Noteworthies: Just a Bit of Coloured Paper?

We all need reminders.

"I remember once when I had been giving a talk to the R.A.F., an old, hard-bitten officer got up and said, 'I've no use for all that stuff. But, mind you, I'm a religious man too. I know there's a God. I've felt Him: out alone in the desert at night: the tremendous mystery. And that's just why I don't believe all your neat little dogmas and formulas about Him. To anyone who's met the real thing they all seem so petty and pedantic and unreal!'

Now in a sense I quite agreed with that man. I think he had probably had a real experience with God in the desert. And when he turned from that experience to the Christian creeds, I think he really was turning from something real to something less real. In the same way, if a man has once looked at the Atlantic from the beach, and then goes and looks at a map of the Atlantic, he also will be turning from something real to something less real: turning from real waves to a bit of coloured paper. But here comes the point. The map is admittedly only coloured paper, but there are two things you have to remember about it. In the first place, it is based on what hundreds and thousands of people have found out by sailing the real Atlantic. In that way it has behind it masses of experience just as real and the one you could have from the beach; only, while yours would be a single glimpse, the map fits all those different experiences together. In the second place, if you want to go anywhere, the map is absolutely necessary. As long as you are content with walks on the beach, your own glimpses are far more fun than looking at a map. But the map is going to be more useful than walks on the beach if you want to get to America."

-from Mere Christianity

Noteworthies: The Rule of Love

For those of you looking for a quick, thoughtful read, I will let C.S. Lewis do the talking:

"The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering whether you 'love' your neighbour; act as if you did. As soon as we do this, we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less. There is, indeed, one exception. If you do him a good turn, not to please God and obey the law of charity, but to show him what a fine forgiving chap you are, and to put him in your debt, and then sit down to wait for his 'gratitude', you will probably be disappointed. (People are not fools: they have a very quick eye for anything like showing off, or patronage.) But whenever we do good to another self, just because it is a self, made (like us) by God, and desiring its own happiness as we desire ours, we shall have learned to love it a little more or, at least, to dislike it a little less."

-from Mere Christianity

I got this great book of C.S. Lewis quotes last Christmas and there are so many good tidbits in it! Sometimes good thoughts happen upon us, and what a wonderful feeling it is when they do. But I believe that it takes hearing others' good thoughts to develop better ones for yourself. However, the trick is to not get stuck behind the other people's thoughts: "Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking." -Einstein.

Acquire enough knowledge to understand and then think for yourself. When you hit a wall, there's nothing wrong with looking for inspiration, but once you find it, remember why you went looking.