The Missing Middle

You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more 'drive,' or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or 'creativity.' In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful. (C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man, "Men Without Chests")

A certain ruler asked him,

“Good teacher, 

what must I do 

to inherit eternal life?”

 

 “Why do you call me good?” 

Jesus answered. 

“No one is good—

except God alone." (Luke 18:18-19)

 

I have my reasons

I have my drives

But I have no purpose

Just a will to survive

 

I thought happiness

would be enough, you see

but my world collapsed

to a ruined heap

 

Then happiness fled

like a shadow

the fleeting shadow

it had always been

 

Then I knew my purpose

with its reasonable reasons

could not stand on its own

No shadow can

 

I found the hole

 in my middle

where a heart

should be

 

I found an absence

where such shadows are born

illusions of happy

from unliveable dreams

Then, like turning 

over a rock

I saw something

underneath

The darkness

was not the bottomless

pit it promised

but a door

A door promises

something more

a way through

the darkness

but not around

and happiness

would not let

me enter

Only surrender could

make me give it up

for a time

so I could hear

gentle knocking

at the back of my mind

another reason

another will to find

I knew I'd rather

be miserable

in your arms

than chasing dreams

that I own

I thought that

being held close

kept me tied down

but it was living

with such fear of pain

that held me

transfixed and immobile.

In your hand

I am broken open

not apart

I am broken in

not crushed flat

 

In your hand

pain has its place

in this heart you hold

so the head sees rightly

the feet stand firmly

where joy and peace abide

and where both pain and happiness

are welcome guests

 

Coming In Out of the Wind - Renewing the Mind

Discipleship to Christ cannot be described in merely negative terms.  “Do not be conformed to this world” is a necessary component of discipleship, but not a complete description.  Paul also says, “Be transformed by the renewing of your minds” in his letter to the Romans. The movement away from the world and its distractions must be matched by a corresponding move to Christ and his way of living. C. S. Lewis describes this movement well in this excerpt from Mere Christianity. Moving away from a life that is impossible – a sort of compromise with our old life and the new one – we find we can live a life powered by grace. We turn from our usual mechanisms for dealing with life to find that the kingdom of God is close at hand, utterly available to us. As Lewis says, “We can only do it for moments at first.  But from these moments the new sort of life will be spreading through our systems.”  Also he describes so well that such transformation often comes where we least expect it: “the very moment you wake up.”


The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self – all your wishes, and precautions – to Christ.  But it is far easier than what we are trying to do instead.  For what we are trying to do is remain what we call “ourselves,” to keep personal happiness as our great aim in life, and yet at the same time be “good.” We are all trying to let our mind and heart go their own way – centered on money or pleasure or ambition – and hoping, in spite of this, to behave honestly and chastely and humbly.

And that is what Christ warned us you could not do.  As He said, a thistle cannot produce figs.  If I am a field that contains nothing but grass-seed, I cannot produce wheat. Cutting the grass may keep it short: but I shall still produce grass and no wheat. If I want to produce wheat, the change must go deeper than the surface. I must be ploughed up and resown.

That is why the real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it. It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind.

We can only do it for moments at first. But from those moments the new sort of life will be spreading through our system: because now we are letting Him work at the right part of us. It is the difference between paint, which is merely laid on the surface, and a dye or stain which soaks right through.

He never talked vague, idealistic gas. When He said, “Be perfect,” He meant it. He meant that we must go in for the full treatment. It is hard; but the sort of compromise we are all hankering after is harder – in fact, it is impossible. It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird; it would be a jolly sight harder tor it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.

(Smith and Foster, Devotional Classics, p.9)

The Devil's Best Work: Keeping God Out of Mind

The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis

It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out. (20)

[The Enemy] wants men to be concerned about what they do; our business is to keep them thinking about what will happen to them. (28)

The great thing is to direct his malice to his immediate neighbors whom he meets every day and to thrust his benevolence out to the remote circumference, to people he does not know. . . .  Think of your man as a series of concentric circles, his will being the innermost, hie intellect coming next, and finally his fantasy.  You can hardly hope, at once, to exclude from all the circles everything that smells of the Enemy: but you must keep on shoving all virtues outward till they are finally located in the circle of fantasy, and all the desirable qualities inward into the Will. (31)

Provided that meetings, pamphlets, policies, movements, causes, and crusades, matter more to him than prayers and sacraments and charity, he is ours - and the more "religious" (one those terms), the more securely ours.  I could show you a pretty cage-full down here. (35) 

You now see that the the Irresistible and Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nautre of His scheme forbids Him to use.  Merely to override the human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless.  He cannot ravish.  He can only woo.  For His ignoble purpose is to eat the cake and have it; the creatures are to be one with Him, but yet themselves. (38)

We always try to work away from the natural condition of any pleasure to that in which it is least natural, least redolent of it Maker, and least pleasurable.  An ever increasing craving for an ever diminishing pleasure is the formula. (42)

A moderated religion is as good for us as no religion at all - and more amusing. (43)

[When your patient realizes] that his own faith is in direct opposition to the assumptions on which all the conversation of his new friends is based, . . . he will be silent when he ought to speak and laugh when he ought to be silent. . . .  All mortals tend to turn into the thing they are pretending to be. (46)

If prolonged, the habit of Flippancy builds up around a man the finest armor plating against the Enemy that I know, and it is quite free from the dangers inherent in the other sources of laughter.  It is a thousand miles away from joy; it deadens, instead of sharpening, the intellect;  and it excites no affection between those who practice it. (52)

The safest road to Hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.  (56)

The deepest likings and impulses of any man are the raw material, the starting point, with which the Enemy  has furnished him. (59)

The Enemy wants him, in the end, to be so free from any bias in his own favor that he can rejoice in his own talents as frankly and gratefully as in his neighbor's talents - or in a sunrise, and elephant, or a waterfall. . . .  When they have really learned to love their neighbors as themselves, they will be allowed to love themselves as their neighbors. (64)

The truth is that wherever a man lies with a woman, there, whether they like it or not, a transcendental relation is set up which must be eternally enjoyed of eternally endured. (83)

Much of the modern resistance to chastity comes from men's belief that they "own" their bodies. . . .  They will find out in the end, never fear, to whom their time, their souls, and their bodies really belong - certain not to them, whatever happens.  (98)

Prosperity knits a man to the World, He feels that he is "finding his place in it," while really it is finding its place in him.  (132)

Nowhere do we tempt so successfully as on the very steps on the altar. (172) 

The work of spiritual warfare seems to be more tactics than force.  According to Lewis, we find ourselves more outmaneuvered by Satan than overpowered by him.  In the end, we are defeated by our own desires.  It is this end to which the Devil works.  "Get behind me Satan!  You are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of men!"

What sorts of things keep my mind from being set on God?  Forgetfulness brought on by keeping God on the outskirts of my life through "great" causes, diminishing pleasures, trust in God "moderated" into mere talk,  being of the World, holding onto my body as if I owned it, etc.  The options are endless and yet surprisingly repetitive.

If I were to sum up Screwtape's strategy, it would be to keep God out of the mind.  He talks of the many ways of using the flesh (natural human ability, status, and experience apart from God) and the World (organized, historically-moving, institutional flesh) to keep God out of the picture.  The gospel is intended to "renew the mind" for the transformation of my life.  The good news is that I do not have to forget or neglect God, but can live with his continual presence in my mind, and also in my life.  The kingdom that Jesus rules is the continual, eternal, working influence of God in each life and outward into all the universe.

Satan's tactics certainly do make for a strong assault.  Through lies and temptation, I am easily led to destruction.  Without God to lead me elsewhere, I will go astray.  Unlike Satan, God does not intend to control me, but to influence me deeply, fill me, work in and through me.  He is a loving Father always near, not a calculating tyrant, always coercing and manipulating.  Satan's main lie and temptation is simple: "You can't trust Jesus.  Trust yourself instead."

Lord, it is one thing to talk about Satan academically and another to face his lies and temptation in my life.  Let me continually set my mind on you.  Let me not listen to those lies, but only to your truth.  "May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer."  Amen.


The small temptations and sins lead to bigger ones.  The battles begin with arguments and skirmishes before they become all out war.  I cannot patrol the borders of my life alone.  The Lord is my shield and fortress and an ever-present help in trouble.

The Virtue of Humility

Devotional Classics, Benedict of Nursia, Excerpts from The Rule

"Friends, the Holy Scriptures cry out to us saying, 'Everyone that exalts himself shall be humbled; and he that humbles himself shall be exalted.' Therefore, they show us that every exaltation of ourselves is a kind of pride." (p.178)

Benedict's twelve steps of humility cover both the negative and the positive aspects of humility. The negative is putting to death self-exaltation and the positive, a right attitude toward God and oneself.

For all his severity, Benedict begins with the positive aspects: reverence for God, doing God's will, submission to others, enduring affliction, confession, and contentment. Some of these certainly push against my desire to exalt myself because they place me under God and other people, but the focus seems to be on recovering and enjoying my relationships with God and other people. I have found much freedom in submission and confession. Although the way can be difficult, the results bring joy and peace.

The negative aspects are harder to deal with: self-reproach, obeying the common rule, silence, seriousness, simple speech, and humility in appearance. Because of the great abuses of some of these, both in my personal life and historically, some of these steps are hard to use for me. For me, self-reproach and seriousness tend to move me toward self-obsession, which is far from God or humility. However, properly understood each of these can really aid humility by limiting self-exaltation. Silence and simple speech can be quite powerful in limiting self-exaltation.

Benedict locates humility and pride on opposite ends of the spectrum. Where pride is almost the ultimate vice, humility is a very important virtue. Jesus says it is required for entry into the kingdom of God (Matthew 18:3). Efforts toward humility, then are important both in their positive outcome - entry into the kingdom - and their negative outcome - overcoming pride. An interesting point is that pride can only be overcome with humility. Perhaps another way of understanding it is that pride is the absence of humility.

For some reason, it is more natural to think of humility as the absence of pride. Most likely, this comes from a typical cultural bias that sees virtue as merely the absence of vice, peace is no war, love is no hate, etc. However, as C.S. Lewis says in The Weight of Glory

If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive. . . . The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not of primarily securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if abstinence and not happiness was the important point.

And so humility tends to carry the idea of low self-esteem, self-hatred, and spinelessness. A lack of pride does not humility make.

Perhaps Benedict starts with the positive aspect of humility first because of this tendency. Just as love is not merely going without good things for ourselves, but more creating good in and for others, humility is not so much about cutting ourselves down as it is bringing others up. "Do everything without selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others." (Philippians 2:3-4) Humility is the freedom to let others (including God himself) succeed and to enjoy their progress and achievement with a lack of concern for myself. I guess more simply, it is letting God exalt me.

Following such practices as doing God's will, contentment, or confession will bring quick inner objections. So to practice these without inner turmoil and pain, Benedict suggests the negative disciplines to remove the heartache of pride. Humility pushes pride out of my heart and the pushing hurts. So pride must be deflated and destroyed. Self-exaltation inflames pride. Obeying rules, silence, seriousness, and simple speech encourage humility and limit self-exaltation, the primary food of pride.

Lord, what a wonderful promise you've given! You want to exalt me. You want to exalt everyone. You want to share your glory with each of us. I do not believe it most of the time and do not leave room for your pleasure. Help to let my defenses down through training in what I say and do so that I might receive your exaltation: being lowly like Jesus. Amen.

How timely! I have an opportunity to seek humility through enduring affliction and silence in dealing with a person who has not been kind to me. No doubt I will find ways in which I have not been kind to him as well. Funny how these things come up as I write this blog. It certainly brings a sense of realism to the rather "heady" discussion. Mostly, I find that God guides me each day so that these virtues do not remain dead in a book, but can come alive in practice. Perhaps I will find a way to confess to this person and grow out of my fears.