Post by Eunice on Jul 28, 2014 7:18:59 GMT
Do you remember the songs that Arthur sang to us in class today that gave him flashbacks of the past? Well, if you were like me, I did not really know what songs he was talking about! If you were like me, you would have caught what he was actually talking about. He was trying to get us thinking again about what C.S. Lewis wrote in his famous essay, "The Weight of Glory":
In speaking of this desire for our own far off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter. Wordsworth’s expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his own past. But all this is a cheat. If Wordsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering. The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.
This thread is dedicated to the posting of the different things that inspire those deep longings within you. Use this space to share with us your personal - what I'll call - 'transports to longings'. Are there any songs (i.e. favorite Disney songs) that get you nostalgic? Any particular aromas (i.e. smell of freshly baked cookies) that get you unusually excited? Any images (i.e. a sunset) that get you dewy-eyed? What longings do they inspire within you? How does God fulfill those longings and/or use the awakening of those longings to bring you closer to Him?
To be honest, this thread is meant, well, for fun. Please post song links, images, etc. so that we can partake together in the desiring for our "far off country". Enjoy!
In speaking of this desire for our own far off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter. Wordsworth’s expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his own past. But all this is a cheat. If Wordsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering. The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.
This thread is dedicated to the posting of the different things that inspire those deep longings within you. Use this space to share with us your personal - what I'll call - 'transports to longings'. Are there any songs (i.e. favorite Disney songs) that get you nostalgic? Any particular aromas (i.e. smell of freshly baked cookies) that get you unusually excited? Any images (i.e. a sunset) that get you dewy-eyed? What longings do they inspire within you? How does God fulfill those longings and/or use the awakening of those longings to bring you closer to Him?
To be honest, this thread is meant, well, for fun. Please post song links, images, etc. so that we can partake together in the desiring for our "far off country". Enjoy!
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