Lewis on the Vulnerability of Love

Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even 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. To love is to be vulnerable. C.S.Lewis

Lewis on love

I'm getting ready for a wedding on Saturday and came across this in my wedding file:

Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even 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. To love is to be vulnerable.
~C.S. Lewis

Hungering for God

Late have I loved you, beauty so ancient and so fresh. Late have I loved you. Behold, you were within and I was outside, and I was seeking you there. I, deformed, was pursuing you in the beautifully formed things that you made. You were with me, but I was not with you. Those things held me far away from you, things that would not exist if they were not in you. You called and clamored and shattered my deafness; you flashed and gleamed and banished my blindness; you were fragrant and I drew in breath and now pant for you. I tasted and now I hunger and thirst for you; you touched me and I have been set ablaze with longing for your peace. (St. Augustine, Confessions [10:38], translated by Scott MacDonald)
Quoted in "Cousin Thomas" Christian Century, March 22, 2005 by Suzanne Guthrie. Read her very interesting piece here.

Maundy Thursday/Good Friday

Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
John 13:1b

My Song is Love Unknown

My song is love unknown,
My Savior’s love to me;
Love to the loveless shown,
That they might lovely be.
O who am I, that for my sake
My Lord should take, frail flesh and die?

He came from His blest throne
Salvation to bestow;
But men made strange, and none
The longed for Christ would know:
But O! my Friend, my Friend indeed,
Who at my need His life did spend.

Sometimes they strew His way,
And His sweet praises sing;
Resounding all the day
Hosannas to their King:
Then “Crucify!” is all their breath,
And for His death they thirst and cry.

Why, what hath my Lord done?
What makes this rage and spite?
He made the lame to run,
He gave the blind their sight,
Sweet injuries! Yet they at these
Themselves displease, and ’gainst Him rise.

They rise and needs will have
My dear Lord made away;
A murderer they saved,
The Prince of life they slay,
Yet cheerful He to suffering goes,
That He His foes from thence might free.

In life, no house, no home
My Lord on earth might have;
In death no friendly tomb
But what a stranger gave.
What may I say? Heav’n was His home;
But mine the tomb wherein He lay.

Here might I stay and sing,
No story so divine;
Never was love, dear King!
Never was grief like Thine.
This is my Friend, in Whose sweet praise
I all my days could gladly spend.

Samuel Crossman

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More on movies

Well, World Trade Center was.....I don't know what the right word would be. I remember that day and the days after that. I remember finding out that I knew people here in Lethbridge who had lost family there. A close friend of mine was booked on one of the planes but changed his flight at the last minute because a meeting on the coast was canceled. We held a service at the university and a lot of people came. Another friend went down with the Red Cross and worked with the recovery teams.

Some of that all came back watching the film but in some ways it was a very different glimpse of what it was like to be that close up and not know what was going on. The Port Authority policemen who are at the heart of the movie don't know the second tower has been hit. They haven't seen the planes. They are trying to respond to the emergency but are operating figuratively in the dark. But what struck me was how light it all seemed at first, before the towers collapsed.

In some ways the film reminded me a lot of We Were Soldiers Once with Mel Gibson. That film covers the events of the first major battle of the American involvement in Vietnam on the same battle ground where the French had been defeated before them. The focus of both movies is on the courage of the men and on the agony of the women left behind. Neither are particularly political films in the sense of commenting on the nature of the conflicts. This surprised me with WTC since it is directed by Oliver Stone and he always seems to have something to say that is controversial. Instead the whole point of the movie was to remember the courage of people who ran into buildings when everyone else was running out.

To return to my post on romantic comedies I need to add a couple more films. In response to a comment posted by Aaron I need to add Notting Hill. I like About a Boy but Notting Hill is one of my favourites. Very late last night another one of my favourites was on - Return to Me. It was too late to watch it but I was reminded to add it. Like Notting Hill it has some wonderful scenes of friendship and it has a great soundtrack. And in that vein I would add Keeping the Faith, Edward Norton's gem about the friendship and romance between a priest, a rabbi and a corporate workaholic. There is also that wonderful little Canadian film, My Big Fat Greek Wedding. How could it not be a gem? the writer was from Winnipeg.

Now I'm putting my mind to making a list of movies about friendship that I like. 84 Charing Cross Road would be at the top. If you have any suggestions.....

Who knows about love

I was just reading a really good post over at Tale Spin on the movie Love Actually. I love that movie. When I reviewed it for The Sower I wrote:

What made Love Actually stand out from other light romantic comedies is that it showed love to be a many splendoured thing. It is innocent and tender. It also involves sacrifice and loss. It can be betrayed and the consequences are serious. It prompts in us moments of self-awareness. It necessitates that we expose ourselves to risk. It is unfortunate that this film isn’t appropriate for teenagers as it says a lot more of substance about love than do most teen flicks.

I'd add a couple other movies to my list of romantic comedies:

• Hitch, the Will Smith comedy about a love advisor who finds it more difficult to manage his own personal life.
• Moonstruck, the wonderful love story between a closed off widow played by Cher and the tormented younger brother of her fiancee.
• Crossing Delancey, the story of a modern woman whose grandmother hires a matchmaker to find her a man.
  
• Something's Gotta Give, the story of love for the over 50 set. Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton are both great.
• Sabrina, the story of love between a stuffy businessman and his chauffeur's daughter. It is wonderful in either the Humphrey Bogart or Harrison Ford version.
• Anything with Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn.

Next week to celebrate reading week I'm getting together with some of my kids to watch vintage horror movies, an altogether different genre. One of them has Jack Nicholson too though. I'll let you know how it goes.