| Epiphany: (1) a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something (2) : an intuitive grasp of reality through something (as an event) usually simple and striking (3) : an illuminating discovery b : a revealing scene or moment. (Merriam-Webster Dictionary) I have included some of my favorite stories that have "illuminated" certain truths of our world. Many come from my favorite authors C.S. Lewis, J.R. Tolkien and G.K. Chesterton. |
| Friday, April 20, 2007 - Chesterton, G.K. Orthodoxy. NY: Dodd Mead, 1944. Pages 130 |
| Not only is suicide a sin, it is the sin. It is the ultimate and absolute evil, the refusal to take an interest in existence; the refusal to take the oath of loyalty to life. The man who kills a man, kills a man. The man who kills himself, kills all men; as far as he is concerned he wipes out the world. His act is worse (symbolically considered) than any rape or dynamite outrage. For it destroys all buildings: it insults all women. The thief is satisfied with diamonds; but the suicide is not: that is his crime. He cannot be bribed, even by the blazing stones of the Celestial City. The thief compliments the things he steals, if not the owner of them. But the suicide insults everything on earth by not stealing it. He defiles every flower by refusing to live for its sake. There is not a tiny creature in the cosmos at whom his death is not a sneer. When a man hangs himself on a tree, the leaves might fall off in anger and the birds fly away in fury: for each has received a personal affront. |
| Thursday, April 12, 2007 - Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity. New York: MacMillan Publishing, 1992. Pages 79 |
| We may, indeed, be sure that perfect chastity-like perfect charity- will not be attained by any merely human efforts. You must ask for God's help. Even when you have done so, it may seem to you for a long time that no help, or less help than you need, is being given. Never mind. After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again. Very often what God first helps us towards is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again. For however important chastity (or courage, or truthfulness, or any other virtue) may be, this process trains us in habits of the soul which are more important still. It cures our illusions about ourselves and teaches us to depend on God. We learn, on the one hand, that we cannot trust ourselves even in our best moments, and, on the other, that we need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven. The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection. |
| Friday, June 3, 2005 - Lewis, C.S. Perelandra. New York: MacMillan Publishing, 1977. Pages 68-69 |
| "What you have made me see," answered the Lady, "is as plain as the sky, but I never saw it before. Yet it has appeared every day. One goes into the forest to pick food and already the thought of one fruit rather than another has grown up in one's mind. Then, it may be, one finds a different fruit and not the fruit one thought of. One joy was expected and another is given. But this I had never noticed before - that the very moment of the finding there is in the mind a kind of thrusting back, or setting aside. The picture of the fruit you have not found is still, for a moment, before you. And if you wished - if it were possible to wish - you could keep it there. You could send your soul after the good you had expected, instead of turning it to the good you had got. You could refuse the real good; you could make the real fruit taste insipid by thinking of the other." |
| Wednesday, May 18, 2005 - Lewis, C.S. Out of the Silent Planet. New York: MacMillan Publishing, 1977. Pages |
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Oyarsa passed between his subjects and drew near and came to rest, not ten yards away from Ransom in the centre of Meldilorn. Ransom felt a tingling of his blood and a pricking on his fingers as if lightning were near him; and his heart and body seemed to him to be made of water.
Oyarsa spoke - a more unhuman voice than Ransom had yet heard, sweet and seemingly remote; an unshaken voice; a voice, as one of the hrossa afterwards said to Ransom, 'with no blood in it. Light is instead of blood for them.' The words were not alarming. 'What are you so afraid of, Ransom of Thulcandra?' it said. 'Of you, Oyarsa, because you are unlike me and I cannot see you.' 'Those are not great reasons,' said the voice. 'You are also unlike me, and, though I see you, I see you very faintly. But do not think we are utterly unlike. We are both copies of Maleldil. These are not the real reasons.' Ransom said nothing. 'You began to be afraid of me before you set foot in my world. And you have spent all your time then in flying from me. My servants saw your fear when you were in your ship in heaven. They saw that your own kind treated you ill, though they could not understand their speech. Then to deliver you out of the hands of those two I stirred up a hnakra to try if you would come to me of your own will. But you hid among the hrossa, and though they told you to come to me, you would not. After that I sent my eldil to fetch you, but still you would not come. And in the end your own kind have chased you to me, and hnau's blood has been shed. 'I do not understand, Oyarsa. Do you mean that it was you who sent for me from Thulcandra?' 'Yes. Did not the other two tell you this? And why did you come with them unless you meant to obey my call? My servants could not understand their talk to you when your ship was in heaven.' 'Your servants... I cannot understand,' said Ransom. 'Ask freely,' said the voice. 'Have you servants out in the heavens?' 'Where else? There is nowhere else.' 'But you, Oyarsa, are here on Malacandra, as I am.' 'But Malacandra, like all worlds, floats in heaven. And I am not "here" altogether as you are, Ransom of Thulcandra. Creatures of your kind must drop out of heaven into a world; for us the worlds are places in heaven. But do not try to understand this now. It is enough to know that I and my servants are even now in heaven; they were around you in the sky-ship no less than they are around you here.' |
| Friday, April 22, 2005 - Lewis, C.S. The Magician's Nephew. New York: HaperCollins, 2001. Pages 91-95 |
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Fledge came lower and lower in wide circles. The icy peaks rose up higher and higher above. The air came up warmer and sweeter every moment, so sweet that it almost brought the tears to your eyes. Fledge was now gliding with his wings spread out motionless on each side, and his hoofs pawing for the ground. The steep green hill was rushing towards them. A moment later he alighted on its slope, a little awkwardly. The children rolled off, fell without hurting themselves on the warm, fine grass, and stood up, panting a little.
They were three-quarters of the way up the hill, and set out at once to climb to the top. (I don't think Fledge could have managed this without his wings to balance him and to give him the help of a flutter now and then.) All round the very top of the hill ran a high wall of green turf. Inside the wall, trees were growing. Their branches hung out over the wall; the leaves showed not only green but also blue and silver when the wind stirred them. When the travelers reached the top they walked nearly all the way round it outside the green wall before they found the gates: high gates of gold, fast shut, facing due east. Up till now I think Fledge and Polly had had the idea that they would go in with Digory. But they thought so no longer. You never saw a place which was so obviously private. You could see at a glance that it belonged to someone else. Only a fool would dream of going in unless he had been sent there on very special business. Digory himself understood at once that the others wouldn't and couldn't come in with him. He went forward to the gates alone. When he had come close up to them he saw words written on the gold with silver letters; something like this: Take of my fruit for others or forbear, For those who steal or those who climb my wall Shall find their heart's desire and final despair. "Take of my fruit for others," said Digory to himself. "Well, that's what I'm going to do. It means I mustn't eat any myself, I suppose. I don't know what all that jaw in the last line is about. Come in by the gold gates. Well, who'd want to climb a wall if he could get in by a gate! But how do the gates open?" He laid his hand on them and instantly they swung apart, opening inwards, turning on their hinges without the least noise. Now that he could see into the place it looked more private than ever. He went in very solemnly, looking about him. Everything was very quiet inside. Even the fountain which rose near the middle of the garden made only the faintest sound. The lovely smell was all round him: it was a happy place but very serious. He knew which was the right tree at once, partly because it stood in the very centre and partly because the great silver apples with which it was loaded shone so and cast a light of their own down on the shadowy places where the sunlight did not reach. He walked straight across to it, picked as apple, and put it in the breast pocket of his Norfolk jacket. But he couldn't help looking at it and smelling it before he put it away. It would have been better if he had not. A terrible thirst and hunger came over him and a longing to taste that fruit. He put it hastily into his pocket; but there were plenty of others. Could it be wrong to taste one? After all, he thought, the notice on the gate might not have been exactly an order; it might have been only a piece of advice and who cares about advice? Or even if it were an order, would he be disobeying it by eat an apple? He had already obeyed the part about taking one "for others". While he was thinking of all this he happened to look up through the branches towards the top off the tree. There, on a branch above his head, a wonderful bird was roosting. I say "roosting" because it seemed almost asleep; perhaps not quite. The tiniest slit of one eye was open. It was larger than an eagle, its breast saffron, head crested with scarlet, and its tail purple. "And it just shows," said Digory afterwards when he was telling the story to others, "that you can't be too careful in these magical places. You never know what may be watching you." But I think Digory would not have taken an apple for himself in any case. Things like Do Not Steal were, I think, hammered into boys' heads a good deal harder in those days than they are now. Still, we can never be certain. Digory was just turning to go back to the gates when he stopped to have on last look around. He got a terrible shock. He was not alone. There, only a few yards away from him, stood the Witch. She was just throwing away the core of an apple which she had eaten. The juice was darker than you would expect and had made a horrid stain round her mouth. Digory guessed at once that she must have climbed in over the wall. And he began to se that there might be some sense in that last line about getting your heart's desire and getting despair along with it. For the Witch looked stronger and prouder than ever, and even, in a way, triumphant; but her face was deadly white, white as salt. All this flashed through Digory's mind in a second; then he took to his heels and ran for the gates as hard as he could pelt; the Witch after him. As soon as he was out, the gates closed behind him of their own accord. That gave him the lead but not for long. By the time he had reached the others and was shouting out "Quick, get on, Polly! Get up, Fledge", the Witch had climbed the wall, or vaulted over it, and was close behind him again. "Stay where you are," cried Digory, turning round to face her, "or we'll all vanish. Don't come an inch nearer." "Foolish boy," said the Witch. "Why do you run from me? I mean you no harm. If you do not stop and listen to me now, you will miss some knowledge that would have made you happy all your life." "Well, I don't want to hear it, thanks," said Digory. But he did. "I know what errand you have come on," continued the Witch. "For it was I who was close beside you in the woods last night and heard all your counsels. You have plucked fruit in the garden yonder. You have it in your pocket now. And you are going to carry it back, untasted, to the Lion; for him to eat, for him to use. You simpleton! Do you know what that fruit is? I will tell you. It is the apple of youth, the apple of life. I know, for I have tasted it; and I feel already such changes in myself that I know I shall never grow old or die. Eat it, Boy, eat it; and you and I will both liver for ever and be king and queen of this whole world - or of your world, if we decide to go back there." "No thanks," said Digory, "I don't know that I care much about living on and on after everyone I know is dead. I'd rather live an ordinary time and die and go to Heaven." "But what about this Mother of yours whom you pretend to love so?" "What's she got to do with it?" said Digory. "Do you not see, Fool, that one bit of that apple would heal her? You have it in your pocket. We are here by ourselves and the Lion is far away. Use your Magic and go back to your own world. A minute later you can be at your Mother's bedside, giving her the fruit. Five minutes later you will see the color coming back to her face. She will tell you the pain is gone. Soon she will tell you she feels stronger. Then she will fall asleep - think of that; hours of sweet natural sleep, without pain, without drugs. Next day everyone will be saying how wonderfully she has recovered. Soon she will be quite well again. All will be well again. Your home will be happy again. You will be like other boys." "Oh!" gasped Digory as if he had been hurt, and put his hand to his head. For he now knew that the most terrible choice lay before him. "What has the Lion ever done for you that you should be his slave?" said the Witch. "What can he do to you once you are back in your own world? And what would your mother think if she knew that you could have taken her pain away and given her back her life and saved your Father's heart from being broken, and that you wouldn't - that you'd rather run messages for a wild animal in a strange world that is not business of yours?" "I - I don't think he is a wild animal," said Digory in a dried-up sort of voice. "He is - I don't know -" "Then he is something worse," said the Witch. "Look what he has done to you already; look how heartless he has made you. That is what he does to everyone who listens to him. Cruel, pitiless boy! You would let your own Mother die rather than -" "Oh, shut up," said the miserable Digory, still in the same voice. "Do you think I don't see? But I - I promised." "Ah, but you didn't know what you were promising. And no one here can prevent you." "Mother herself," said Digory, getting the words out with difficulty, "wouldn't like it - awfully strict about keeping promises - and not stealing - and all that sort of thing. She'd tell me not to do it - quick as anything - if she was here." "But she need never know," said the Witch, speaking more sweetly than you would have thought anyone with so fierce a face could speak. "You wouldn't tell her how you'd got the apple. Your Father need never know. No one in your world need know anything about this whole story. You needn't take the little girl back with you, you know." That was where the Witch made her fatal mistake. Of course Digory knew that Polly could get away be her own ring as easily as he could get away by his. But apparently the Witch didn't know this. And the meanness of the suggestion that he should leave Polly behind suddenly made all the other things the Witch had been saying to him sound false and hollow. And even in the midst of all his misery, his head suddenly cleared, and he said (in a different and much louder voice): "Look here; where do you come into all this? Why are you so precious fond of my Mother all of a sudden? What's it got do with you? What's your game?" "Good for you, Digs," whispered Polly in his ear. "Quick! Get away now." She hadn't dared to say anything all through the argument because, you see, it wasn't her Mother who was dying. "Up then," said Digory, heaving her on to Fledge's back and then scrambling up as quickly as he could. The horse spread its wings. "Go then, Fools," called the Witch. "Think of me, Boy, when you lie old and weak and dying, and remember how you threw away the chance of endless youth! It won't be offered you again." They were already so high that they could only just hear her. Nor did the Witch waste any time gazing up at them; they saw her set off northward down the slope of the hill. |