Busy day, praying, running around, talking, praying, writing, sorting, delivering, praying, more talking ;-) I seem to like to pray, talk and write. You would think I would run out of things to say - but then in that case I use other's words!
In fact I received a fabulous God gift today. The person who gave it to me didn't know they were giving it to me until I gasped in astounded pleasure when I saw it in their hands. How could they resist placing it in my outstretched palms...especially when they had no idea why I was so excited.
"A Mind Awake; An Anthology of C.S. Lewis" edited by Clyde S. Kilby. It hasn't left my side all day and I crack it open every time I can. Hardcover no less, copyright 1968 First Edition American printing AND the real gem, as I opened it up out fell a newspaper article from June 1976 entitled "Your neighbor is a Holy Object" quoting C.S. Lewis. Brilliant!
This is treasure hunting at it's best and I just have to share with you...
"There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization - 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 splendours. 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. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner - no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian Neighbour he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat - the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden." - C. S. Lewis 'Weight of Glory'
Brilliant! vere latitat - latin meaning 'truly hides'. God glorified is hiding in you and in your neighbor. Imagine. Just imagine how you speak to Jesus every day. You can either feel shivers of excitement or shivers of dread at how you have been treating the people you encounter.
I met a woman today, totally out of the blue - who was speaking to me as if she had known me my whole life and knew my deepest, most hidden fears and she gave me solutions to my own roadblocks. Imagine! Where did she come from? How did she find me? I knew our encounter was not random and she might not be who she "appeared" to be, but rather had quite a human disguise going.
Might it have been a Holy Encounter? Might have Christ vere latitat have overcome my life and transcended into my normal?
I believe.
"Nothing is yet in its true form." C.S. Lewis 'Till We Have Faces'
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