Thoughts on C.S. Lewis' "The Weight of Glory".

Thoughts on C.S. Lewis’ “The Weight of Glory”.

He speaks of many ideas in this essay, but what pulls at my heart today is the weight of our neighbor’s glory and how it rests on our backs.

He says, “The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor’s glory should be laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you say it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or the other destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations-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 splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But out 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 neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbor, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him is also Christ vere latitat- the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.”

So, if my neighbor is almost as holy as the Sacrament, how then do I treat him? With what words do I speak? How carefully do I consider what he needs instead of my own interests?

I am inspired to look at him with different eyes and with a different heart. But how will I really act? It seems dishonest to say that I will from this day forward speak kindly and never think of myself or what I desire instead of that of whom I interact with. I know that isn’t true. I am human with all the accompanying faults. But there is an exquisite beauty in the journey though it winds with pain, glory, tears and triumph. Being able to see someone like that is the greatest gift and with it comes the greatest responsibility. I know that of which I speak. I have seen the glory of God. I feel Him in other's presence. I can physically feel their burden on my back and I am praying for the strength to carry it and for the Savior to carry me when it becomes more than I can bear. I struggle to keep it in the uppermost part of my mind so my choices run through it as through a sieve of holy protection. May I learn to look at everyone through these eyes.