M
https://www.desiringgod.org/article...CkI9T6k7iEPi78-rwFRIrxJhzadpAreCCCrOmZrVNI6k4
On October 22, 1976, Clyde Kilby, who is now with Christ in heaven,
gave an unforgettable lecture. I went to hear him that night because
I loved him. He had been one of my professors in English Literature
at Wheaton College. He opened my eyes to more of life than I knew
could be seen. Oh, what eyes he had!
He was like his hero, C.S. Lewis, in this regard. When he spoke of the tree
he saw on the way to class this morning, you wondered why you had
been so blind all your life. Since those days in classes with
Clyde Kilby, Psalm 19:1 has been central to my life: “The heavens declare the glory of God.”
That night Dr. Kilby, who had a pastoral heart and a poet’s eye, pled
with us to stop seeking mental health in the mirror of self-analysis,
but instead to drink in the remedies of God in nature. He was not naïve.
He knew of sin. He knew of the necessity of redemption in Christ.
But he would have said that Christ purchased new eyes for us as well
as new hearts. His plea was that we stop being unamazed by the strange
glory of ordinary things. He ended that lecture in 1976 with a list of
resolutions. As a tribute to my teacher and a blessing to your soul, I offer
them for your joy.
1. At least once every day I shall look steadily up at the sky and remember
that I, a consciousness with a conscience, am on a planet traveling in
space with wonderfully mysterious things above and about me.
2. Instead of the accustomed idea of a mindless and endless evolutionary
change to which we can neither add nor subtract, I shall suppose the
universe guided by an Intelligence which, as Aristotle said of Greek drama,
requires a beginning, a middle, and an end. I think this will save me from
the cynicism expressed by Bertrand Russell before his death when he
said: “There is darkness without, and when I die there will be darkness within.
There is no splendor, no vastness anywhere, only triviality for a moment,
and then nothing.”
3. I shall not fall into the falsehood that this day, or any day, is merely another
ambiguous and plodding twenty-four hours, but rather a unique event, filled,
if I so wish, with worthy potentialities. I shall not be fool enough to suppose
that trouble and pain are wholly evil parentheses in my existence, but just as
likely ladders to be climbed toward moral and spiritual manhood.
4. I shall not turn my life into a thin, straight line which prefers abstractions
to reality. I shall know what I am doing when I abstract, which of course I
shall often have to do.
5. I shall not demean my own uniqueness by envy of others. I shall stop
boring into myself to discover what psychological or social categories I
might belong to. Mostly I shall simply forget about myself and do my work.
6. I shall open my eyes and ears. Once every day I shall simply stare at a
tree, a flower, a cloud, or a person. I shall not then be concerned at all
to ask what they are but simply be glad that they are. I shall joyfully allow
them the mystery of what Lewis calls their “divine, magical, terrifying
and ecstatic” existence.
7. I shall sometimes look back at the freshness of vision I had in childhood
and try, at least for a little while, to be, in the words of Lewis Carroll, the “child
of the pure unclouded brow, and dreaming eyes of wonder.”
8. I shall follow Darwin’s advice and turn frequently to imaginative things
such as good literature and good music, preferably, as Lewis suggests,
an old book and timeless music.
9. I shall not allow the devilish onrush of this century to usurp all my energies
but will instead, as Charles Williams suggested, “fulfill the moment as
the moment.” I shall try to live well just now because the only time that exists is now.
10. Even if I turn out to be wrong, I shall bet my life on the assumption that
this world is not idiotic, neither run by an absentee landlord, but that
today, this very day, some stroke is being added to the cosmic canvas that
in due course I shall understand with joy as a stroke made by the architect
who calls himself Alpha and Omega.
On October 22, 1976, Clyde Kilby, who is now with Christ in heaven,
gave an unforgettable lecture. I went to hear him that night because
I loved him. He had been one of my professors in English Literature
at Wheaton College. He opened my eyes to more of life than I knew
could be seen. Oh, what eyes he had!
He was like his hero, C.S. Lewis, in this regard. When he spoke of the tree
he saw on the way to class this morning, you wondered why you had
been so blind all your life. Since those days in classes with
Clyde Kilby, Psalm 19:1 has been central to my life: “The heavens declare the glory of God.”
That night Dr. Kilby, who had a pastoral heart and a poet’s eye, pled
with us to stop seeking mental health in the mirror of self-analysis,
but instead to drink in the remedies of God in nature. He was not naïve.
He knew of sin. He knew of the necessity of redemption in Christ.
But he would have said that Christ purchased new eyes for us as well
as new hearts. His plea was that we stop being unamazed by the strange
glory of ordinary things. He ended that lecture in 1976 with a list of
resolutions. As a tribute to my teacher and a blessing to your soul, I offer
them for your joy.
1. At least once every day I shall look steadily up at the sky and remember
that I, a consciousness with a conscience, am on a planet traveling in
space with wonderfully mysterious things above and about me.
2. Instead of the accustomed idea of a mindless and endless evolutionary
change to which we can neither add nor subtract, I shall suppose the
universe guided by an Intelligence which, as Aristotle said of Greek drama,
requires a beginning, a middle, and an end. I think this will save me from
the cynicism expressed by Bertrand Russell before his death when he
said: “There is darkness without, and when I die there will be darkness within.
There is no splendor, no vastness anywhere, only triviality for a moment,
and then nothing.”
3. I shall not fall into the falsehood that this day, or any day, is merely another
ambiguous and plodding twenty-four hours, but rather a unique event, filled,
if I so wish, with worthy potentialities. I shall not be fool enough to suppose
that trouble and pain are wholly evil parentheses in my existence, but just as
likely ladders to be climbed toward moral and spiritual manhood.
4. I shall not turn my life into a thin, straight line which prefers abstractions
to reality. I shall know what I am doing when I abstract, which of course I
shall often have to do.
5. I shall not demean my own uniqueness by envy of others. I shall stop
boring into myself to discover what psychological or social categories I
might belong to. Mostly I shall simply forget about myself and do my work.
6. I shall open my eyes and ears. Once every day I shall simply stare at a
tree, a flower, a cloud, or a person. I shall not then be concerned at all
to ask what they are but simply be glad that they are. I shall joyfully allow
them the mystery of what Lewis calls their “divine, magical, terrifying
and ecstatic” existence.
7. I shall sometimes look back at the freshness of vision I had in childhood
and try, at least for a little while, to be, in the words of Lewis Carroll, the “child
of the pure unclouded brow, and dreaming eyes of wonder.”
8. I shall follow Darwin’s advice and turn frequently to imaginative things
such as good literature and good music, preferably, as Lewis suggests,
an old book and timeless music.
9. I shall not allow the devilish onrush of this century to usurp all my energies
but will instead, as Charles Williams suggested, “fulfill the moment as
the moment.” I shall try to live well just now because the only time that exists is now.
10. Even if I turn out to be wrong, I shall bet my life on the assumption that
this world is not idiotic, neither run by an absentee landlord, but that
today, this very day, some stroke is being added to the cosmic canvas that
in due course I shall understand with joy as a stroke made by the architect
who calls himself Alpha and Omega.
-
2
-
1
-
1
- Show all
