Mormon Musings

In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. ‘How are we to live in an atomic age?’  I am tempted to reply: ‘Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night…’   In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation.  Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented…It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty…“If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things- praying, working, teaching, readin...

The real trouble about the duty of forgiveness is that you do it with all your might on Monday and then find on Wednesday that it hasn't stayed put and all has to be done over again.   C.S. Lewis  

Roughly speaking, the word faith seems to be used by Christians in two senses or on two levels, and I will take them in turn. In the first sense it means simply belief—accepting or regarding as true the doctrines of Christianity. That is fairly simple. But what does puzzle people—at least it used to puzzle me—is the fact that Christians regard faith in this sense as a virtue. I used to ask how on Earth it can be a virtue—what is there moral or immoral about believing or not believing a set of statements? Obviously, I used to say, a sane man accepts or rejects any statement, not because he wants or does not want to, but because the evidence seems to him good or bad. If he were mistaken about the goodness or badness of the evidence, that would not mean he was a bad man, but only that he was not very clever. And if he thought the evidence bad but tried to force himself to believe in spite of it, that would be merely stupid. Well, I think I still take that view. But what I did not see then...

  “I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road. A [mathematical] sum [incorrectly worked] can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and [then] working it afresh from that point, never by simply   going on.   Evil can be undone, but it cannot ‘develop’ into good. Time does not heal it. The spell must be unwound.”  [ C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (1946), viii.] So God is just, “mercy claimeth the penitent” ( Alma 42:23 ), and evil can be undone. Jeffrey R. Holland,  https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2013/09/the-justice-and-mercy-of-god?lang=eng

When striving disciples reflect deeply upon this mortal experience, certain realities become even more clear. This includes a clarifying and particular reality: We are immortal individuals whose constant challenge is to apply immortal principles to life’s constantly changing situations... With this perspective, we can improve our daily performances because we have fixed our gaze on eternity and its great realities. Neal A Maxwell - The pathway of discipleship “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 splendors. 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 ...

“Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done.” “We must lay before him what is in us; not what ought to be in us.” “A concentrated mind and a sitting body make for better prayer than a kneeling body and a mind half asleep.” “For prayer is request. The essence of request, as distinct from compulsion, is that it may or may not be granted.” “To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.” “A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.”

"There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened.”  ―  C.S. Lewis ,  The Great Divorce

“Our leisure, even our play, is a matter of serious concern. There is no neutral ground in the universe: every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan.” C.S. Lewis

Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less. C.S. Lewis

"You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you." -CS Lewis

The world does not consist of 100 percent Christians and 100 percent non-Christians. There are people (a great many of them) who are slowly ceasing to be Christians but who still call themselves by that name: some of them are clergymen. There are other people who are slowly becoming Christians though they do not yet call themselves so. C.S. Lewis

"We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.” C.S. Lewis Source: “The Abolition of Man” (1943)

"The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God." C.S. Lewis Source: “Mere Christianity” (1952)

“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 splendors. 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.” C.S. Lewis

"God has infinite attention to spare for each one of us. You are as much alone with him as if you were the only being he had ever created."  Source: “Mere Christianity” (1952) 

"We're not doubting that God will do the best for us; we're wondering how painful the best will turn out to be."  Source: “Letters of C. S. Lewis” (1966

"Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having."  Source: “Mere Christianity” (1952) 

"It is not your business to succeed, but to do right; when you have done so, the rest lies with God."  Source: “Yours, Jack: Spiritual Direction from C.S. Lewis” (2008)