In reading Has the Church Misread the Bible? by Moises Silva (Grand Rapids: Academie Books, 1987), I came across this C. S. Lewis quote I just gotta share (pp. 65-66). Oh, for some of the mastery Lewis had of our language!
Of the cursing Psalms I suppose most of us make our own moral allegories... We know the proper object of utter hostility - wickedness, especially our own. From this point of view I can use even the horrible passage in [Psalm] 137 about dashing the Babylonian babies against the stones. I know things in the inner world which are like babies; the infantile beginnings of small indulgences, small resentments, which may one day become dipsomania or settled hatred, but which woo us and wheedle us with special pleadings and seem so tiny, so helpless that in resisting them we feel we are being cruel to animals. They begin whimpering to us "I don't ask much, but", or "I had at least hoped", or "you owe yourself some consideration". Against all such pretty infants (the dears have such winning ways) the advice of the Psalm is the best. Knock the little bastards' brains out. And "blessed" is he who can, for it's easier said than done.
C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1958), p. 136.
1 comment:
shut up! that's good.
Post a Comment