C.S. Lewis was a famous fiction writer and atheist turned Christian theologian.
Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963), commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as Jack, was an Irish-born British[1] novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist. He is also known for his fiction, especially The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia and The Space Trilogy.
Lewis was a close friend of J. R. R. Tolkien, and both authors were leading figures in the English faculty at Oxford University and in the informal Oxford literary group known as the "Inklings" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._S._Lewis).
Some of my favorite quotes of his are:
"I know all about despair of overcoming chronic temptations. It is not serious, provided self-offended petulance, annoyance at breaking records, impatience, etc, don't get the upper hand. No
amount of falls will really undo us if we keep on picking ourselves each time. We shall of course be very muddy and tattered children by the time we reach home, but the bathrooms will be ready, the towels put out, and the clean clothes in the cupboard. The only fatal thing is to lose one's temper and give it up. It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present in us; it is the very sign of his presence. (Readings for the Year)
"In words which can still bring tears to the eyes, St. Augustine describes the desolation in which the death of his friend Nebridius plunged him (Confessions, IV, 10). The he draws a moral. That is what comes, he says , of giving one's heart to anything but God. All human beings pass away. Do not let your happiness depend on something you may lose. If love is to be a blessing, not a misery, it must be for the only Beloved who will never pass away." (The Four Loves)
"Do not waste time bothering whether you 'love' your neighbor, act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find on of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more....But whenever we do good to another self, just because it is a self, made (like us) by God, and desiring its own happiness as we desire ours, we shall have learned to love it a little more or, at least, dislike it less... (Mere Christianity)
"Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive....For a long time I used to think this a silly, straw splitting distinction; how could you hate what a man did and not hate the man? But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I have been doing this all my life - namely myself. However much I might disliked my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself. There had never been the slightest difficult about it. In fact the very reason why I hated the things was that I loved the man. Just because I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things." (Mere Christinity)
"Let the pictures tell you their own moral," he once advised writers of children's stories. "But if they don't show you any moral, don't put one in."
and lastly:
He Himself Wept Not
Then the cold hours began their march again, not worse,
Not better, never ending. And the night he came,
Out of the doorway's curtained darkness to the flace
Of candlelight and firelight. And the curtains fell
Behind him and they stood alone, with all to tell,
Not like the Launcelot tangled in the boughs of May
Long since, nor like the Guinever he kissed that day,
But he was pale, with pity in his face writ wide,
And she a haggard woman, holding to her side
A pale hand pressed, asking "What is it?" Slowly then
He came to her and took her by the hand, as men
Take tenderly a daughter's or a mother's hand
To whom they bring bad news she will not understand.
So Launcelot let the Queen and made her sit: and all
This time he saw her shoulders move and her tears fall
And he himself wept not, but sighed. Then, like a man
Who ponders, in the fire he gazed, and so began
Presently looking away in the fire, the tale
Of his adventures seeking the Holy Grail.
(Launcelot)
Perhaps, it may be that ONLY I enjoy his writings,
Susan
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