A Tale of Two Styles

Alright! I'm going to try something new so you'll have to forgive the experimental nature of the blog for the next (hopefully) few weeks.

The more diligent readers among you (HA!) may have noticed the huge dearth of posts lately. I've had a few big changes lately (what with moving out of the house) and, more importantly, I frankly haven't been reading much poetry.

I think a blog should reflect its writer, even if it isn't specifically about the author. And hence, since I've gone home to prose, this blog will widen its scope. I'm officially shifting to writing about whatever I'm reading! Perhaps I'll even occasionally record the rare thought unprovoked by my reading. Scandalous I know.

Let's get into it.

Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it ... Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in. - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

I couldn't write about thoughts inspired by literature without letting Brother Lewis start me off. No, I'm not technically reading any of his work right now but the concepts he illustrates are never too far from my thoughts.

Sometimes you read an idea or hear a lyric in a song that resonates deeply with you. That's how I felt the first time I read this closing paragraph in one of my all-time favorite books. What a terrifying and radical and yet truly beautiful idea to feel deeply!

Have you ever considered what it would actually mean to sacrifice your entire will to God? Everything? Not just your sins and infirmities but even your most good and powerful instincts, ideas and emotions? What a sacrifice of self! Could it truly leave anything we could call uniquely ours?

I think the answer is no. However, I think it's important to note that even now we can't really call any part of our self truly ours. It's all been given to us by virtue of our creation. Even our agency came to us as a gift. Now we see why it makes sense that we're never truly ourselves until we give all that back. Who are we truly? Beggars, 100% reliant on God for even our daily breath, and it's only by coming unto God and ceasing to pretend we truly own anything, even our own will, that we're finally left with who we really are.

 

More prose soon!