[The most valuable thing () the Psalms do for me] is to express that same
delight in God //which made David dance.
I am not saying that this is so
pure or profound a thing /as the love of God /reached by the greatest
Christian saints and mystics.
But I am not comparing it with that, I am
comparing it with the merely dutiful ‘church-going’ and laborious
‘saying our prayers’ //to which most of us are, thank God not always, but
often, reduced.
Against that it stands out as something astonishingly
robust, virile, and spontaneous;
something () we may regard /with an
innocent envy and may hope to be infected by /as we read.
* regard with 1. To think of, consider, or look upon someone or something
with a particular kind of mindset
or attitude.
From Reflections on the Psalms
Reflections on the Psalms.
Copyright © 1958 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Copyright renewed © 1968 by
Arthur Owen Barfield. All rights reserved. Used with permission of
HarperCollins Publishers.