Saturday night I was up until 4am. Midnight brought the call you hope to never receive. "You're where? On a bridge and going to jump? Don't! I'll be right there."
Sunday afternoon I went to a going away party for a friend. She is leaving to study at the Mayo clinic in Arizona for a year. The party was hosted at her boyfriends house. The design of the house was creative. It was built rustic and livable with plenty of exposed beams and three decks. There was enough bushes and trees around the property, which is placed next to duplex-ville in Bremerton, to make it feel country. It was fall. The air had the lingering touch of morning dew and the sun shared space with the chill. It seemed very removed from the night before.
In the last three days I have finished Lewis's book The Great Divorce. Besides having an unfortunate name I can say that his writing has finally spilled over my trenches. That is to say, I admire him. You see, I have not wanted to. It seems like everyone defaults to Lewis. I will say that one of the most brilliant things about Lewis is that God gave him the ability to see outside of himself and to appreciate all of creation. His book Surprised By Joy tells of his early desires to try to capture joy when he felt it most profoundly. He tried to feel it to the greatest extent and to hold himself there (or hold joy to himself) as if to fulfill the wish of Peter on the Mount of Transfiguration. To his disappointment he could not hold joy (I believe that joy in The Great Divorce is tied inextricably to "Reality", and thus he could not hold the realest reality). Joy was not that moment or that feeling. The substance is in the object of desire. "Guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life!" Understanding can be tested by action.
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