"And do you now begin to see why Christianity has always said that the devil is a fallen angel? That is not a mere story for the children. It is a real recognition of the fact that evil is a parasite, not an original thing. The powers which enable evil to carry on are powers given it by goodness."

- C.S. Lewis
"There Are No Ordinary People"

This post got me thinking about this:

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations—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. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of the kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously—no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinners—no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat, the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.

- C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Trackbacks:

Trackback URL: http://thinklings.org/bloo.trackback.php/4048.

Comments on ""There Are No Ordinary People"":
1. smallfaithjenn - 08/11/2007 8:33 am CDT

De,
Thanks for posting this quote. I needed to be reminded of this today. I'll be stopping by again in the morning before church to remind myself again. :D

2. Chris - 08/11/2007 9:14 am CDT

CSL sure knew how to say what we all should know.

3. Lauren - 08/11/2007 12:34 pm CDT

wow, CS Lewis is awesome.

and this weekend is my two-year anniversary with Thinklings. I just wrote on my blog about the diversity in the body (go check it out).

Comments are closed