Memento mori: ""human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice"": "human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice" Beloved author, C. S. Lewis addresses a similar concept when he spoke to students at Oxford in October of 1939-less than 2 months after the outbreak of World War II. In his address, he begins by asking how it will be possible for life to continue as usual, "when the lives of our friends and the liberties of Europe are in the balance?" He answers: "The war creates no absolutely new situation: it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice." Lewis continues: "War threatens us with death and pain. No man-and especially no Christian who remembers Gethsemane-need try to attain a stoic indifference about these things: but we can guard against the illusions of the imagination. What does war do to death? It certainly does not make it more frequent; 100 percent of us die, and the percentage cannot be increased... War makes death real to us: and that would have been regarded as one of its blessings by most of the great Christians of the past. They thought it good for us to be always aware of our mortality. I am inclined to think they were right. All the animal life in us, all schemes of happiness that centered in this world, were always doomed to a final frustration. In ordinary times only a wise man can realize it. Now the stupidest of us know. We see unmistakably the sort of universe in which we have all along been living, and must come to terms with it."

"human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice"

Beloved author, C. S. Lewis addresses a similar concept when he spoke to students at Oxford in October of 1939-less than 2 months after the outbreak of World War II. In his address, he begins by asking how it will be possible for life to continue as usual, "when the lives of our friends and the liberties of Europe are in the balance?" He answers: "The war creates no absolutely new situation: it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice." Lewis continues: "War threatens us with death and pain. No man-and especially no Christian who remembers Gethsemane-need try to attain a stoic indifference about these things: but we can guard against the illusions of the imagination. What does war do to death? It certainly does not make it more frequent; 100 percent of us die, and the percentage cannot be increased... War makes death real to us: and that would have been regarded as one of its blessings by most of the great Christians of the past. They thought it good for us to be always aware of our mortality. I am inclined to think they were right. All the animal life in us, all schemes of happiness that centered in this world, were always doomed to a final frustration. In ordinary times only a wise man can realize it. Now the stupidest of us know. We see unmistakably the sort of universe in which we have all along been living, and must come to terms with it."

Sayfa 45Kitabı okuyor

Healing the Emptiness: A Guide to Emotional and Spiritual Well-Being Yasmin Mogahed

41 görüntüleme

Yorum yapabilmeniz için giriş yapmanız gerekmektedir.

Gönderi

Memento mori