I LOVE Christmastime. So much, in fact, that I want to skip right to it as soon as October is over (I did actually play Christmas music in the car on the way to church yesterday). Recently, however, I’ve been trying to slow down and enjoy each season as it comes- like the season specifically devoted to giving thanks. I’m thankful for the big things like salvation, family, and friends, but also for the little things, like cuddling on the porch swing with my husband, fun yard sale finds ($7 quilt- perfect for fall decorating), and hot chocolate.
Along this line of thinking, I recently came across this passage from C.S. Lewis (aka one of my two favorite authors of all time), and thought I’d share it:
The sense in which something “deserves” or “demands” admiration is . . . this; that
admiration is the correct, adequate or appropriate response to it:
that if paid, admiration will not be “thrown away”, and that if we do
not admire we shall be stupid, insensible and great losers, we shall
have missed something. In that way many objects both in Nature and in
Art may be said to deserve, or merit, or demand admiration. It was
from this end, which will seem to some irreverent, that I found it
best to approach the idea that God “demands” praise. He is that Object
to admire which . . . is simply to be awake, to have entered the real
world; not to appreciate which is to have lost the greatest
experience, and in the end to have lost all. The incomplete and
crippled lives of those who are tone deaf, have never been in love,
never cared for a good book, never enjoyed the feel of the morning air
on their cheeks, never (I am one of these) enjoyed football, are faint
images of it. . . .
The most obvious fact about praise – whether of God or anything -
strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval
or the giving of honour. I had never noticed that all enjoyment
spontaneously overflows into praise. . . . The world rings with praise
- loverse praising their mistresses, readrs their favorite poet,
walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game
- praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges,
countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare
stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians or scholars. I had
not noticed how the humblest, and at the same time most balanced and
capacious, minds, praised most, while the cranks, misfits and
malcontents praised least. . . . I had not noticed either that just as
men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously
urge us to join them in praising it: “Isn’t she lovely? Wasn’t it
glorious? Don’t you think that magnificent?” The Psalmists in telling
everyone to praise God are doing what all men do when they speak of
what they care about.
Happy Thanksgiving season.
