| All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you. I never had a selfless thought since I was born. I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through: I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.
Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek, I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin: I talk of love --a scholar's parrot may talk Greek-- But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.
Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack. I see the chasm. And everything you are was making My heart into a bridge by which I might get back From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.
For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains You give me are more precious than all other gains.
C S Lewis
(When asked : HOW ARE YOU THESE DAYS? an old school friend Peter Svensk forwarded this to me as his update on himself. Pretty much sums it up for me too.) |
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1 comment:
Phil Keaggy set this poem to music in the 1970s - I've got it on an old LP. Wonderful melody which makes the poem even more memorable.
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