THe weight of glory
Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2010 6:51 am
If anyone would like a short read/long devotion, this is a phenomenal little treatise by C.S. Lewis caleld the Weight of Glory.
http://www.verber.com/mark/xian/weight-of-glory.pdf for the full read.
I remember reading this for the first time and it really changed how I viewed my colleagues, my neighbors, even strangers. It changed how I saw them and judged them. To my shame, many of them I viewed with ridicule or disdain. I still struggle with that sometimes and I come back to this sermon again and again like my favorite dinner to nourish my mind and spirit.
http://www.verber.com/mark/xian/weight-of-glory.pdf for the full read.
The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbour's glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest
and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one
or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection
proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.
There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are
mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and
exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours
I remember reading this for the first time and it really changed how I viewed my colleagues, my neighbors, even strangers. It changed how I saw them and judged them. To my shame, many of them I viewed with ridicule or disdain. I still struggle with that sometimes and I come back to this sermon again and again like my favorite dinner to nourish my mind and spirit.
I think this is in the other CS Lewis thread too. Very sobering to think on, yes! I was planning on bringing the CS Lewis thread back up - by posting something new on it, of course. I was thinking of adding your post here to it, but I believe this quote is already there. What he says here never loses it's meaning or gets old!