“The moment you have a self at all there is the possibility of putting yourself first – wanting to be the center – wanting to be God.” C. S. Lewis Mere Christianity
Hmm. Lewis is, true to form, understating the issue. I think I would replace “possibility” with (at least at times) “certainty” or, on my better days, “likelihood.” In any event, the quote from today’s Lewis reading stuck out to me because it coincided with a reading last night from Paul Woodruff’s book – Reverence. In it, Woodruff writes:
“Reverence begins with a deep understanding of human limitations; from this grows the capacity to be in awe of whatever we believe lies outside our control – God, truth, justice, nature, even death. The capacity for awe, as it grows, brings with it the capacity for respecting fellow human beings, flaws and all…. Simply put, reverence is the virtue that keeps human beings from trying to act like gods.”
Lewis and Woodruff are on to something (duh!) It occurs to me that what troubles us now, self included, is that we are putting ourselves at the center, wanting to be God. We lack reverence. Not only do we lack “awe of whatever we believe lies outside our control,” we simply deny anything lies out of our control.
Granted, it was a different time in 1965 when the song came out, but It occurs to me that Burt Bacharach was close, so close.
“What the world needs now, is [reverence] sweet [reverence]. It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.”
Of course, “reverence” has too many syllables, and it may not be “the only thing that there’s just too little of,” but it is one of them.
It occurs to me... 