I've been reading some C.S. Lewis. I have always been drawn to his writings, but have been even more so lately. He questioned things, was a cynic, researched, studied, pondered, fretted, denied, and then accepted the Truth as it was revealed to him.
I have found that most of the people I know who are filled with God's grace and a real understanding of loving people through their valleys have been in a valley themselves at one time or another. For C.S. Lewis those valleys were many but the greatest was his time in life as a non-believer.
As I sit and listen to various friend's life stories, I am profoundly touched by what God does with broken people. It is almost as though His light shines brighter through the cracks. Give me a C.S. Lewis type anyday over one who thinks they are above those who struggle or one who has let their struggles keep them away from God. People that are able to help people drop their masks, to open up, and accept the love of Christ are few but their minstries are deep. So tell me, where do you find a church where one can leave their masks at the door? For me, that "church" has been on the back deck over coffee with trusted friends or on a speed boat full of laughter...on the couch watching movies...around the dinner table sharing joys and trials...open honesty followed by acceptance and love.
And, this kind of thought is what leads me to resonate with poems such as this about the very people that exude Jesus' love out of their very pores just be being "solid people".
In Praise of Solid People
C.S. Lewis
Thank God that there are solid folk
Who water flowers and roll the lawn,
And sit an sew and talk and smoke,
And snore all through the summer dawn.
Who pass untroubled nights and days
Full-fed and sleepily content,
Rejoicing in each other’s praise,
Respectable and innocent.
Who feel the things that all men feel,
And think in well-worn grooves of thought,
Whose honest spirits never reel
Before man’s mystery, overwrought.
Yet not unfaithful nor unkind,
with work-day virtues surely staid,
Theirs is the sane and humble mind,
And dull affections undismayed.
O happy people! I have seen
No verse yet written in your praise,
And, truth to tell, the time has been
I would have scorned your easy ways.
But now thro’ weariness and strife
I learn your worthiness indeed,
The world is better for such life
As stout suburban people lead.
Too often have I sat alone
When the wet night falls heavily,
And fretting winds around me moan,
And homeless longing vexes me
For lore that I shall never know,
And visions none can hope to see,
Till brooding works upon me so
A childish fear steals over me.
I look around the empty room,
The clock still ticking in its place,
And all else silent as the tomb,
Till suddenly, I think, a face
Grows from the darkness just beside.
I turn, and lo! it fades away,
And soon another phantom tide
Of shifting dreams begins to play,
And dusky galleys past me sail,
Full freighted on a faerie sea;
I hear the silken merchants hail
Across the ringing waves to me
—Then suddenly, again, the room,
Familiar books about me piled,
And I alone amid the gloom,
By one more mocking dream beguiled.
And still no neared to the Light,
And still no further from myself,
Alone and lost in clinging night
—(The clock’s still ticking on the shelf).
Then do I envy solid folk
Who sit of evenings by the fire,
After their work and doze and smoke,
And are not fretted by desire.
