From KK: Too bad I have the sink tap

I tried to convince our landlord yesterday that I had the "grife," which means sink tap...yeah, I was trying to say "gripe," which is a cold. SAMSONITE, I was way off. So I haven't been out and about much this week.

In the mean time I have been reading C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. Well, I should say I'm attempting to read his seven "Signature Classics," but have only begun to make it through the first. I guess I do have some of my dad in me because for some reason I've been reading it as I would a text book, underlining, taking notes in the margins, etc. and really trying to studying it. Doug laughs at me because about every five minutes I utter a "hmm" under my breath at a point I have always thought impossible to prove, and C.S. Lewis was just able to prove it in a page. It's maddening really in some ways, but I guess some people are given that talent of reasoning and simplifying things so that people like me can understand them. It also makes me look over my shoulder, thinking, weird, I was just thinking that or trying to escape that point and there you go putting it in my face again and writing in second person so I can't even pretend to ignore it. This started out as a journal entry and not one to put on my blog so everyone could read it, but oh well. 

Last night I read the chapter on relationships and marriage. It talks of the progression in a relationship from being in love to simply loving one another. Not that these things have to be separate, but how they change over time. 

And, of course, the promise, made when I am in love and because I am in love, to be true to the beloved as long as I live, commits me to being true even if I cease to be in love. A promise must be about things I can do, about action: no one can promise to go on feeling in a certain way...What we call 'being in love' is a glorious state, and in several ways, good for us. It hleps to make us generous and courageous, it opens our eyes not only to the beauty of the beloved but to all beauty...Feelings come and go...Who could bear tot live in that excitement for even five years?...But, of course, ceasing to be 'in love' nead not mean ceasing to love. Love in this sense is not merely a feeling...This quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it.

I think it's a beautiful image actually, but then I think of certain people in my life, my parents and grandparents as perfect examples, who seem to defy this 'fading away' thing, so who knows.

 

Lewis goes on to talk about the initial thrill and its fading away. This applies to everything in my life, as I tend to get restless easy. I like change, new places, new experiences, but he says that those who accept the loss of the thrill and settle down will then discover new thrills in a different way. "This is, I think, one little part of what Christ meant by saying that a thing will not really live unless it first dies," he says. He uses the analogy of a man moving to a new beautiful city (hmm) and that of course the thrill of this new city will fade, but it is in letting that thrill fade that the man will discover gardening. I think my mom would tell me maybe I need to discover gardening and stay put. 

I have really enjoyed reading it and have been kept entertained by his writing as well. A topic I found very interesting is about things that have gone bad. He says,

One is the Christian view that this is a good world that has gone wrong, but still retains the memory of what it ought to have been. The other view is called Dualism. This means the belief that there are two equal and independent powers at the back of everything, one of them good and the other bad, and that this universe is the battlefield in which the fight out an endless war.

He said that the catch with the latter is the bad and good are to be independent: equal and neither with greater power than the other, but independent. This would be impossible because those who are truly evil are cruel and do bad things for their own pleasure or joy. Pleasure and joy themselves are good things, so the bad cannot exist without a relation to the good, so it is the idea of a fallen angel who knows good, pleasure and joy and uses evil to gain it in which we believe. Of course, his has an eloquent way of saying it, but that's it in short. 

The thing that made me look over my shoulder was the controversial topic of the man being the head of the household. Lewis believes that God deemed man the head of household because the relation the family has to the outer world, or as he calls it "its foreign policies," must be governed by the man because the woman will fight vigorously for her family, no matter what, against the whole world as "the special trustee of their interests," whereas the man tends to be more removed and therefore just. 

The part that got me most, which is definitely Doug's and my biggest issue, if we even have any yet. He says,

If anyone doubts this, let me ask you a question...Much as you admire your husband, would you not say that his chief failing is his tendency not to stick up for his rights and yours (hmm) against the neighbors as vigorously as you would like? A bit of an Appeaser?

You win again. You always do. (sorry C.S. Lewis and SNL don't go too well together, but I couldn't help it)

Sorry for a book review instead of fun news from Barcelona. More of that to come. We've got our frist visitors this weekend!! Adrienne Binder and Avery are coming to stay with us for the weekend. Adrienne swam at Auburn with Doug and she and I have become great friends over the past year so we are really excited about their trip.They have been in Italy since September with Auburn's MBA program and far more adventurous than us by far, skydiving, canyoning and the like.  Their blog is linked below so you can read about what's going on in their European travels too!