Today's Reading
TO MARY NEYLAN: On troughs; on believing as
an intellectual assent and as a psychological state; the despair of
overcoming chronic temptations; and on how God likes to be asked. Lewis
discloses that, at the direction of Father Adams, he has shortened an ever-lengthening list of people //for whom he was praying.
* assent ;the expression of approval or agreement.
20 January 1942
Sorry you’re in a trough. I’m just emerging (at least I hope I am) from a long one myself. As for the difficulty of believing () it is a trough, one wants to be careful about the word ‘believing’. We too often mean by it ‘having confidence or assurance as a psychological state’—as we have about the existence of furniture.
* trough : 1. a long, narrow container without a lid that usually holds water or food for farm animals:
2. a low point in a process that has regular high and low points,
But that comes and goes and by no means always accompanies intellectual assent, e.g. in learning to swim you believe, and even know intellectually that water will support you /long before you feel any real confidence in the fact. I suppose () the perfection of faith would make this confidence invariably proportionate to the assent.
In the meantime, as one has learnt to swim only by acting on the assent in the teeth of all instinctive conviction,
so we shall proceed to faith only by acting as if we had it.
* in the teeth of ; If you do something in the teeth of a difficulty or danger,
you do it in spite of the difficulty or danger.
in the teeth of all instinctive conviction (익사 가능성상 물을 두려워 하는) 본능적인 확신에 거슬려서
이런 본능을 무시한 사람은 물에 섣불리 들어 갔다가 익사하나
그런 본능적인 두려움을 거슬려 수영하는 법을 배우면 익사 溺死는 모면할 수 있다
Adapting a passage in the Imitation one can say ‘What would I do now /if I had a full assurance that there was only a temporary trough’, and having got the answer, go and do it.
I a man, therefore lazy: you a woman, therefore probably a fidget. So it may be good advice to you
(though it would be bad to me) not even to try to do in the trough [all () you can do on the peak].
I have recently been advised by Fr. Adams to abbreviate a prayer for other people //which was becoming so long (as my circle widens) as to be irksome. I have done so, but kept the longer one on /two days a week. Result, that having ceased to be the rule and become a kind of extra, it ceases to be irksome and is often a delight. There is danger in making Christianity too much into a ‘Law’. Let yourself off something. Relax.
* keep on ; continue to do (something).
I know all about the despair of overcoming chronic temptations. It is not serious /provided () [self-offended petulance, annoyance at breaking records, impatience et cetera ]doesn’t get the upper hand.
* petulance : the quality of being easily annoyed and complaining in a rude way like a child:
* Provided - on condition that : with the understanding : if.
No amount of falls will really undo us /if we keep on picking ourselves up /each time. We shall of course be very muddy and tattered children /by the time () we reach home. But the bathrooms are all ready, the towels put out, and the clean clothes are in the airing cupboard. The only fatal thing is to lose one’s temper and give it up.
It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present to us: it is the very sign of His presence.
우리가 자신의 더러움을 인식할 수 있는건 깨끗하신 하나님의 임재하심 때문이기에
죄의식을 갖는것 자체는 하나님께서 임제하신다는 증거가 된다
하여 죄를 고백하고 깨끗함을 받을 희망이 있는 것이다
The question about Sarah is why she wants not to have to ask the good one to make her good.
Would it be right (I know so little about children) to point out to her that He likes being asked:
and that if she could be good on her own, taking no notice of Him, that itself wouldn’t be good.
But ten to one the 2 sticks were primarily a game. . .
Ransom is having a grand time on Venus at present.
* Time on Venus. A day on Venus lasts 243 Earth days. A year on Venus lasts 225 Earth days.
금성의 하루는 지구의 243일에 해당하는 시간이라니 그 얼나나 긴긴긴 하루일까?생각하면
자유를 사줄 몸값이 금성에서 긴긴날을 희희낙낙하고 있다는거라 자유획득은 장기전이 되겠다
From The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume II
Compiled in Yours, Jack
The
Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume II: Family Letters 1905-1931.
Copyright © 2004 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with
permission of HarperCollins Publishers. Yours, Jack: Spiritual
Direction from C. S. Lewis. Copyright © 2008 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd.
All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.