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All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.
Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:
I talk of love --a scholar's parrot may talk Greek--
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.
Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack.
I see the chasm. And everything you are was making
My heart into a bridge by which I might get back
From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.
For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains
You give me are more precious than all other gains.
Clive Staples Lewis
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Thursday, January 01, 2004 |
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Read poems about / on: peace, god, heart, friend
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Comments about this poem (As the Ruin Falls
by
Clive Staples Lewis
) |
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Phillip Freebourn (2/8/2008 2:25:00 PM)
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I learned this poem through Phil Keaggy when he put a tune to it and placed it on his Love Broke Thru album back in the early 70's. I was in love with Lewis (and Keaggy's) work ever since. What a profound ability to capture our spiritual struggle and place it in words that resound through ages.
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Jan How (11/3/2005 4:42:00 AM)
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How true is this. It's a really honest way to pray. Seeing myself as i really am actually draws me closer to God. CS Lewis had such insight.
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Poets
