voices and faces are different from ours: stronger, quieter, happier, more radiant. They begin where most of us leave off. They are, as I say, recognizable; but you must know what to look for. They will not be very much like the idea of religious people which you have formed from your general reading. They do not draw attention to themselves....They love you more than other men do, but need you less....They will usually have a lot of time: you will wonder where it comes from. When you have recognized one of them, you will recognize the next one much more easily. And I strongly suspect (but how should I know?) that they recognize one another immediately and infallibly, across every barrier of colour, sex, class, age, and even of creeds. In that way, to become holy is rather like joining a secret society. To put it at the very lowest, it must be great fun."

When C.S. Lewis here speaks of 'new men', he is speaking of Christians. Some aren't recognizable because some aren't as far along in their Christian walk as others. Some are new Christians so the fruits of the Spirit are not as evident. But then he gives a description of the ones that ARE far along.

This is another description of a person that has balance in viewing himself. But I want to clarify one particular point.

When he says "They love you more than other men do, but they need you less" I do not believe he means it to sound as it does. In his book 'The Four Loves' he discusses about how every person has some need-love (something which I discussed in a previous blog). God is the only being with NO need-love at all. So when he says that these truly Christ-like Christians need you less, I do not believe that he meant to imply they don't need you at all. Let me illustrate:

Everyone has a need for food. So if a person, when hungry, sits down to a good meal, there is nothing wrong with that. No one would say that he didn't NEED the food.

Now suppose that we see a second person: a glutton. This person NEEDS food, but not in the same manner as the first. He is ravenous about his need. He must have the food, all he thinks about is the food, and his whole world revolves around the food.

Both people, the hungry person and the glutton, need food. Both would suffer loss without it. But the glutton's desire exceeds rationality. I think most people would be tempted to say he NEEDS food more than the man who is simply hungry. But that is not the case at all. The glutton DESIRES food more, and is hurt by its absence more, but that is due to his unnatural addiction to it. What he really NEEDS is to stop desiring to eat so much, stop making that his entire world.

I think this is what C.S. Lewis really meant. It is not that these great Christian NEED others any less. They can actually enjoy their relationships much more than the normal person (just as the hungry man can actually ENJOY his meal, whereas the glutton barely tastes what he engulfs). Their desire for the people in their lives is not the ravenous devouring of companionship that we sometimes see in people. They love people, and need them, and enjoy them. Their need is healthy, not destructive.

I realize that I am attempting to clarify C.S. Lewis: a person that I respect as one of the clearest and most concise teachers of Christian truth ever. I do this with fear and trembling.

These two quotes summarize what a person with balance looks like from the outside: a person who can truly love and enjoy and need those people around them without destroying the other person with their excessive want; a person who can give because they are truly concerned with those souls that God has brought in their life, a person who understands how much God loves them even though He does not need them, a person who knows how incredibly special God has made them, and those around them; a person who can honestly reach out and bear the burdens of others, while still allowing others to minister to him.

This is what all of us should strive for; this is what a Christian ought to be: someone that can honestly and deeply love their neighbor as themselves.

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