C.S. Lewis

While in university, my sister, as a birthday gift, bought me almost a dozen C.S. Lewis books. I completely ate them up. His insight surfaces again and again in my life in different situations. Here are some of them:

"The point about reading C.S. Lewis is that he makes you sure, whatever you believe, that religion accepted or rejected means something extremely serious, demanding the entire energy of mind." Harper's

My all-time favourite quote on RELATIONSHIPS:

We know that such things sometimes last- and sometimes don't. And when they do last, this is not because they promised at the outset to do so. When two people achieve lasting happiness, this is not solely because they are great lovers but because they are also--I must put it crudely--good people; controlled, loyal, fairminded, mutually adaptable people.
God In The Dock: "We Have No Right to Happiness"


I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.


There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless- it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.
The Four Loves: "Charity"


The question whether miracles occur can never be answered simply by experience. Every event which might claim to be a miracle is, in the last resort, something presented to our senses, something seen, heard, touched, smelled, or tasted. And our senses are not infallible. If anything extraordinary seems to have happened, we can always say that we have been the victims of an illusion. If we hold a philosophy which excludes the supernatural, this is what we always shall say. Miracles: "Preface"

If you live for the next world, you get this one in the deal; but if you live only for this world, you lose them both.


We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.


The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation. Surprised By Joy


A believed idea feels different from an idea that is not believed.
Screwtape Proposes A Toast: "Is Theology Poetry?"


Whatever else faith may mean I feel quite sure that it does not mean any state of psychological certitude such as might be- I think it sometimes is- manufactured from within by the natural action of a strong will upon an obedient imagination. The faith that moves mountains is a gift from Him who created mountains.
Christian Reflections:"Petitionary Prayer: A problem Without An Answer"


A man's physical hunger does not prove that that man will get any bread; he may die of starvation on a raft in the Atlantic. But surely a man's hunger does prove that he comes of a race which repairs its body by eating and inhabits a world where eatable substances exist. In the same way, though I do not believe (I wish I did) that my desire for Paradise proves that I shall enjoy it, I think it a pretty good indication that such a thing exists and that some men will. A man may love a woman and not win her; but it would be very odd if the phenomenon called 'falling in love' occurred in a sexless world. Here, then, is the desire, still wandering and uncertain of its object and still largely unable to see that object in the direction where it really lies. Screwtape Proposes A Toast: "The Weight of Glory"


If Christianity is untrue, then no honest man will want to believe it, however helpful it might be: if it is true, every honest man will want to believe it, even if it gives him no help at all.
God in the Dock: "Man or Rabbit?"

My Plight

A few weeks ago I received a couple of my short stories in the mail from my mentor. Seeing all the pencil marks all over the pages with words like "cut," "no," and exclamation marks, my enthusiasm was a bit deflated (among his feedback, “avoid passive voice!”).

I couldn’t bring myself to look at the stories. I was afraid if I started reading them, I would grow even more discouraged. What if I find out my writing is awful? So I put the stories away—out of sight, out of mind.

I knew I had lost the momentum for my stories. I felt detached from my characters and experienced great difficulty attempting to write from their points of view again. Yet—I had the obligation to bring the story out and the characters’ voices—to finish the story. That’s why I’m in this creative writing program after all—without external, artificial deadlines, I can’t seem to get anything done.

With the impending deadline, and my guilt—I took the stories out last night and began to make corrections, all the while hoping that my writing isn’t as bad as it appears to be.

I know I have to trust my mentor. Some of my stories were initially twenty-five pages long—and now they’re down to ten pages (imagine long lines crossing through entire pages—what that does to the ego when you’ve spent days, even weeks writing those pages). I hear in almost every writing workshop some variation of the phrase, “Murder your darlings,” so I’m trusting that. Having read a handful of writing memoirs, I understand that this is the writing process, the editing process.

I have to say—during some sections, after cutting the lines/pages that I was instructed to cut, the ideas did come out clearer. It was somewhat consoling, at least consoling enough to propel me forward.

But I know there’s a balance too. Taking the advice of the mentor, but not growing too dependent on him that I wind up losing sight of my own characters. I have to remind myself of where I was when I was writing them—or where I want them to be going.

“You think aloud in your writing,” my mentor had said last winter when we had met up at a coffee shop downtown to discuss my writing. He told me that it’s good to think about the characters’ background and such—except, it isn’t necessary to write all of it down.

I’m instructed perpetually to condense, condense, condense. Don’t take a page to say what you want to say: convey it in a few sentences, convey it by showing an emotion, convey it with an image.

I remember, when we had sat down at the coffee shop, the waitress asked the both of us what we wanted. “A tea, please.” I say. My mentor looks at me and says something like, “You know, to really throw me off, you should have ordered a shot of bourbon or something.” I laughed.

I have to pray before I write. That I, myself, might be thrown off, be surprised at what is possible when I sink myself into something I know I love, even if at this moment I have my doubts.

God, have mercy on this struggling writer…