It is one of the evils of rapid diffusion of news that the sorrows of all the world come to us every morning. I think each village was meant to feel pity for its own sick and poor whom it can help and I doubt if it is the duty of any private person to fix his mind on ills which he cannot help. (This may even become an escape from the works of charity we really can do to those we know.)--The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume 2 (ed. Walter Hooper; HarperCollins, 2004), 747-48; emphases original
A great many people (not you) do now seem to think that the mere state of being worried is in itself meritorious. I don't think it is. We must, if it so happens, give our lives for others: but even while we're doing it, I think we're meant to enjoy Our Lord and, in Him, our friends, our food, our sleep, our jokes, and the birds' song and the frosty sunrise.
26 October 2012
Charity and Worry
Lewis, 1946 letter--
Hello!
ReplyDelete"I think each village was meant to feel pity for its own sick and poor whom it can help and I doubt if it is the duty of any private person to fix his mind on ills which he cannot help..."
Recently I read "Escape from Camp 14," the story of an escapee from a N Korean prison. He told of Christian dissidents...who were lined up, and then rolled over by a steam roller. But it was when the skulls made a sort of popping sound...that many of the observers lost it. Now...whenever I drive up my driveway, and the nuts from the trees make a certain popping sound...I take the opportunity to pray for my Christian brothers and sisters around the world who are persecuted: "Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, "since you also are in the body..."
Heb 13:3 (ESV)