Midterm Time

This week was our midterm examination in my C.S. Lewis class.  It was  nice to review some of the books that I read at the beginning of the semester and link them all to each other, and so for that I was grateful for the opportunity, though testing always freaks me out.  The test consisted of free response answers to a few different prompt options, but there was one question that we all had to respond to.  I thought it would be the question at the bottom of the extensive study guide:

"the single insight of Lewis that has had the greatest impact on you; how Lewis' presentation was effective in reaching you; the results (present and potential) of this insight."

But it wasn't.  Still, I think it would be beneficial for me to write here what that response was for me:

It is hard to pick just one teaching of Lewis that has impacted me the most, but I would have to say a lucky bet would be that it would come out of Mere Christianity.  It actually leaked into a few other works as well.  What struck me the most from Lewis this semester was that those times when I don't feel like I quite fit in this world are feelings that are not only normal, but natural, because we are not meant for this world.  Lewis says that we are never given desires that were never meant to satisfy, and if they are not satisfied in this life, then they are in the next.  God would not instill in us that kind of momentum for no reason.

A main quote that supports this idea is found in Mere Christianity in the section called "Hope."  Lewis says that "most people...know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be hand in this world.  There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise...some subjects that excite us, are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning, can really satisfy" (135).  Many people, and myself included, have spent their lives doing some of the things he suggests, "trotting from woman to woman, continent to continent, from hobby to hobby, always thinking that the latest is 'the Real Thing' at last," but find it did not quite quench that fire, leaving us "always disappointed" (136).

How many times have I looked at world travel and relationships as the answer to this inner longing I feel, finding that I am disappointed?  I have lost count.  I have always likened my life to the poem "The Name" by Don Marquis.  He describes this feeling well- "my heart has followed all of my days something I cannot name." I have always felt this inner void, this craving for something more, something bigger than me and life and words, wondering if there was just something wrong with me.

Lewis goes on to say that if we find in ourselves"a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probably explanation" is that we were "made for another world" (136-137).  This is the best answer I have ever had on the subject.  I feel like "following something that has no name" has been a lifelong question for me, and even a sense of frustration, but here Lewis has offered me an answer.

(Photo credit goes to Gurumustuk Singh)