Narnia author C. S. Lewis on Love
Having trouble with this past Sunday’s reading from
Ephesians? The one about 'being subordinate,' instructing husbands and wives on proper conduct toward each other? Perhaps this quote from Chronicles of Narnia author C. S. Lewis
can offer a bit of perspective:
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your
heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it
intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round
with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in
the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark,
motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become
unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.
Remember that St. Paul first says, Be subordinate to one another out of reverence to Christ. And he’s really talking about love.
In essence, St. Paul is suggesting that, if we can love one
another, serve one another (irrespective of gender), if we can be refuge for
one another, offer everything for other, if we can be other-centered in all we
do, then we are living the love that God offers us. We are living, that is to say, in true
relationship with God.
We fear the notion of subordination as a form of vulnerability. But love always
makes us vulnerable, always implies
other-centeredness. And Jesus is the
ultimate example of vulnerability and subordination – yet he loves us, and took
our sins with him to the Cross. What
more perfect love is there?
Text source: The Four Loves
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