In his spiritual autobiography, Surprised by Joy, Lewis defines Joy with the following passage:

The central story of my life...is that of an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction. I call it Joy (which has)... only one characteristic in common with Happiness and Pleasure; the fact that any one who has experienced it will want it again. Apart from that, and considered only in its quality, it might almost equally well be called a particular kind of unhappiness or grief. But then it is a kind we want. I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world. But then Joy is never in our power and pleasure often is.

This definition gives the clue to the title of his book, for Lewis's spiritual awakening will be along the lines of being "surprised" by the existence and experience of this kind of "unsatisfied desire."

I think this paragraph is significant also for much of what Lewis writes about elsewhere in terms of "greater pleasure" and "greater love."

As I read it, I have found this description to be true, and yet, I've never thought of joy and pleasure in this way. How much brokenness in ourselves and in the world would be healed if we could remember this simple but profound truth: "...Joy is never in our power and pleasure often is."

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Joseph's temptation

Bono's yearning lyric, from one of U2's greatest albums, The Joshua Tree, speaks to the most basic human need to discover satisfaction: "I still haven't found what I'm looking for."

We are never told what it is that Bono searches for. But we don't have to be told.  Its a poem, and its true enough as it is.

There's something painful in searching and not finding. It is a kind of suffering. What we experience is not what we know we ought to be experiencing. The way things are is not the way things ought to be. We want and cannot have. We have and still want.

Chesterton, good old Chesterton, supposedly once remarked that "every man who knocks on the door of a brothel is looking for God." (I read this quote in a review of Piper's book Sex and the Supremacy of Christ by Mark Hartzell of Harvest in their fall 2007 newsletter.)

Lewis, in his book, Surprised by Suffering, makes the point that heaven is more, not less, than the joys and pleasures of this life. If that's true, then searching for ultimate satisfaction here and now makes no sense. It will ultimately prove to be a fruitless search.

We have to go somewhere else to find what we're looking for. This is a good thing!

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Lewis' Spiritual Autobiography

Last spring I committed to always reading something of Lewis. I've kept that, more or less, over the past many months. I've completed Miracles and The Problem of Pain. It has been great. I've posted on some of my gleanings elsewhere on this site.

I've started Surprised by Joy, which is something of a spiritual autobiography for Lewis, and loved this Milton quote at the head of chapter

    Happy, but for so happy ill secure

I've not read anything by Milton--a function of an impoverished education, I'm sure, but I'm reminded how much of Lewis's imagination and thoughtful interaction with all things theological spring from his reading deeply in the ancient classics.

For some, this is part of why they reject Lewis. For me, this is what draws me

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the frog princess

I love folklore. Lewis's conversion is spurred, I'm told, by a conversation with Tolkien in which the old mythmaker challenged Lewis's atheism/agnosticism with this idea: "Christianity is the One True Myth."

This proverb makes all other myths borrowers from the Real Story. So, I read folklore like a gold miner.

I read a Russian folk tale recently that I had heard before, but never read in this form, called the Frog Princess. You can read it here. I loved this line: "Morning is wiser than evening." I find that to be true as well, though as a recovering night-owl, my findings are coming at a great personal cost.

Getting up early (and the corresponding commitment to get to bed before too late) has seemed to open up options. And yes, morning seems to give wisdom that the evening doesn't give. But, is morning wiser than evening as a rule? I must admit that even as I write this, I am still convinced that night counsels deep wisdom that the morning never knows. David knew this, and writes in his famous 119th Psalm, "At midnight, I rise and give you thanks."

Aaahh...vindication!

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To welcome December and the Advent Season, a meditation on the Incarnation seems apt. This one is provided for us by C. S. Lewis, who, musing on the nature of God says...

All three persons of the Trinity are declared ‘incomprehensible.’ God is pronounced ‘inexpressible, unthinkable, invisible to all created beings.’ The Second Person is not only bodiless but so unlike man that if self-revelation had been His sole purpose He would not have chosen to be incarnate in a human form. (C. S. Lewis, Miracles, chapter 10, “Horrid Red Things,” page 77)

Now think about the implications of this truth for our lives. Those who claim to follow Jesus should perhaps remember the saying, "You are the only Jesus some people will ever see." Try turning the incarnation from a noun (something to see) to a verb (something to do). God's Incarnation redeems. As we incarnate God to others, they are, by God's grace, redeemed.

Merry Christmas world!

How can you bring the good news of the Incarnation to others this season?

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