the inner ring

C.S. Lewis, as I've said before, is absolutely one of my favorite authors. I think it may be the fact that he can write something like the Chronicles of Narnia, and also pen works like Mere Christianity and The Weight of Glory. I don't know of (though I'm sure there are) any other authors that can or have tackled two markedly different genres of literature so successfully.

I've talked about The Weight of Glory here before, but there is another sermon in that collection that I read the other night called The Inner Ring. In this sermon, Lewis describes this inner ring as the place where we're all trying to arrive, though the inner rings you're shooting for may not be the same as the ones that I am pursuing. This inner ring may be a certain group of people that you want to be friends with, a group of colleagues that you wish to be accepted by, or a board of leadership that you wish to move onto. Whatever they may be, because I believe that we're all striving for multiple inner rings, certain questions arise in our pursuit.

In one section of this sermon, Lewis says this:

"But if all you want is to be in the know, your pleasure will be short lived. The circle cannot have within the charm that it had from outside. By the very act of admitting you it has lost its magic. Once the first novelty has worn off, the members of this circle will be no more interesting than your old friends."

Now, I can say from lots of experience with this that this statement is true. I can name countless times that I have moved into a new inner circle to find that I only wish to be back where I was previously. To me, these words in some sense also describe our relationship to sin. We see this thing that we are pursuing (lust, money, acceptance, things), and when we finally have attained it, we realize that our means of acquiring it were not pure, or that the end result leaves us feeling empty, unfulfilled, or dirty.

In another section Lewis says this:

"A thing may be morally neutral and yet the desire for that thing may be dangerous."

To me, this is probably one of the most simply profound statements that I have ever heard. If I think about it, this is probably the dilemma that I am faced with more than anything. For example, having nice guitar gear is not wrong, but if that desire consumes me, if I do things that I normally wouldn't to acquire that stuff, then this moves that desire to being something that is dangerous. I think we can look at a lot of different areas in our lives and notice that this is the issue we face. It's those things that are not markedly right or wrong, black or white that cause us to stumble more than any other.

If you've read this far, thanks for taking the time.