| One of the reasons that CS Lewis is one of my favorite authors is that he has the knack for saying things that aren't earth-shattering. What I mean by this is that he doesn't say much that is radically different or strange, rather he connects with what fundamentally makes sense, stuff that I've never have been able to bring to the surface and put into words myself.
I discovered this for the first time while reading The Four Loves several years ago, and found it true again today in chapter 20 of Mere Christianity.
"Most of us find it very difficult to want 'Heaven' at all-except in so far as
'Heaven' means meeting again our friends who have died. One reason for this
difficulty is that we have not been trained: our whole education tends to fix
our minds on this world. Another reason is that when the real want for Heaven is
present in us, we do not recognise it. Most people, if they had really learned
to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely,
something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in
this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their
promise. The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or first
think of some foreign country, or first take up some subject that excites us,
are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning, can really satisfy. I am
not now speaking of what would be ordinarily called unsuccessful marriages, or
holidays, or learned careers. I am speaking of the best .possible ones. There
was something we grasped at, in that first moment of longing, which just fades
away in the reality. I think everyone knows what I mean. The wife may be a good
wife, and the hotels and scenery may have been excellent, and chemistry may be a
very interesting job: but something has evaded us. Now there are two wrong ways
of dealing with this fact, and one right one.
(I) The Fool's Way. - He puts the blame on the things themselves. He goes on
all his life thinking that if only he tried another woman, or went for a more
expensive holiday, or whatever it is, then, this time, he really would catch the
mysterious something we are all after. Most of the bored, discontented, rich
people in the world are of this type. They spend their whole lives trotting from
woman to woman (through the divorce courts), from continent to continent, from
hobby to hobby, always thinking that the latest is 'the Real Thing' at last, and
always disappointed.
(2) The Way of the Disillusioned 'Sensible Man'.-He soon decides that the
whole thing was moonshine. 'Of course,' he says, 'one feels like that when one's
young. But by the time you get to my age you've given up chasing the rainbow's
end.' And so he settles down and learns not to expect too much and represses the
part of himself which used, as he would say, 'to cry for the moon'. This is, of
course, a much better way than the first, and makes a man much happier, and less
of a nuisance to society. It tends to make him a prig (he is apt to be rather
superior towards what he calls 'adolescents'), but, on the whole, he rubs along
fairly comfortably. It would be the best line we could take if man did not live
for ever. But supposing infinite happiness really is there, waiting for us?
Supposing one really can reach the rainbow's end? In that case it would be a
pity to find out too late (a moment after death) that by our supposed 'common
sense' we had stifled in ourselves the faculty of enjoying it.
(3) The Christian Way.-The Christian says, 'Creatures are not born with
desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well,
there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, then; is such a
thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I
find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most
probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly
pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably
earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to
suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never
to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other,
never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of
copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true
country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed
under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to
that other country and to help others to do the same.'
There is no need to be worried by facetious people who try to make the
Christian hope of 'Heaven' ridiculous by saying they do not want 'to spend
eternity playing harps'. The answer to such people is that if they cannot
understand books written for grown-ups, they should not talk about them. All the
scriptural imagery (harps, crowns, gold, etc.) is, of course a merely symbolical
attempt to express the inexpressible. Musical instruments are mentioned because
for many people (not all) music is the thing known in the present life which
most strongly suggests ecstasy and infinity. Crowns are mentioned to suggest the
fact that those who are united with God in eternity share His splendour and
power and joy. Gold is mentioned to suggest the timelessness of Heaven (gold
does not rust) and the preciousness of it. People who take these symbols
literally might as well think that when Christ told us to be like doves, He
meant that we were to lay eggs. Amazing stuff. I've often gotten hung up on thinking about heaven in terms of playing harps and sitting on clouds. I know in my mind that it is supposed to be an amazing place, just not someplace that I can readily connect to, and really care a lot to go to as soon as possible. All my longings (and there are a lot) that I have: things like marriage, a good career, a family, money, travel, etc. are not of themselves bad, they just are shadows of things to come.
Hope is a beautiful thing: both for things of this life, and things to come.
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