So I am obviously still on my C.S. Lewis kick because he is the inspiration for tonight's blog post. I am currently sitting cross-legged on my couch cooling off from doing a Jillian Michael's workout. You want to sweat in the comfort of your home? Yeah, she will make you do that, that's for sure. The point is, I pulled out my computer, opened up a new post, and pondered what to write. A quotation from The Problem of Pain kept coming to me, and I hope it inspires you the same way it did me. It is in the final chapter of the book and the chapter is entitled "Heaven." It is a lengthy passage, but bear with me, it is worth it, I promise.
"There have been times when I think we do not desire heaven; but more often I find myself wondering whether, in our heart of hearts, we have ever desired anything else. You may have noticed that the books you really love are bound together by a secret thread. You know very well what is the common quality that makes you love them, though you cannot put it into words: but most of your friends do not see it at all, and often wonder why, liking this, you should also like that. Again, you have stood before some landscape, which seems to embody what you have been looking for all your life; and then turned to the friend at your side who appears to be seeing what you saw--but at the first words a gulf yawns between you, and you realize that this landscape means something totally different to him, that he is pursuing an alien vision and cares nothing for the ineffable suggestion by which we are transported. Even in your hobbies, has there not always been some secret attraction which the others are curiously ignorant of--something, not to be identified with, but always on the verge of breaking through, the smell of cut wood in the workshop or the clap-clap of water against the boat's side? Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and uncertain at best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for? You have never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it--tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that die away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest--if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself--you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say 'Here at last is the thing I was made for.' We cannot tell each other about it. It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the thing we desired before we met our wives [or husbands] or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife [or husband] or friend or work... Your place in heaven will seem to be made for you and you alone, because you were made for it--made for it stitch by stitch as a glove made for a hand."
I know that's a lot to digest. But I also know that it spoke directly to my soul.
How often do I rant about my quirks and wonder why God made me so odd? Why is it that waiting for the bus on a misty morning stirs my soul? Why does the sound of rustling leaves seem to be the trees calling for me to join them in their dance? Why is it that I like BBC dramas, literature, video games, fantasy, and science fiction when at times there appears to be no line to connect them?
I love the idea of a secret signature of the soul. Suddenly my oddities no longer seem so odd, but rather are what make my soul unique. I was made this way "stitch by stitch" because I was made for my place in heaven.
So please don't ever become discouraged with what appear to be your own quirks. Don't try to hide them or get rid of them, or pretend they don't exist because others don't understand them. They are part of the secret signature of your soul, and were stitched there by a God who loves you more than any other person will ever be remotely capable of loving you.
Such is the life of a Christian single.
"There have been times when I think we do not desire heaven; but more often I find myself wondering whether, in our heart of hearts, we have ever desired anything else. You may have noticed that the books you really love are bound together by a secret thread. You know very well what is the common quality that makes you love them, though you cannot put it into words: but most of your friends do not see it at all, and often wonder why, liking this, you should also like that. Again, you have stood before some landscape, which seems to embody what you have been looking for all your life; and then turned to the friend at your side who appears to be seeing what you saw--but at the first words a gulf yawns between you, and you realize that this landscape means something totally different to him, that he is pursuing an alien vision and cares nothing for the ineffable suggestion by which we are transported. Even in your hobbies, has there not always been some secret attraction which the others are curiously ignorant of--something, not to be identified with, but always on the verge of breaking through, the smell of cut wood in the workshop or the clap-clap of water against the boat's side? Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and uncertain at best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for? You have never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it--tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that die away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest--if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself--you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say 'Here at last is the thing I was made for.' We cannot tell each other about it. It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the thing we desired before we met our wives [or husbands] or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife [or husband] or friend or work... Your place in heaven will seem to be made for you and you alone, because you were made for it--made for it stitch by stitch as a glove made for a hand."
I know that's a lot to digest. But I also know that it spoke directly to my soul.
How often do I rant about my quirks and wonder why God made me so odd? Why is it that waiting for the bus on a misty morning stirs my soul? Why does the sound of rustling leaves seem to be the trees calling for me to join them in their dance? Why is it that I like BBC dramas, literature, video games, fantasy, and science fiction when at times there appears to be no line to connect them?
I love the idea of a secret signature of the soul. Suddenly my oddities no longer seem so odd, but rather are what make my soul unique. I was made this way "stitch by stitch" because I was made for my place in heaven.
So please don't ever become discouraged with what appear to be your own quirks. Don't try to hide them or get rid of them, or pretend they don't exist because others don't understand them. They are part of the secret signature of your soul, and were stitched there by a God who loves you more than any other person will ever be remotely capable of loving you.
Such is the life of a Christian single.
Wow, my friend.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing this. I drank in ever word of that excerpt. And you tied it all together so expressly afterwards...so poignantly. wow...still pondering it and thinking how amazing it is to be reminded that "here at last is the thing I was made for." Just beyond the veil. With fleeting glimpses here and now, and there as we walk along this path of life. Celebrating our quirks as you put it, our unique grasp of this world and our place in it as we sojourn on through.
It's just what I needed to be reminded of tonight.
Thank you.
Jeanine :))
I am glad it struck a chord with someone else! When I read that passage it was almost as if it had been written just for me--it seemed to speak directly into my inner being. I felt that there were others out there probably in a similar place as me, and so I am glad it spoke to you too!
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