Lessons from C.S.

My husband is a hero. Back in June, my dearly beloved MacBook crashed, taking all of my precious documents with it. I'm not exactly tech savvy, to the point where I don't even understand all the possibilities. But Curtis came to my rescue without me asking and had my hard drive taken out and cased. My various documents are now all converted to iTunes and ready for upload on my iPad.

Lord knows I love that man.

One of my rediscovered documents was Chapter 6 from C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity on the topic of marriage. Guh, it is so good! I keep it as a reminder of the bigger picture, of who we are in marriage and the beauty of how it was designed and is orchestrated. It is refreshing to read something this wholesome when I am too often reminded of some of the modern-day views of marriage. To me, many are incomplete and superficial.

Here are my favorite quotes from C.S.:

The Christian law is not forcing upon the passion of love something which is foreign to that passion’s own nature: it is demanding that lovers should take seriously something which their passion itself impels them to do. And, of course, the promise, made when I am in love and because I am in love, to be true to the beloved as long as I live, commits me to being true even if I cease to be in love. A promise must be about things that I can do, about actions: no one can promise to go on feeling in a certain way. He might as well promise never to have a headache or always to feel hungry.

Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling. Now no feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity, or even to last at all. Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last; but feelings come and go.

But, of course, ceasing to be ‘in love’ need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense - love as distinct from ‘being in love’ - is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God.

‘Being in love’ first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it.

[on the longevity of being in love] This is, I think, one little part of what Christ meant by saying that a thing will not really live unless it first dies. It is simply no good trying to keep any thrill: that is the very worst thing you can do. Let the thrill go - let it die away - go on through that period of death into the quieter interest and happiness that follow - and you will find you are living in a world of new thrills all the time.