Once again, I read about a book and I thought of life.
Mine.
A friend sent me a link yesterday to a post on Touchstone – a journal of Mere Christianity.
The article talked about Charles Williams, who was at the core of the Inklings. He’s lesser known than Tolkein or C.S. Lewis, but his writings sound intriguing.
Each of his seven novels begins with rather ordinary life in England in the 1930s. Then “something crops up,” Howard writes in this post, “…and we are off and running.”
Howard continues: "The characters divide themselves, unbeknownst to themselves, into those who wish to make a grab for the thing in the interest of knowledge, power, or ecstasy, and those who, like Simeon and Anna, or, supremely, the Blessed Virgin in our own story, place themselves obediently and humbly at the disposal of whatever The Mercy (Williams never says ‘God’) might wish to ask of them in the situation."
And I saw my face.
We (just as the characters) divide ourselves into two camps:
• "Those who wish to make a grab for the thing in the interest of knowledge”
[What's going to happen? Can I handle it?] and
• “Those who...place themselves obediently and humbly at the disposal of whatever The Mercy might wish to ask of them in the situation."
I wonder over the situations facing me and I make a grab—mainly in the interest of knowledge. I think I have to know.
I wonder what will happen. How I will face it. When it will happen. How long something will continue, and when it will be over.
Oh, to be the one who places herself “obediently and humbly at the disposal of whatever The Mercy might wish to ask!”
May I be that one today.
I'm linking up with Laura, Michelle, and Jen today.
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