May 23 2008
I’ve Never Spoken to a Mere Mortal
It’s true. This came up in our Truth Project study, and then I caught it today at Jolly Blogger. The point is that we, and everyone we have ever known, have eternal souls. Those souls will ultimately reflect incredible beauty and majesty, or unspeakable horror and corruption. This is from C.S. Lewis, not surprisingly.
It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would strongly be tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.
— C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, HarperOne, pp. 14-15.
If that’s the case, how should we respond to those we meet?
May 27th, 2008 at 22:07 pm
I read this post a couple of days ago and so was pleasantly surprised when in reading as essay by Lewis, I ran across this very quote. I hadn’t consciously picked up the book to find it, but there it was! I think you must have subconsciously planted the seed and now I’m reaping a whole book worth of Lewis. Thanks.
Uncle Bens last blog post..Bullet Points
May 28th, 2008 at 06:35 am
Uncle Ben:
This one keeps ‘popping up for no reason’ for me too. I think the Holy Spirit is trying to get it through my thick skull that if we are all made in the likeness and image of God, we’d better treat others as such.