Wisdom from C.S. Lewis: Moral Choices and Why We Can't Accurately Judge

From C. S. Lewis' Mere Christianity, Book III, Christian Behaviour, "Morality and Psychoanalysis":

     People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, "If you keep 
     a lot of rules I'll reward you, and if you don't I'll do the other thing." I do not think that is the 
     best way of looking at it. I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are 
     turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different 
     from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, 
     all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into 
     a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other 
     creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and 
     with its fellow-creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is 
     joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, 
     rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the 
     one state or the other.
          That explains what always used to puzzle me about Christian writers; they seem to be so 
     very strict at one moment and so very free and easy at another. They talk about mere sins of 
     thought as if they were immensely important: and then they talk about the most frightful 
     murders and treacheries as if you had only got to repent and all would be forgiven. But I have 
     come to see that they are right. What they are always thinking of is the mark which the action 
     leaves on that tiny central self which no one sees in this life but which each of us will have to 
     endure--or enjoy--for ever. One man may be so placed that his anger sheds the blood of 
     thousands, and another so placed that however angry he gets he will only be laughed at. But 
     the little mark on the soul may be much the same in both. Each has done something to 
     himself which, unless he repents, will make it harder for him to keep out of the rage next time 
     he is tempted, and will make the rage worse when he does fall into it. Each of them, if he 
     seriously turns to God, can have that twist in the central man straightened out again: each is, 
     in the long run, doomed if he will not. The bigness or smallness of the thing, seen from the 
     outside, is not what really matters.  
          One last point. Remember that, as I said, the right direction leads not only to peace but to 
     knowledge. When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that 
     is still left in him. When a man is getting worse, he understands his own badness less and 
     less. A moderately bad man knows he is not very good: a thoroughly bad man thinks he is all 
     right. This is common sense, really. You understand sleep when you are awake, not while 
     you are sleeping. You can see mistakes in arithmetic when your mind is working properly: 
     while you are making them you cannot see them. You can understand the nature of 
     drunkenness when you are sober, not when you are drunk. Good people know about both 
     good and evil: bad people do not know about either.

In Christ,

Teopile/Theophilos Porter

Wisdom from C.S. Lewis: On Charity and Stewardship in Material Things

This short series will be excerpted from Mere Christianity, a book by C.S. Lewis, which was lent to me by a fellow volunteer, and which I thoroughly enjoy.  Though he was of the Anglican confession, he was very orthodox-minded and there was only one thing in the book which I could outright disagree with, as an Orthodox Christian, and one other thing which I disagreed with on his emphasis alone (both relatively minor, to bother discussing here).  It is an excellent book, intended to explain the most vital aspects of Christianity to one outside the Christian confession, looking in--but it is also, when understood as being written with that intent, a good book for any Christian.  From his chapter on "Social Morality" in Book III, Christian Behaviour:

     In the passage where the New Testament says that every one must work, it gives as a 

     reason "in order that he may have something to give to those in need." Charity--giving to the 

     poor--is an essential part of Christian morality: in the frightening parable of the sheep and the 

     goats it seems to be the point on which everything turns. Some people nowadays say that 

     charity ought to be unnecessary and that instead of giving to the poor we ought to be 

     producing a society in which there were no poor to give to. They may be quite right in saying 

     that we ought to produce that kind of society. But if anyone thinks that, as a consequence, you 

     can stop giving in the meantime, then he has parted company with all Christian morality. I do 

     not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give 

     more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, 

     amusements, etc., is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our 

     own, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I 

     should say they are too small There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do 

     because our charitable expenditure excludes them. I am speaking now of "charities" in the 

     common way. Particular cases of distress among your own relatives, friends, neighbours or 

     employees, which God, as it were, forces upon your notice, may demand much more: even to 

     the crippling and endangering of your own position. For many of us the great obstacle to 

     charity lies not in our luxurious living or desire for more money, but in our fear-fear of 

     insecurity. This must often be recognised as a temptation. Sometimes our pride also hinders 

     our charity; we are tempted to spend more than we ought on the showy forms of generosity 

     (tipping, hospitality) and less than we ought on those who really need our help.

          And now, before I end, I am going to venture on a guess as to how this section has 

     affected any who have read it. My guess is that there are some Leftist people among them 

     who are very angry that it has not gone further in that direction, and some people of an 

     opposite sort who are angry because they think it has gone much too far. If so, that brings us 

     right up against the real snag in all this drawing up of blueprints for a Christian society. Most 

     of us are not really approaching the subject in order to find out what Christianity says: we are 

     approaching it in the hope of finding support from Christianity for the views of our own party. 

     We are looking for an ally where we are offered either a Master or--a Judge. I am just the 

     same. There are bits in this section that I wanted to leave out. And that is why nothing 

     whatever is going to come of such talks unless we go a much longer way round. A Christian 

     society is not going to arrive until most of us really want it: and we are not going to want it until 

     we become fully Christian. I may repeat "Do as you would be done by" till I am black in the 

     face, but I cannot really carry it out till I love my neighbour as myself: and I cannot learn to love 

     my neighbour as myself till I learn to love God: and I cannot learn to love God except by 

     learning to obey Him. And so, as I warned you, we are driven on to something more inward -

     driven on from social matters to religious matters. For the longest way round is the shortest 

     way home.

In Christ,

Teopile/Theophilos Porter

My New Computer Situation, Part II

I just wanted to let you all know that (a) there have been some changes in my computer situation, and (b) I FINALLY know why.  The changes are simply this:  I can't use the computers in the night (the latest would be around 9:00), and can only use them, to quote the administration, "sometimes, not systematically."  I.e., I can use them at these times when for a really good reason I can't get what I need done at earlier times.  Of course, before 5:00 I can still use them whenever, as that's when they're open for all people at the school.  Now I couldn't figure out why this would be the case.  I had heard before stuff about being scared the computers would be stolen, and also had it suggested that perhaps the cost of electricity was a problem.  In reality, it's the former.  Now my previous inability to understand stemmed from the fact that if I was in the room when it was open in the night, then told the night guard when I left, so that he could lock it, I didn't see the problem:  it was locked after I was gone, and I was in it when unlocked, so it was never left unattended.  However, their worry is that thieves could come and knock me out or something in order to steal the computers, as I am alone in the room when I'm here after hours.  That I can understand, and it was why there's been this misunderstanding for so long about if there's a problem and why, if so.  Of course, I would think that most thieves would be deterred by seeing the lights on in the room, and moreso by seeing that someone is actually in the room.  I would think they would lay aside all plans and determine to try for another night, because it's obviously easier to steal when you don't have to knock someone out and risk a dangerous fight (not that I would resist or fight back, physically; but they wouldn't know that) or me yelling out and the night guard hearing or something of the like (it's quite obvious from the outside of the school when the lights are on in here).  But though I thus wouldn't really worry about such a situation, I can understand their worries and appreciate their intentions, of course.


So what's that mean, in the long run?  I will only be able to Skype with people on (my time) Thursday morning before 10:35 or so and after 9:00 (sometimes; when it's planned beforehand--and also keep in mind that some mornings, especially, the internet is quite finnicky), weekdays after around 1:15 and before about 5:00, and when really necessary, after that but before 9:00 at latest.  In Washington State times (now with the daylight savings change 11 hours behind us), that's (again, occasionally) between 9:00 and 11:35 Wednesday nights, weekdays from 1:15 to 5:00 AM, and when necessary and planned beforehand, after 5PM, but ending at latest around 9:00.  Keep in mind that I'm not promising to be on Skype these times; it's just when I can make myself available, when it's planned out beforehand.  So it looks like email will be the norm from hereon out (it's been the primary means of reaching me all along, of course), and Skype will be much more difficult, and thus generally only for when it's really important, or if you really want to get up before 5AM.


In Christ,
Teopile/Theophilos Porter

Spring and New Life

Well, spring is here (finally).  Yesterday it was nice and warm, and I took a walk to the end of the road (and discovered that it's only about 30 minutes to the foothills of the mountains), which was wonderful--once you're out of town, you can see the flat valley extending as far as the eye can see that is eastern Georgia, and the length of the mountains which enclose it.  Today it's been showering, but other than being a bit chilly, that's no problem--I am, after all, from western Washington.  The plants are making sure to me that spring is finally here to stay--things are budding, we have lots of violets, and the garlic and onions (we have tons, at least of the garlic) are growing.  Ever have not just the onion bulb or garlic cloves, but the whole plant, green shoots and all?  Very tasty.  We got another baby cow yesterday (the other cow had one a few months ago, and I don't know about that one, but this one was totally unexpected), which is absolutely "dear," to quote my host sister.  When I got up this morning, it was jumping and butting heads with its brother playfully; unfortunately, by the time I got out there with my camera, my host father had fed them, so they were just munching away happily.  We've had a ton of eggs lately (perfectly coinciding with the beginning of Lent, of course), which means that those of us not fasting are eating a lot of them.  The rest are being saved (apparently, eggs are still good after almost fifty days of refrigeration, which I wouldn't have guessed).  We also just took fifteen of the fertilized ones (I now know two means of telling the difference), and put them down for the hens to lay on, so we should have some cute new chicks soon, too [I thought they said a couple weeks, but it is only now that we're getting some, in mid-April].  I've really come to love this natural lifestyle, with so much coming from the plants and animals here on the property.  It's wonderful food-wise (both as concerns healthiness of the food and its consistency and flavor--no matter what anyone says, it is very noticeable of a difference) and also in general for the joy of animal life, of seeing things grow, and of seeing new life born into the world.  A season of growth and life, spring is here.


In Christ,
Teopile/Theophilos Porter

A New Saint in the Orthodox Church

Saint Alexander Schmorell 

(from the Flickr page of Jim Forest)

I was thinking, as I have been writing a lot recently about Orthodoxy, theology, and so forth, that it might be interesting to some to hear that the Orthodox Church in February recognized Alexander Schmorell as a saint.  He wrote out against the Nazi regime, was captured, and finally beheaded.  For more on his life, I'll leave you to better sources than myself:


From the blog of Jim and Nancy Forest, an Orthodox couple who live in Germany and attended the canonization, about St. Alexander's life.


From the Russian Church Outside Russia's webpage, about his life.


An account of the canonization itself, from the same Jim and Nancy Forest.


And pictures of the canonization, from the same.


Enjoy!


In Christ,
Teopile/Theophilos