Mormon Musings

In King Lear (III, vii) there is a man who is such a minor character that Shakespeare has not even given him a name: he is simply called "First Servant." All the characters around him--Regan, Cornwall, and Edmund--have fine long-term plans. They think they know how the story is going to end, and they are quite wrong. The servant, however, has no such delusions. He has no notion how the play is going to go. But he understands the present scene. He sees an abomination (the blinding of old Gloucester) taking place. He will not stand for it. His sword is out and pointed at his master's breast in an instant. Then Regan stabs him dead from behind. That is his whole part: eight lines all told. But, Lewis says, if that were real life and not a play, that is the part it would be best to have acted. The doctrine of the Second Coming teaches us that we do not and cannot know when Christ will come and the world drama will end. He may appear and the curtain may be rung down at any ...

When I look back on my life nowadays, which I sometimes do, what strikes me most forcibly about it is that what seemed at the time most significant and seductive, seems now most futile and absurd. For instance, success in all of its various guises; being know and being praised; ostensible pleasures, like acquiring money or seducing women, or traveling, going to and fro in the world and up and down in it like Satan, exploring and experiencing whatever vanity fair has to offer. In retrospect all of these exercises in self-gratification seem pure fantasy, what Pascal called “licking the earth.” They are diversions, designed to distract our attention from the true purpose of our existence in this world, which is, quite simply: to look for God, an, in looking, to find Him, and, having found Him, to love Him, thereby establishing a harmonious relationship with His purposes for His creation.   (emphasis added) Malcolm Muggeridge

Each good man has in himself a quiet place wherein he lives however torn seemingly by the passions of the world. That is his citadel, which must be kept inviolate against assaults. That quiet place must be founded upon a rock and the rock must be a belief, a fervent and passionate belief, in the existence of the ultimate good, and a willingness to put forth his strength against the ultimate evil. -Dr. Foster Kennedy

How much larger your life would be if your self were smaller in it; if you could really look at other men with common curiosity and pleasure. . . . You would begin to be interested in them. . . . You would break out of this tiny and tawdry theatre in which your own little plot is always being played, and you would find yourself under a freer sky, and in a street full of splendid strangers. G. K. Chesterton