A great discovery...
I bought a hard to find collection a while back, "Essay Collection & Other Short Pieces" by C.S. Lewis. Its been great reading through all sorts of the lesser known works of C.S. Lewis. This morning I discovered a wonderfully deep short story entitled "The Man Born Blind". This piece was unpublished until 1977, years after Lewis' death. "According to Owen Barfield, this short story was written during the late 1920's when he and Lewis were deep in the 'Great War' debate over Appearance and Reality."
I'm sure I've broken thousands of copyright laws in doing so, but I've typed the whole thing in to my blog for you to read. Its pretty short, but its GOOD. Check it out here.
After you've read it, tell me what you think about it!
I'm sure I've broken thousands of copyright laws in doing so, but I've typed the whole thing in to my blog for you to read. Its pretty short, but its GOOD. Check it out here.
After you've read it, tell me what you think about it!
posted by Miroslav at 2:54 PM
7 Comments:
While reading this essay, I couldn't get this quote out of my mind:
I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
~C.S. Lewis, "Is Theology Poetry", The Weight of Glory (1949)
The other thing that struck me was the part about the man feeling better when he closed his eyes and lived again as a blind man. Even though I have been given EYES TO SEE as a new creature in Christ, I often choose to close them and live the "old" ways -- because they are so comfortable, so well-known. I know I am missing out on a lot of LIGHT -- a world of magnificence and beauty -- when I don't use my "new" talents!
I'm interested to see others' takes on the essay as a whole.
Miroslav,
I had quite forgotten this essay. Thanks for the reminder! I'll have to dig my book off the shelf and reread it, I guess.
Pat
Mmmmmm....
I don't really get stuff like this, but I sure liked the fish poem.
What does this story speak to you and why do you think Professor Lewis wrote it?
aqua-man
Some Controversy
After reading this essay, I promptly googled it, curious to see what others had to say about this fascinating piece. One of the first things that I discovered, along with deborah, is that there is some controversy regarding the true authorship of this short story. Some experts believe this work, along with Dark Towers, to be fakes... not the work of CS Lewis. To be honest, I don't know how to make heads or tails of the accusations... but I really don't care much either. If you like, you are welcome to read more about all that by clicking here.
REGARDING ORIGINAL INTENT
You can read the last three paragraphs of this lengthy analysis. OR
If you want a very short Miroslav version:
I would say, based on what the above-referenced article suggests, that Lewis' point in this story (likely written before he became a Christian) was to warn of the danger of taking idealism too far. That is to say that the well inentioned healed man may have genuinely been pursuing Truth (or Light or the Ideal)... wholeheartedly even... innocently even... but those things did not illiminate the REALITY of harm or danger along the way. Evidenced in his death.
MY THOUGHTS
Immediately upon reading the following quote, my breath was almost taken away... :
"A blind man has few friends; a blind man who has recently received his sight has, in a sense, none. He belongs neither to the world of the blind nor to that of the seeing, and no one can share his experience." - Man that is great writing. It captures so well how I feel! The heart experience of a recent convert to be sure... (in my case a sort of deconversion).
And then I could relate to this:
"After that night's conversations Robin never mentioned to anyone his problem about light. He knew that he would only be suspected of madness."
Ah, but these lips won't stop flappin'! Unlike the man who was shut up by the harsh lack of understanding he encountered from even his wife (who was such an obvious lover of his life), I'm obviously not too scared of being considered a fool. Just look at this here blog!
I,like deborah, was also taken by the section about the reading of the book via braile. But, (surprise surprise) my take on it is quite different than her thoughts. :D
I've never been blind. I won't pretend to know what its like. But I do wonder... I wonder if there is something that we seeing folks will never be able to appreciate about our world because of our sight. Its not too bizarre a thought, is it? I also think a blind man has a unique way of relating to the world, a way that is unduplicatable through vision. So when the man who was born blind returns to this way of relating to things, I don't see it as some weakness on his part, or failure to appreciate his new gift of sight. Consider this... : "it would never be the real thing. "W-A-T-E-R" could be spelled out; but never, never would those black marks be wedded to their meaning as in Braille, where the very shape of the characters communicated an instantaneous sense of liquidity through his fingertips." ...
If we take the writer's words to be true, that it would never be as experientially meaningful (note that the word never is repeated for emphasis)..., then do you see what a mistake it is to judge the blind man who returns to his blindness to read to be 'missing out'?
You see, you could add all the senses you can think of (sight, smell, touch), but the way in which it is perceived by him is all that matters when it comes to his experience of the thing. And that will not change. Ever. Not in this lifetime.
And so, with this short story and example, I believe it is foolishness to suggest that a blind man is missing out by returning to his old, known way of reading a book. Quite the opposite really. He is experiencing it in the most full way he is able to!
...UNLESS...
Unless there is more to the story. Unless there is a definate measurement of things. Unless there is one right way to read a book. Unless there is a God. Unless there is eternity.
...HOWEVER...
Even then, I think it too simple a notion to suggest that the blind man should learn the new way to read by sight so he doesn't miss out. For that is just not true. It really isn't. At least not from these here eyes see. He may die preferring braile to reading by vision. He may not ever experience any greater satisfaction in his lifetime by forcing himself to read by sight.
Instead, he must read because he is commanded to. And he is called to act on faith alone that it is better despite the fact that he does not experience it as better. And he is called to have HOPE that he will some day given a fuller experience of the real thing, with no promise that he will be given such thing in his lifetime. He must ultimately trust and hope in eternity. And can really only do so by some sort of uncontainable, irreducible, internal core belief in such things. And no, he cannot choose this sort of thing.
...THEREFORE...
I see for the first time exactly what 1 Corinthians 1:18-31 says! The message of Christ is foolishness to those who are not believers of it. Just as foolish as it would be to tell a blind man recently given vision that he is missing out by the manner in which he reads a book.
....FURTHERMORE...
What if, by chance, we are in fact all in fact a lot less in control of the way we perceive things (even the Truth of God)? What if, we are all victims of blindness to one degree or another? And even after drastic surgery we remain unalterably seperated by a core manner in which we perceive things. ... A way in which was determined far in advance... be it fate or predestination or just dumb luck.
....WHICH IS WHY....
Should my faith return, you will see me carry a much stronger bent towards Reformed Theology than before.
....
phew.
....
That was a lot.
Oh yeah, and bummer that he fell off the cliff at the end.
No seriously though, I interpreted that part to be a message of warning. That despite good intentions and even despite earnest pursuit of Truth... dangers can be found along the way. The whole "knock, ask, seek" thing certainly sounds more assuring. But perhaps even if Christ is God, it is a dangerous undertaking to pursue Him.
Just a few of the things that ran through this crazy nugget of mine.
Miroslav,
Thoroughly enjoyed your analysis!!
Two very smallish thoughts:
1) I so hear you on the Reform Theology stuff -- us, too.
2) I think it IS dangerous to pursue Christ! Your last thought reminded me of The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe, when the kids are asking what Aslan is like:
"Then he isn't safe?" said Lucy.
"Safe?" said Mr. Beaver, "don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."
An interesting story of a man who goes blind from a WWII injury, comes to the Lord gritting his teeth, through his journey comes to the Lord wholeheartedly and freely, and shockingly, after 12 yrs, regains sight--to see his wife and two kids, whom he'd not ever seen, as well as the rest of the world again: SCATTERED SHADOWS by Howard Griffin--the same guy who lived as a Negro in the South in the 50's to see what the black man's persecution was like, and he described it in his nonfiction work BLACK LIKE ME. A truly amazing man, with and without sight.
SCATTERED SHADOWS, Griffin's journals of his sighted and nonsighted journey, was recently published by his wife's surviving second husband (she remarried after some time as a widow). (You could check with your grandma abt looking at her copy if you promise to give it back to her.)
Post a Comment
<< Home