The Four Loves

Please run, don't walk, to your nearest Barnes & Noble to grab this book. It's by this little known theologian/author out there named C.S. Lewis - ever heard of him?

Kidding.

For years now, I have heard of people being transformed by the writing and thinking of Lewis. I have even tried to pick up several of his books a few times and felt that his ideas were a little too lofty for my wandering mind to grasp. However, I decided that I was going to do it. I went to the bookstore one random evening this summer, picked out a book that I was unfamiliar with, and got started. Here's what I learned - that he has a gift for articulating the Christian perspective. Now, I know what you're thinking. And believe me, I know that I'm not onto something groundbreaking here...I mean, people have studied and revered him for almost a century now. But there is just something so exciting about a personal relationship with Christ that goes deeper. One day you can hardly fight through a chapter of a book and then the next day you can't put it down. Just like everything in life, it's all about timing. The words that spoke to me today will not be the words that will speak to me next year and so on. The book is broken up into four chapters and I won't even pretend to summarize it, but I will tell you that it has an amazing perspective on how we view love and where Christ falls into place.

The chapter that that I felt most connected with was the chapter on Friendship. Lewis outlines it perfectly, there is no better portrait of a true friend than God. It was such a fresh perspective for me to realize that some of Christ's most loyal and intimate relationships occured through this kind of spiritual bond. Anyway, I encourage you to check it out - it's a great read with lots of wonderful quotes.

The preceding pages have, I hope, made clear why to me at least it seems no wonder if our ancestors regarded Friendship as something that raised us above humanity. This love, free from instinct, free from all duties but those which love has freely assume, almost wholly free from jealousy, and free without qualification from the need to be needed, is eminently spiritual. It is sort of love one can imagine between angels. Have we here found a natural love which is Love itself?

~C.S. Lewis