I have said for quite some time now that I need to read more C.S. Lewis. My first step is reading through his collection of sermons and essays, compiled in a book entitled, Weight of Glory. After three chapters, I am convinced that we would all do well to read more of Lewis. The following quote is a bit long, but it is well worth typing out and reading. It’s from the very beginning of Lewis’ sermon, Weight of Glory. If you can find it online, let me know

If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you had asked almost any of the great Christians of old, he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative idea of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love.

Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desire not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased.