Words to Live By

For anyone who knew Dr. Clyde Kilby, the suggestions which he penned came as no surprise. A beloved Professor of English at Wheaton College, IL, and author of many books, including The Christian World of C. S. Lewis, his words are worth passing on.

At least once each day I shall look steadily up at the sky and remember that I, a consciousness with a conscience, am on a planet traveling in space with everlastingly mysterious things above and about me.

Instead of the accustomed idea of a mindless and endless evolutionary movement to which I can neither add nor subtract, I shall suppose the universe guided by an Intelligence which, (as Aristotle said of Greek drama), requires a beginning, a middle, and an end.

I shall not fall into the falsehood that this day is merely another ambiguous plodding 24 hours, but rather a unique opportunity filled, if I so wish, with worthy potentialities.

I shall not be fool enough to suppose that trouble and pain are wholly evil parentheses in my existence, but just as likely, ladders to be climbed toward moral and spiritual adulthood.

I shall not demean my own uniqueness by envy of others. I shall stop boring into myself to discover what psychological or social categories I might belong to. Mostly I shall simply forget about myself and do my work.

I shall open my eyes and ears. Once every day I shall simply stare at a tree, a flower, a cloud, or a person. I shall not then be concerned at all to ask what they are but simply be glad that they are. I shall joyfully allow them the mystery of what C. S. Lewis called their “divine, magical, terrifying and ecstatic” existence.

I shall sometimes look back at the freshness of vision I had in childhood and try, at least for a little while, to be, in the words of Lewis Carroll, “the child of the pure unclouded brow, and dreaming eyes of wonder.”

I shall follow Darwin’s advice and turn frequently to imaginative things such as good literature and good music, preferably, as Lewis suggests, an old book and timeless music.

I shall not allow the devilish onrush of this century to usurp all my energies but will instead, as Charles Williams suggested, “fulfill the moment as the moment.” I shall try to keep truly alive now just because the only time that exists is now.

If for nothing more than the sake of a change of view, I shall assume my ancestry to be from the heavens rather than from the caves. Even if I turn out to be wrong, I shall bet my life on the assumption that this world is not idiotic, neither run by an absentee landlord, but that today some stroke is being added to the cosmic canvas that in due course I shall under-stand, with joy, as a stroke made by the architect who calls Himself Alpha and Omega