Thursday, March 16, 2000
I have called my material surroundings a stage set... In this I can act.And you may well say “act.” For what I call “myself” (for all practical, everyday purposes) is also a dramatic construction; memories, glimpses in the shaving glass, and snatches of the very fallible activity called “introspection,” are the principal ingredients. Normally I call this construction “me,” and the stage set “the real world.”Now the moment of prayer is for me—or involves for me as its condition—the awareness, the reawakened awareness, that this “real world” and “real self” are very far from being rock-bottom realities. I cannot, in the flesh, leave the stage, either to go behind the scenes or to take my seat in the pit; but I can remember that these regions exist. And I also remember that my apparent self—this clown or hero or super—under his grease-paint is a real person with an off-stage life. The dramatic person could not tread the stage unless he concealed a real person: unless the real and unknown I existed, I would not even make mistakes about the imagined me. And in prayer this real I struggles to speak, for once, from his real being, and to address, for once, not the other actors, but—what shall I call Him? The Author, for He invented us all? The Producer, for He controls all? Or the Audience, for He watches, and will judge, the performance?
... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, New York: Harcourt Brace and World, 1964, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2002, p. 80-81
(see the book; see also Heb. 12:1-2; Ps. 11:4; Jer. 17:10; 1 Cor. 11:28; 2 Cor. 13:5; more at Awareness, People, Prayer, Remembrance, Self)
Compilation Copyright, 1996-2024, by Robert McAnally Adams,
Curator, Christian Quotation of the Day,
with Robert Douglas, principal contributor
Logo image Copyright 1996 by Shay Barsabe, of “Simple GIFs”, by kind permission.
Send comments to curator@cqod.com.
Last updated:
03/16/17
Fun stuff
Tweet this
CQOD is now available to include on your personal home page, blog, or church web site—perfect for a sidebar.
To display CQOD on your web site, updating daily, copy the line below and paste directly into the position that CQOD should appear:
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://cqod.com/js/"></script>
To display this particular quotation on your web site, copy the line below and paste directly into the position that CQOD should appear:
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://cqod.com/js/index-03-16-00.js"></script>
For more information, see CQOD Web Home
|
Welcome to the CQOD home page. This page changes daily, publishing a different
quotation each day, so return here often. Many people use this page as their browser home page. Bookmark this page by pressing cntl-d.
means text and bibliography have been verified.
CQOD makes numerous features and links available. Here are some important links to help you get around:
Previous day’s CQOD (Allshorn)
Following day’s CQOD (Carrel)
This month’s CQODs
CQOD for today
CQOD on the go!
Use our double opt-in listserve to receive CQOD by email
CQOD daily index
All monthly archives
What’s New on CQOD
Author index
Title index
Poetry index
Scripture index
Subject index
Search CQOD (or see below)
CQOD Blog
CQOD RSS
Facebook CQOD Fan Page
Follow CQOD on Twitter
Follow CQOD on Instagram
About CQOD
CQOD on the Web
CQOD FAQ
CQOD Liturgical Calendar
Mere Christianity: a conversation
Simple Songs for Psalms
Quotations Bible Study
Essays Archive
Bookworms
Spotlights
Publications:
Jonah: a miracle play
Ruth: a play
Also visit these organizations:
Arab Vision
Crescendo
Oratorium
More devotionals
Search CQOD:
|