Saturday, June 11, 2005

Good old Clive Staples

Our landlords, Cliff and Sarah, are marvelous people. Sarah loves to bake and often we are recipients of her culinary talents. Last month, when they found out that it was my birthday, they left a present for me in our mail basket. I was stunned to find it was a copy of "The Weight of Glory" by C.S. Lewis. I'm pretty sure they're not believers, but I think they're ' not far from the kingdom' and they know where we stand. When I wrote them a thankyou note, I told them that it was a special book to me because my brother had once shared some special things from it...I didn't explain to them that he'd had a 9:00 hour meeting his third year of Bibleschool, and that it was an incredibly beautiful and inspiring experience to see him filled with the spirit, while sharing from this book. I was thrilled to have my own copy as I've meant, ever since Andrew's meeting, and then even more after he died, to read it.

I've been reading this wonderful little book of essays in the last week or so. Here is a quote that I felt I could really relate to...In fact, I felt like Lewis articulated some of my recent vague feelings and thoughts about heaven, so that I said to myself, " YES! That's what has been percolating in my mind recently."

" At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of the morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in."

The way I think about death is changing. It's not so much that heaven and earth are these two distant countries, but adjoining rooms in the same house. Of course, as Christians, we know that death is not the end of existence...but I have found myself fighting against that humanistic assumption. On some subconscious level, I think we have all bought into that idea - that death is the end. Because that's the end of what we see now. I've been realizing more lately that death is just a moving from one room to the next and that the person is simply living now on the other side of the door. This probably seems simplistic and trite to some...I don't know if I am explaining it correctly. And when I read back over it, it's like..."Of course." I guess I'm just learning this in a new way, on a different level, or something. And it's been a help. So when I read that line about standing on the wrong side of the door, it really jumped out at me. And then, " Some day...we shall get in."

6 comments:

Claire said...

9:00 hour meeting refers to getting together at the 'hour of prayer' or 'hour of the morning sacrifice' mentioned in the Old Testament, for prayer, worship, exhortation etc. I guess you could call it a chapel service; it is observed by our church fellowship and is a part of the school day at the Bibleschool we attended.

Thanks for all your feedback! We love you!

pennyjean said...

Claire, thank you for the fresh inspiration to keep going on, knowing that we will get to the other side of that door. I can't wait!

Booker said...

Thankyou Claire. I was just emailing someone recently and andrew came up and it was a good emailing. Still praying for your parents...

KW said...

Claire!

Refreshing to read what you wrote. Reminds me of the
Henry Van Dyke piece that M&D sent me. I will have
to post it on my blog, esp. if you haven't seen it....
Love thinking about heaven as an adjoining room. Maybe
once in a while, we should just shout..."Andrew, why don't you come in the other room for a while, we miss you over here!" Guess that might sound odd to some, but I'm sure you can relate.

Kate said...

Thanks so much Claire- a bit of cool water to a rather thirsty morning. May that door open wide soon.

(I like your new blog title)

TripleNine said...

That meeting truly was the H.S.'s work. It had been postponed twice and Andrew only put that one together the night before. We had actually had an argument earlier about him not being prepared. Glad he wasn't relying on himself.