The Weight of Glory (original: 1980; edição: 2001)

I really enjoyed some of the messages in this collection. I won't say they all grabbed my attention; some of them were dry, too many words spent on a simple thing. Others were works of art that made their point well.

My favourites were these:

* The Weight of Glory - the best, both for its wording and its content. Explains that the aching dissatisfaction we have with the best things in this life reveals a something that can satisfy, but is only available in the next life. The point being 1. don't waste your life trying to content yourself with empty things, but long for and strive for the coming approval of God (which he identifies as the thing), and 2. remember that those around you are immortal beings headed for an awesome eternal glory or a horrific eternal shame/destruction. Let that be a gravity to your life.

* Transposition - the concept of things being "transposed" (I would use the word "projected") from a greater realm to a lesser. Just like a sunrise on a mountaintop can be captured by painting a flat canvas, and a full symphonic score can be arranged for a piano, so the glories of God, Christ, and Heaven are transposed into, projected onto, reduced down into our realm into things we can understand. When the Bible describes these things (sometimes in ways that seem mundane or even weird) we mustn't forget that the realities they represent are far greater than we can understand.

* On Forgiveness - a reminder to not confuse asking God to forgive our sins with asking him for excuse our sins. When we have sinned, there may have been extenuating circumstances -- God knows -- but we are still at fault. When we ask God to forgive us we must own our sin, acknowledge it, and then ask for him to cover it with Christ's blood. Not try to say "It wasn't my fault."

* A Slip of the Tongue - are we really prepared for the cost of "you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength."? Are we prepared to be slaves of Christ, to be not our own but "bought with a price"? Often we want to be close to God, but not too close. We want to get close enough to receive his benefits, but we also want to keep a little corner of our life for ourselves. While praying one day, Lewis accidentally prayed to be done with spiritual things so as to not miss out on the earthly things, rather than the other way around. This caused him to meditate on the fact that deep down, he actually wanted this. ( )

Reason is the organ of truth but imagination is the organ of meaning. Unselfishness & self denial are not the same as love. Desiring our own good is good not bad. God finds our desires not too strong but too weak. It is most important how God thinks of us not how we think of God. Glory is as bright luminosity - united with the beauty we see, nature is only a symbol. There are no ordinary people. Take each other seriously - the weight of your neighbor's glory. ( )

The classic Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis, the most important Christian writer of the 20th century, contains nine sermons delivered by Lewis during World War Two. The nine addresses in Weight of Glory offer guidance, inspiration, and a compassionate apologetic for the Christian faith during a time of great doubt.

This book is part of my C.S. Lewis collection. I went through a huge phase where I was just obsessed with anything and everything by him. While I don't agree with all of his theology, I do love his writing style and the things he has to say about faith. He was a good one. ( )

I find it difficult to write a review of C.S.Lewis' writings... They are so intense, so deep, and varied. And that is why it takes me extra long to read and absorb anything Lewis has written.

This book is a collection of essays, presentations, addresses, full of insight and wisdom. In The Weight of Glory , my favorite of them, Lewis writes of Heaven. And it is indescribably inspiring and logical.

Here is one of the many passages I underlined:

Now, if we are made for heaven, the desire for our proper place will be already in us, but not yet attached to the true object, and will even appear as the rival of that object..... 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 desire) we cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our existence.

Passages like this just make you sit and think. And they reveal so much of your inner perhaps yet unrealized thoughts and desires..

I'm glad I own this book as it's one I'm going to re-read for sure. ( )