Monday, January 29, 2007

As the Ruin Falls

Ran across this CSL poem today, and it echoes thoughts I had in church yesterday; thoughts and wonderings about life and the whys and particularly the wherefores.

As the Ruin Falls
All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.
Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:
I talk of love --a scholar's parrot may talk Greek--
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.
Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack.
I see the chasm. And everything you are was making
My heart into a bridge by which I might get back
From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.
For this I bless you as the ruin falls.
The pains You give me are more precious than all other gains.
- C.S. Lewis

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