Lewis on Virtue
Tuesday, 13 December, 2005
Lewis noted in the dedication of his book A Preface to Paradise Lost that “when the old poets made some virtue their theme, they were not teaching but adoring, and that what we take for the didactic is often the enchanted.” It is the merger of the moral and the imaginative—the vision of virtue itself as adorable, even ravishing—that makes Lewis so distinctive.
(Source)
Current:
Bible: Isaiah (ESV) 28/09/2010
seen: Tropic Thunder 26/09/2010
seen: The Life of Mammals 24/09/2010
seen: What a Girl Wants 19/09/2010
seen: Jerry Maguire 19/09/2010
seen: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 06/09/2010
seen: Tomorrow Never Dies 05/09/2010
seen: Nanny McPhee 28/08/2010
read: Mercury (Hope Larson) 27/08/2010
read: Spellcheckers Vol 1 (Jamie S Rich, Nicolas Hitori de, Joelle Jones) 16/08/2010
read: Solipsistic Pop Vol 2 (Solipsistic Pop) 16/08/2010
read: Chiggers (Hope Larson) 15/08/2010
seen: Josie and the Pussycats 14/08/2010
seen: Mr & Mrs Smith 14/08/2010
seen: Step Up 2 13/08/2010
Blinks:
How to recalibrate the home button on your iPhone.
Unsolicited manuscripts accepted by Pan Macmillan with certain conditions.
Thought Balloon is a group blog in which the writers tackle a new theme every week? month? with one-page scripts. This URL is for their Phonogram ones.
How to sew a zipper on a knitted garment.
Issues organised by tale.
Online magazine that publishes fairy tales that are not reworkings of old tales.
Journal that publishes fairy tale writing.
|
|
Disqus comments
Other comments
I have just been reading Psalm 119 - a Psalm I’ve avoided with an almost obsessive passion since I was a young girl. Partly because it was so long, partly because I didn’t understand most of it (and I hate reading things I don’t understand) and partly because someone I know well told me it was their favourite Psalm. From the little I could understand, the Psalm just seemed to be about “The Law”, which I thought was simply a bunch of rules, and was not excited by the idea that it could be somebodies favourite!!!
But finally, finally, I succumbed, and read it through. It was long, it was boring, and I’m still a little turned off. The small commentary I read pointed out a few of the structural aspects (mildly more interesing than the Psalm itself) and re-emphasised that it was a love song to the law… WHAT???!!! How could you love the law so much as to write such a long acrostic in adoration? and the Psalm so clearly displays love of the law as an extreme virtue…
This Lewis quote about adoration reminds me again how immature my love for God is. I don’t even delight in the way He says is righteousness… Psalm 119 still appears to me didactic…
(oops, sorry, rather long…)