Learn a lesson from C.S. Lewis ... just as relevant today as 75 years ago when he wrote it!

[George]

Shalom everyone,

 

A great word from C.S. Lewis,

 

“In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. ‘How are we to live in an atomic age?’ I am tempted to reply: ‘Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.’

 

In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors—anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.

 

This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.”

 

— “On Living in an Atomic Age” (1948) in Present Concerns: Journalistic Essays

 

May we learn from this ...

 

George

[Who me]

Or to put it another way.

 

                   Man is destined to die, once. then comes Judgement.

 

We will All die and we will All face Gods rightous judgement.

 

Just as we need to face that we will die, we also need to face the fact that God, our creator has the right to determine our eternal future.

[Omegaman 3.0]

45“Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? 46Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. 47Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions". 

[bropro]

I believe the main thing for the Christian is to remain focused on Christ and stay on mission (the Great Commission), regardless of what is going on around us, or what looms on the horizon. As someone once said "none of us are getting out of this alive."

Gary

Edited March 23, 2022 by bropro

[Starise]

I was recently reminded of this by a string of unexpected deaths and the following funerals. These were people who I spoke with a week before who looked for everything like they were in perfect health.

..............and we come to the funerals and mourn the deaths. That Poooooor so and so. Never seen it coming.

Yet..............we are all looking at ourselves in that casket. Might be later and it might happen a different way. We might reason that at our age it 'shouldn't' happen to us any time soon. Or maybe we think because we eat right and exercise we will be the last to go.

Do you know how many people have said that very thing that are recently no longer with us?