This article is very insightful into human nature, and just good old fashioned advice from the wise old CS Lewis. This article is very relevant to community and the Body of Christ, for we should model an entirely different social unit that is not characterized by these inner rings, lusts to be on the inside, and delicious satisfactions from being on the inside while others are on the outside. We should be a bunch of nobodies who love one another as much as we love ourselves. Most of us love ourselves way too much and think way too highly of ourselves, while we most certainly don't love others like we love ourselves. Since God's plan A (with no plan B) is to spread his Kingdom through His Church, his Body, and we will only be used if we are usable and useful, the question is, what makes us useful? I think the key is unity, which comes from everyone being genuinely connected to, submitted to, and in love with the head of the body: Jesus Christ. When we are connected to Him, he will be shaping us into his image, and we will all fit together in harmony and ready to be fulled to all fullness with his presence. I think the world has yet to see just how mightily God would use his Body to reach the world if we were clothed with the character of Christ, connected to the Head, and thus totally unified in spirit and purpose. Perhaps our grumblings with one another, our gossip and jealousy, our quarrels and lack of care for one another, and our dis-unity is far more serious than we can possibly imagine. Perhaps far more is at stake for our lack of unity and Christ-likeness. Let us step back and evaluate our lives and our communities with great fear and trembling, ready to repent of the ways we dishonor God.
The Inner Ring
C.S. Lewis
May I read you a few lines from Tolstoy's War and Peace?:
"When Boris entered the room, Prince Andrey was listening to an old general, wearing his decorations, who was reporting something to Prince Andrey, with an expression of soldierly servility on his purple face. "Alright. Please wait!" he said to the general, speaking in Russian with the French accent, which he used when he spoke with contempt. The moment he noticed Boris he stopped listening to the general who trotted imploringly after him and begged to be heard, while Prince Andrey turned to Boris with a cheerful smile and a nod of the head. Boris now clearly understood-what he had already guessed-that side by side with the system of discipline and subordination which were laid down in the Army Regulations, there existed a different and a more real system- the system which compelled a tightly laced general with a purple face to wait respectfully for his turn while a mere captain like Prince Andrey chatted with a mere second lieutenant like Boris, Boris decided at once that he would be guided not by the official system but by this other unwritten system."
When you invite a middle-aged moralist to address you, I suppose I must conclude, however unlikely the conclusion seems, that you have a taste for middle-aged moralizing. I shall do my best to gratify it. I shall in fact give you advice about the world in which you are going to live. I do not mean by this that I am going to attempt to talk on what are called current affairs. You probably know quite as much about them as I do. I am not going to tell you- except in a form so general that you will hardly recognize it-what part you ought to play in post- war reconstruction. It is not, in fact, very likely that any of you will be able, in the next ten years, to make any direct contribution to the peace or prosperity of Europe. You will be busy finding jobs, getting married, acquiring facts. I am going to do something more old- fashioned than you perhaps expected. I am going to give advice. I am going to issue warnings. Advice and warnings about things which are so perennial that no one calls them "current affairs."
The Inner Ring
C.S. Lewis
May I read you a few lines from Tolstoy's War and Peace?:
"When Boris entered the room, Prince Andrey was listening to an old general, wearing his decorations, who was reporting something to Prince Andrey, with an expression of soldierly servility on his purple face. "Alright. Please wait!" he said to the general, speaking in Russian with the French accent, which he used when he spoke with contempt. The moment he noticed Boris he stopped listening to the general who trotted imploringly after him and begged to be heard, while Prince Andrey turned to Boris with a cheerful smile and a nod of the head. Boris now clearly understood-what he had already guessed-that side by side with the system of discipline and subordination which were laid down in the Army Regulations, there existed a different and a more real system- the system which compelled a tightly laced general with a purple face to wait respectfully for his turn while a mere captain like Prince Andrey chatted with a mere second lieutenant like Boris, Boris decided at once that he would be guided not by the official system but by this other unwritten system."
When you invite a middle-aged moralist to address you, I suppose I must conclude, however unlikely the conclusion seems, that you have a taste for middle-aged moralizing. I shall do my best to gratify it. I shall in fact give you advice about the world in which you are going to live. I do not mean by this that I am going to attempt to talk on what are called current affairs. You probably know quite as much about them as I do. I am not going to tell you- except in a form so general that you will hardly recognize it-what part you ought to play in post- war reconstruction. It is not, in fact, very likely that any of you will be able, in the next ten years, to make any direct contribution to the peace or prosperity of Europe. You will be busy finding jobs, getting married, acquiring facts. I am going to do something more old- fashioned than you perhaps expected. I am going to give advice. I am going to issue warnings. Advice and warnings about things which are so perennial that no one calls them "current affairs."
