Amen and Amen

Today I just need to quote C.S.Lewis:

God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine.  A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else.  Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself.  He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on.  There is no other.  That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion.  God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there.  There is no such thing.

That is the key to history.  Terrific energy is expended---civilizations are built up---excellent institutions devised; but each time something goes wrong.  Some fatal flaw always brings the selfish and cruel people to the top and it all slides back into misery and ruin.  In fact, the machine conks.  It seems to start up all right and runs a few yards, and then it breaks down.  They are trying to run it on the wrong juice.  That is what Satan has done to us humans.

                                                                                          from Mere Christianity

I just love Lewis' ability to put things so plainly and so logically.  I wish I could do the same in my writing.  Many people have asked whether it is possible to be good without going to church, and looking around us, we would have to agree that it is possible to "be good" without religion, or at least without Christianity.  However, I don't think that's the same as being peaceful within, or having joy, or having love for others----the aim is not to "be good;" I think that's a red herring.  The Pharisees, after all, were the "best" in their culture, but they seemed to have no love, peace, or joy.  The saints, above all others in their time and cultures, seemed to consider themselves the worst of sinners---they would not have agreed that they were "good" at all.  I, too, before my conversion, used to think that if I were not "good," at least I wasn't as bad as "some people" I knew.  What arrogance!  What ignorance of Biblical truth!  It took the love and mercy of God, and a small miracle on His part, to show me how much of a sinner I am and always was.

The point is not to be "good," but to run on God's own love, peace, joy, and energy.  If we fail to "run" on Him, we will eventually "conk out," come to the end of our own resources.  Only He has/is unlimited joy, peace, energy, truth, love....

In my own search, I once took a class with a Hari Krishna/ yogi, and asked him whence comes the "power" to "love our enemies and do good to those who persecute you."  I knew that power did not reside within me.  The Hari Krishna had no answer for me; he did not know.  And though I myself was a life-long Catholic who never missed Mass, I did not know either.  Now I know:  it is not I that live, but Christ that lives in me to the glory of the Father.  It is the Holy Spirit dwelling in us that "sheds abroad in our hearts the love of God" (agape, in Greek).  That is, the Holy Spirit in us is the Divine Source of our love for God and God's love for others around us, including our enemies. 

Now I have experienced that love within me for those who persecuted me and for those who tried to destroy me.  And I have experienced the "peace that passes all understanding," even in the face of death.  And I know that the aim is not to "be good" in this life, but to enjoy the kingdom of heaven even now, while we live on this earth.  We are made to "run on God," and there is no substitute for His energy in us.