C. S. Lewis

C. S. Lewis was on my mind today, and I'm not sure why. I have read only a few quotes by him, and know of him, but I have never read anything by him. But I am going to read a book by him entitled , Mere Christianity, one of C. S. Lewis's best known books widely credited for changing lives.

Two of his quotes that I really enjoy are: "I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen­—not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."

Lewis was at one time an atheist. It has been said that the two most difficult kinds of people to convince of Christ and His teachings are the wealthy and the intellectual. If you are wealthy, then you have every thing and you don't need religion. If you are an intellectual, or simply someone who thinks that he/she has all the answers, then you don't need religion because you have never seen any proof that God exists. That I why I like the above quote......I'm not wealthy and certainly not bright, but I do observe things around me that convinces me that God exists.

My all time favorite quote of C.S. Lewis is taken from his essay "The Weight of Glory":

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations--these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit--immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn: We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously--no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner--no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat--the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden. ~C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, (1949)

This is an easy to read essay that can be found here: http://www.doxaweb.com/assets/doxa.pdf

Lewis has some other essays and books that I will need to become familiar with, and a good web site to learn more about C. S. Lewis is : http://www.cslewisinstitute.org/pages/about/about.php

I'll end today with one more of my favorite quotes by Lewis: You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.

I encourage believer and non believer alike to read a few of his books, starting with Mere Christianity..........I don't think that you will be disappointed. IMHO