C. S. Lewis on Prayer as Monologue

 

Prayer is either a sheer illusion or a personal contact between embryonic, incomplete persons (ourselves) and the utterly concrete Person.

(From “The World’s Last Night and Other Essays“, p. 8)

Poem

They tell me, Lord that when I seem
To be in speech with you,
Since you make no replies, it’s all a dream
– One talker aping two.

The are half right, but not as they
Falsely believe. For I
Seek in myself the things I meant to say,
And lo!, the well’s are dry.

Then, seeing me empty, You forsake
The listener’s part, and through
My dumb limps breathe and into utterance wake
The thoughts I never knew.

Therefore You neither need reply
Nor can; for while we seem
Two talking, Thou art one forever; and I
No dreamer, but thy dream.

– C.S. Lewis; 4 April 1934

(From “Yours Jack“, p.44)

Note on the word “limps” above: 

There are apparently different editions of this poem, with an earlier one published in 1964 reading “lips” instead of “limps.” How to resolve this I do not know, but it is interesting that in 1933 Lewis wrote:

Take not, oh Lord, our literal sense. Lord in thy great,

Unbroken speech, our limping metaphor translate.

It is also interesting that Lewis says in his letter from 1934 that he had written the poem “over a year ago.” I also note that at the time Lewis wrote the poem it was only about 2 1/2 years following his “second conversion,” to Christianity. About a year prior he experienced his “first conversion,” to theism.

Thanks for reading…

Bryan @ Manifest Propensity, 2015.

“Manifest Propensity” Explained

“Manifest Destiny”

This painting (circa 1872) by John Gast called American Progress, is an allegorical representation of the modernization of the new west. Here Columbia, a personification of the United States, leads civilization westward with American settlers, stringing telegraph wire as she sweeps west; she holds a school book. The different stages of economic activity of the pioneers are highlighted and, especially, the changing forms of transportation.

The purpose of this post is to explain why this blog is called “Manifest Propensity.” I have said a few things in this regard, but have never offered a full explanation. The name comes from two sources. The first source you may have guessed due to the verbal similarity.