Wallace Falls

We are, however, much helped in this necessary work by that very feature of our experience at which we most repine. The invitation to turn our natural loves into Charity is never lacking. It is provided by those frictions and frustrations that meet us in all of them; unmistakable evidence that (natural) love is not going to be "enough"- unmistakable, unless we are blinded by egotism. When we are, we use them absurdly. "If only I had been more fortunate in my children (that boy gets more like his father every day) I could have loved them perfectly." But every child is sometimes infuriating; most children are not infrequently odious. "If only my husband were more considerate, less lazy, less extravagant"..."If only my wife had fewer moods and more sense, and were less extravegant"..."If only my father wasn't so infernally prosy and close-fisted." But in everyone, and of course in ourselves, there is that which requires forbearence, tolerance, forgiveness. The necessity of practising these virtues first sets us, forces us, upon the attempt to turn -more stictly, to let God turn- our love into Charity. These frets and rubs are beneficial. It may be that where there are fewest of them the conversion of natural love is most difficult. When they are plentiful the necessity of rising above it is obvious. To rise above it when it is as fully satisfied and as little impeded as earthly conditions allow -to see that we must rise when all seems so well already- this may require a sublter conversion and a more delicate insight. In this way also it might be hard for the "rich" to enter the kingdom.

-C.S. Lewis (The Four Loves)

There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart ot 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. The alternative to tragedy, or at least the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

I believe that the most lawless and inordinate loves are less contrary to God's will than a self-invented and self-protective lovelessness... We shall draw nearer to God, not be trying to avoid the suffereings inherint in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armour. If our hearts need to be broken, and if He choses this as a way in which they should break, so be it.

-C.S. Lewis (The Four Loves)

Mt. Rainier

It says in Romans 1 that..."What may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities- His eternal power and divine nature- have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse." God makes His nature and power show through His creation so that we can see it in everything He has made. From the smallest insect to Mount Rainier it is clearly seen. What a wonderful God we serve that will make Himself so plain to us as and give us beauty for all to enjoy. I think I'll follow in Sophie's footsteps and say, "Thank you God for making mountains like this."