On September 11, 1963 Lewis writes to Arthur Greeves:
“The only real snag [in Lewis’s condition of health] is that
it looks as if you and I shall never meet again in this life. This often
saddens me v. much.
“W., [Warnie] meanwhile, has completely deserted me. He has
been in Ireland
since June and doesn’t even write…
“I am glad you are fairly well…But oh Arthur, never to see
you again!”
[All excerpts from letters taken from The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Walter Hooper editor, Harper San Francisco.]
Warnie is still absent, he has completely deserted Lewis – he will
return before the final page is written, but for four months he has been gone
in spite of numerous entreaties from Jack’s friends.
Arthur is not in the best of
health, so a journey from Ireland
to England may not be
possible on his end any more than a trip from England
to Ireland
is possible for Jack. Friends since boyhood, confidants; cherishing their time
together – indeed – jealously guarding their time together. What must their
talks have been like as they matured over the years?
A brother who won’t return home
to be with him; a friend who would come but likely cannot.
As I read and reread this letter
of Lewis’s it makes me want to return to The
Four Loves and review his treatment of friendship, for Lewis’s words, “But
oh Arthur, never to see you again!” are words that once read, I can’t forget.
In The Four Loves Lewis writes concerning friendship:
“To the Ancients, Friendship
seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves; the crown of life and
the school of virtue. The modern world, in comparison, ignores it. We admit of
course that besides a wife and family a man needs a few “friends.” But the very
tone of the admission, and the sort of acquaintanceships which those who make
it would describe as “friendships,” show clearly that what they are talking
about has very little to do with that Philia
which Aristotle classified among the virtues or that Amicitia on which Cicero
wrote a book. It is something quite marginal; not a main course in life’s
banquet; a diversion; something that fills up the chunks of one’s time…”
While Lewis was a man of great
intellect, he was also a man of great imagination as well as a man of great passion.
Those who gravitate toward Mere
Christianity and never touch Narnia or Till
We Have Faces may indeed benefit from Lewis’s work, but they have only
touched one facet of the man; and the same can be said for any isolated
approach to Lewis. Of course that’s fine in that interaction with a man’s body
of work is not necessarily interaction with the man (or woman) on a level
beyond the work in question; and Lewis himself indicated that a “work” should
stand on its own – apart from the person who produced it. On one level I agree
with Lewis; we need not know the creator of the work to appreciate the work;
then again, my own experience has been that often knowing the man or woman (to
some degree) behind the work helps me better appreciate the work. It can lend
credence to the work in that I can see that the person endeavors to live what
he or she promotes and teaches; it can also provide biographical context to
help me see how life’s experience may have influenced what the author or artist
produced. On the other hand, knowing something about the creator of a work can
also juxtapose the person and work and remind me that we’re all fallible and
that God can still use us.
As I look at what I’ve just
written I realize that I am writing more about historical authors than contemporary
ones; contemporary authors are lives in process and by-and-large I don’t have
much interest in getting to know them in the way that I enjoy getting to know
Lewis or Fenelon or Andrew Murray. I also realize that I am selective in
wanting to know historical authors; after all, one can only have so many
relationships with people – whether they are alive or dead. Now if you’ll
pardon this digression let me get to where I am going…
While we can certainly view Lewis
through his writing and speaking, we can also view Lewis through his
relationships in general and through his friendships in particular. Greeves,
Dyson, Tolkien, Barfield, Sayer, Green, Williams, Davidman…the list goes on –
from boyhood to his exit from the Shadowlands, relationships in general and
friendships in particular shaped Lewis’s life; a commitment to an Army friend
to care for his mother led Lewis to what many consider a strange and
problematic relationship with Mrs. Moore, one that observers might conclude
limited Jack’s life for most of his life.
To C.S. Lewis friendship was not
a marginal item in life’s banquet, it was essential to the main course. With
all of the emphasis on small groups in today’s professing church, with all of
the “high-touch” approaches to ministry, how many of us have the enduring
friendships that Lewis and his friends experienced with each other? How are we
inculcating the importance of friendship in our children, our youth, and in our
churches?
If you and I knew today that we
had but a short time to live, is there a friend to whom we would write the
words, “Oh my friend…to think that I’ll never see you again!”? Is there someone
who would write those words to us?
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