Sunday, January 9, 2011

mmhmmm

Well, seeing as he's kind of a champion of the field that I may or may not be a part of some day, I decided to give good ole Clive Staples Lewis another go.  I still am not all goo-goo over him, but this passage caught my heart, as it were. 
Of all arguments against love none makes so strong an appeal to my nature as “Careful! This might lead you to suffering.” To my nature, my temperament, yes. Not to my conscience. When I respond to that appeal I seem to myself to be a thousand miles away from Christ. If I am sure of anything I am sure that His teaching was never meant to confirm my congenital preference for safe investments and limited liabilities.…
There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.
-From The Four Loves, as found in The Inspirational Writings of C.S. Lewis

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