Disconnect

"It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbour.

The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor's glory should be laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken.

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.

All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or the other of these destinations.

It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.

There are no ordinary people.

You have never talked to a mere mortal.

Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations--these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat.

But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit--immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.

This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously--no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.

And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner--no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment.

Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses.

If he is your Christian neighbor, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat--the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden."

~From C.S. Lewis's The Weight of Glory

Just how true is this to us?
Is it constantly at the forefront of our minds, influencing our every decision, our every action, our every word, our every relationship, our every moment of our every day?

I doubt it.

Or maybe I'm just weird and entirely disconnected from the normal human experience (which may be true anyways but is besides the point entirely...).

Should it?

Do we Love like this?

Do these thoughts inspire the kind of urgency and passion that is of a hope so gloriously incredible that we cannot hope to contain it, the kind of desperate love that is so unfailingly and relentlessly lavished on us that it would unceasingly overflow from any and every part of our being it can?

This is our joy. And sometimes our shame.

Though this life is barely a flicker, a shimmer, a breath, the severity of its potential consequence cannot be taken lightly. I'm as guilty of it as anyone, if not more so. The reality that our reality is not this temporal existence can seem to be insanity. But the reality is, we cannot ignore this reality, however disconnected from it we are amazed to constantly find ourselves.

In other words, we must open our eyes to the connection that Love has given us to eternity. Because if we can't, or won't, see it, then who will?

We cannot afford to be disconnected from our reality. And neither can those around us afford for us to be so.

We live in a temporal world brimming with immortals. And if we choose to ignore this, we miss the whole point.

At least as far as Love is concerned.

And of course, it does concern anything and everything. Intense.

Love chose this infinitely minuscule portion of eternity to reveal itself. And to give us a chance to have it, to hold it, to show it, to share it. Can we really afford to let life run its course as mere bystanders? Or are we to be the hopeless romantics, the warriors of the Great Romance, the purveyors of a reality that is so much more than the here and now, than what we may have planned for tomorrow but inevitably will crash and burn if we let it. Of a Love so much more than this life can contain.

And it's a great thought to recognize and nod our heads at and say, "Yeah, yeah that's really good," and be moved and excited about for like five minutes and then go on and have totally discarded the notion in less than 24 hours if that. Yeah, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Hey, I'll probably barely remember having written this by the time I wake up in a few hours.

And yet, this is our reality.

How will it shape us?

How will it shape our Love?

"But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit--immortal horrors or everlasting splendours."

Dive Deep.