Note: This should actually have been Saturday's entry.
"At the basis of Jesus Christ's Kingdom is the unaffected loveliness of the commonplace" -- Oswald.
I love that. Now if I can just figure out what it means.
The older brother was involved in the commonplace -- the daily work of managing the land -- but he was always conscious of his duty. He carried his duty, his faithfulness, about like a cross, and when his father came to him, he held it up as though his father now owed him a debt, rather than vice versa.
"I cannot enter His kingdom as a good man or woman, I can only enter it as a complete pauper" -- Oswald. My righteous acts are as filthy rags, and yet I persist in draping them about myself like Miss Havisham in her decaying wedding dress. A few days ago, Oswald wrote about being morally naked. That is what I want to be, but I'm not sure how to shed the dress.
My attempts seem like Eustace's half-hearted attempts to tear away the dragon hide in which he was encased. My attempts seem more like summoning-up-the-gumption decisions rather than yielding. Eustace had to yield to Aslan's claws.
I ask myself: Am I prepared to let his claws have at the old dress?
A rather bad paraphrase of a CS Lewis quote that I just read--When your ability to do something out of love is broken--the crutch that you use is called duty.
ReplyDelete