- 12 hours ago
The Most Reluctant Convert- The Untold Story of C.S. Lewis Full Movie
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00:00You
00:00:27Hey, they're ready, Phoenix. Oh, good
00:00:29It is black. Excellent. Thank you.
00:00:31Okay, we're on our way.
00:00:45Okay, one minute till we shoot. Thank you, guys. Let's be ready.
00:00:50Yeah, here we go.
00:00:56Is this my chair?
00:00:58Let's have a red-light bell, please.
00:01:01Where's my phone?
00:01:03Where's my phone?
00:01:05Roll sound.
00:01:08Camera!
00:01:10All right, how's my hair? How's my hair?
00:01:11It's looking good.
00:01:13All right, nice and quiet, please. Ready for a take.
00:01:19Camera's rolling. Set.
00:01:22One take one.
00:01:23Market.
00:01:26Quiet.
00:01:29And buy and...
00:01:32Action.
00:01:34When I was an atheist, if you had asked me,
00:01:39Why do you not believe in God?
00:01:41I would have answered.
00:01:43Look at the universe we live in.
00:01:46Mostly empty space, completely dark, unimaginably cold.
00:01:50Most scientists think it improbable that any planet in our solar system sustains life.
00:01:57And Earth herself existed without life for millions of years.
00:02:01And may exist millions more after life has once again left her.
00:02:06And what is life?
00:02:08So arranged that creatures live only by preying on another.
00:02:14In the lower forms, this means only death.
00:02:17In the higher forms, something called consciousness enables the living to experience pain.
00:02:24Creatures are born in pain, live by inflicting pain, and mostly die in pain.
00:02:30In the most complex of all creatures, man, another quality appears.
00:02:36Reason.
00:02:38And by reason we can foresee our own pain.
00:02:42This we call suffering.
00:02:44We can foresee our own death while keenly desiring to go on living.
00:02:49Reason enables humans to invent hundreds of ingenious ways of inflicting a great deal more pain than we could have done as irrational creatures.
00:02:59Oh, this power we have exploited to the full.
00:03:04History's our record of crime, war, disease, terror.
00:03:08With just enough happiness to give us an agonized fear of losing it.
00:03:13And when lost, the poignant misery of remembering how good it felt.
00:03:19Every now and then our condition is improved by what we call civilization.
00:03:29But do all civilizations pass away?
00:03:32That our own civilization will pass away is surely probable.
00:03:35And even if it should not pass away, we're all doomed.
00:03:40The universe is doomed.
00:03:42The astronomers hold out no hope that this planet is permanently inhabitable.
00:03:47The physicists hold out no hope that organic life is a permanent possibility in any part of the material universe.
00:03:53Not only this Earth, but the whole show.
00:03:57All the suns of space are to run down.
00:04:00Nature is a sinking ship.
00:04:05So, if you asked me to believe all this I've just described as the work of an omnipotent, benevolent God,
00:04:11I would have laughed and said the evidence points in the opposite direction.
00:04:15Either there's no God behind the universe.
00:04:17A God indifferent to good and evil.
00:04:20Or worse, an evil God.
00:04:23Never dreamed of raising the question if the universe is so bad.
00:04:28Or even half so bad.
00:04:30How on earth did humans ever come to attribute it to the work of a wise and good creator?
00:04:34Oh, men are fools.
00:04:36But not so foolish as that.
00:04:37Is that the direct inference from black to white?
00:04:40From evil flower to virtuous root?
00:04:43From senseless work to a workman infinitely wise?
00:04:47Stacker's belief.
00:04:51No, I did not believe God existed.
00:04:54But I was angry at God for not existing.
00:04:57Why should creatures have the burden of existence forced upon them without their consent?
00:05:07I lost my mother to cancer.
00:05:23Had a strange relationship with my father that I regret even now.
00:05:27Was in the trenches during the great war.
00:05:30The hell where youth and laughter go.
00:05:33Only to see horribly smashed men still moving about like crushed beetles.
00:05:40Mortar shell that wounded me killed the man next to me splattering shrapnel.
00:05:44Some of which I carry in my body to this day.
00:05:46When I returned to Oxford after the war in 1919, they read the minutes to my college's last meeting from 1914.
00:06:05Nothing made me realize more thoroughly the absolute waste of those years.
00:06:12I was asked, were you much frightened in France?
00:06:16All the time I said, but I never sank so low as to pray.
00:06:21Some people have got the impression from my books that I was raised in a strict and vivid puritanism.
00:06:27This is untrue.
00:06:28Mr Lewis.
00:06:31Roger.
00:06:32Usual, please.
00:06:33You?
00:06:35Make that too.
00:06:36I'll get these.
00:06:37Eight will find us a table.
00:06:38You can have this one.
00:06:41There you go.
00:06:42All done.
00:06:44No, religious experience has not occurred in my family.
00:06:50Was taught the usual things.
00:06:51Made to say my prayers.
00:06:53Due time taking the church.
00:06:56Can't remember feeling much interest in it.
00:06:59Cheers.
00:07:04Father was a solicitor in Belfast, Ireland.
00:07:07He was Welsh by blood.
00:07:09Passionate.
00:07:10Rhetorical.
00:07:11Laughed and cried a great deal.
00:07:14Had almost no talent for happiness.
00:07:17Mother was of a cooler race.
00:07:19He was tranquil, affectionate.
00:07:22Oh, she had a talent for happiness.
00:07:24Went straight for it.
00:07:25As an experienced traveler goes for the best seat on a train.
00:07:34I lived in a large house that to a small boy seemed like a city.
00:07:39I am a product of long corridors.
00:07:49Empty, sunlit rooms.
00:07:51Attics explored in solitude.
00:07:55Distant noises of gurgling cisterns and pipes.
00:07:58The noise of wind under the tiles.
00:08:02And endless books.
00:08:07Books readable and unreadable.
00:08:11Books suitable for a child and books emphatically not.
00:08:15Nothing was forbidden.
00:08:18In the seemingly endless rainy afternoons.
00:08:22I almost literally read my way through the house.
00:08:26Jack!
00:08:31You'll never guess what I found.
00:08:34Quick!
00:08:35Quick, wait for me!
00:08:37Catch up!
00:08:39Hey Jack, now stop!
00:08:41Don't disturb your father!
00:08:44Boys!
00:08:46Boys!
00:08:48Boys!
00:08:51Boys?
00:08:53Happy days.
00:09:03My brother Warney and I enjoyed them to the full.
00:09:11Until the great loss that befell our family.
00:09:14One night, my father in tears came into my room to convey to my terrified mind
00:09:24things I'd never conceived of.
00:09:27My mother had cancer.
00:09:29The doctor said we can't...
00:09:31I don't think children suffer less than their elders, they suffer differently.
00:09:35So we have to be strong.
00:09:37And as our whole existence changed into something alien and menacing...
00:09:42Your mother loves you very much.
00:09:45The house became full of strange smells.
00:09:49Midnight noises.
00:09:51And sinister, whispered conversations.
00:10:03My brother Warney and I lost our mother gradually as she was slowly withdrawn from our life into the hands of nurses' delirium.
00:10:10Nurses' delirium and morphia.
00:10:17Oh, doctor, thank goodness.
00:10:18The disease followed the usual course, an operation.
00:10:22They operated in the patient's house in those days.
00:10:25An apparent recovery.
00:10:27A return of the disease.
00:10:29Increasing pain.
00:10:32Death.
00:10:34When mother died, all settled happiness disappeared from our lives.
00:10:42The great continent had sunk.
00:10:45It was only sea and islands now.
00:10:48To the islands now.
00:10:49my father never recovered
00:11:12under the pressure he spoke wildly acted unjustly
00:11:19thus this unfortunate man was losing his sons as well as his wife
00:11:23my brother warning i had already begun to lie to him
00:11:28we were two frightened urchins huddled for warmth in a bleak world
00:11:33mother's death occasion would some might say that not i my
00:11:40first religious experience when my mother's case was pronounced hopeless
00:11:45i remembered what i had been taught that prayers
00:11:48offered in faith would be granted accordingly
00:11:52i set myself to produce in prayer a firm belief for her recovery
00:11:58when she died i shifted ground i worked myself into belief that there was to be
00:12:04a miracle oh i approached god well not as savior
00:12:10as judge but as magician i simply wanted him to
00:12:14restore the status quo and when he had done what was required of him
00:12:20he would simply go away
00:12:22but prayer hadn't worked
00:12:27oh i was used to things not working thought no more about it
00:12:32mother's death among other things produced in me a deeply ingrained pessimism
00:12:47oh i was by no means unhappy but i had definitely formed the opinion
00:12:54that the universe in the main was a rather regrettable institution
00:12:58father's melancholy was a contributing factor
00:13:11prosperous man who by our present tax-ridden standards would be described as incredibly secure
00:13:19expressed adult life as one unremitting struggle
00:13:25best one could hope for according to him was to avoid the workhouse
00:13:34this only by extreme exertion never thought to check his highly colored comments against the obvious fact
00:13:44that we were living very comfortable lives
00:13:46temperamental widower still grieving the loss of his wife
00:13:51must be very wise to raise two noisy school boys who reserve their confidence only for each other
00:13:58the same scene reenacted time after time
00:14:04well
00:14:09when he opened his mouth to reprove us he no doubt intended a short well-chosen appeal to our common sense
00:14:18have you nothing to say in your defense
00:14:21but alas he had been a public prosecutor long before he had become a father
00:14:26words came to him and intoxicated him as they came
00:14:32never in all my born days have i come across such recalcitrant behavior
00:14:39disobedience
00:14:44deliberate disobedience and willfulness such as would dismay the very founders of our civilization
00:14:54what happened was a small boy who left the bathroom in a pickle found himself attacked
00:15:02like cicero on catiline simile on simile rhetorical question on rhetorical question the flash of an orator's eye
00:15:11the gestures the cadences
00:15:14the pauses
00:15:17the pauses
00:15:17the pauses were the chief danger
00:15:21well
00:15:22one was so long
00:15:27that my brother
00:15:28assuming the denunciation to have ended
00:15:31humbly picked up his book and resumed reading
00:15:34a gesture which my father
00:15:36who had only made a rhetorical miscalculation
00:15:40of about a second and a half described as
00:15:43cool premeditated insolence
00:15:46the disproportion between the tirades and what prompted them
00:15:51was ludicrous
00:15:52from the wilderness of words emerged ideas i took literally
00:15:57perhaps i should board up the house
00:16:00keep you both in school all year round
00:16:05and that we should be sent
00:16:08to the colonies
00:16:10to end in misery the career of crime on which you have both already embarked
00:16:20such was the effect of my father's rhetoric
00:16:27until i began to perceive him as ridiculous
00:16:31at fourteen i ceased to be a christian
00:16:38that age one barely notices
00:16:41at school all the teachers and book editors took it for granted
00:16:47that religion was some sort of endemic nonsense into which humanity tended to blunder
00:16:52in the midst of a thousand false religions
00:16:56stood our own
00:16:59the thousand and first
00:17:00labelled completely true
00:17:03on what grounds i asked why was it treated so differently
00:17:10differently oh i was eager not to if adonis could be explained away then why not christ
00:17:16so little by little i became an apostate dropping my faith with no sense of loss and with the greatest relief
00:17:24oh there was no faith hope or charity in my religion i feared not god but hell and heaven was only the lesser of two intolerable evils
00:17:34oh i became a vigorous debunker and argued there's no proof any religion and that christianity is not even the best
00:17:42religion was invented to explain things a terrified primitive man thunder pestilence
00:17:48snakes
00:17:49what could be more natural than suppose they were animated by spirits and that by
00:17:54singing songs and making sacrifices one might appease them
00:17:58great men such as hercules and odin were thought to be gods after their death
00:18:03hence after the death of a hebrew philosopher
00:18:06yeshua whose name we have corrupted into jesus a cult sprang up and christianity began just another
00:18:14mythology among many oh these superstitions always held by
00:18:20common people but educated thinking ones have always stood outside it conceding to it
00:18:27only out of convenience and i was not prepared to believe in a bogeyman who would torture me forever
00:18:35ever because i failed to live up to an impossible standard
00:18:50with my deliberate withdrawal from divine protection i underwent a successful assault of sexual temptation
00:18:58part of it was the age i had reached the electric effect was a dancing mistress
00:19:03she was the first woman to speak to my blood whom i looked upon to lust after
00:19:10good morning boys
00:19:12good morning miss
00:19:14this was of no fault of her own a gesture tone of voice has unpredictable results
00:19:20these matters as it happened the schoolroom was decorated for a dance she came in and said
00:19:27i love the smell of bunting and i was undone
00:19:34now let us begin follow my every move thank you elsie
00:19:41up and down and up and dainty toes dainty toes very good dainty toes very good dainty toes very good
00:19:56and round sway sway sway
00:20:03this was not a knight devoting himself to a lady more like a turk looking at a circadian woman he could
00:20:09not afford i knew what i wanted
00:20:13you might think this produced guilt guilt was not a thing i knew
00:20:25well done boys well done
00:20:28i had been a tender-hearted boy but now i labored hard to become a fop a cad a snob i was at that time as non moral as a human creature could be
00:20:45oh lewis
00:20:48do enjoy the holidays won't you
00:20:52yes miss
00:20:54oh there you are
00:21:02where have you been
00:21:03sorry father
00:21:04oh come on come on
00:21:05it won't wait you know
00:21:06thank you
00:21:07i could not tell my father of my change of belief oh he was no fool
00:21:18he didn't have a streak of genius
00:21:20but for a man who was formidable in court and i presume efficient in his office
00:21:26he had more power for confusing an issue than any man i have ever known
00:21:41what
00:21:42oh the first barrier to communication was having asked the question he would not stay for the answer
00:21:51tell him
00:21:52that a boy called churchwood had caught a mouse and kept it as a pet
00:21:58he would ask
00:21:59whatever became of young chickweed
00:22:02i was so afraid of rats
00:22:04who
00:22:05who
00:22:06sir
00:22:07chickweed
00:22:10oh
00:22:11i think you mean churchwood
00:22:13it was a mouse
00:22:15not a rat
00:22:16and he wasn't afraid of it
00:22:19at all
00:22:20attempts to correct his version
00:22:23produced an incredulous
00:22:25that's not the story you used to tell
00:22:29my boy
00:22:30all this explains though does not excuse one of the worst acts of my life
00:22:40i allowed myself to prepare for confirmation
00:22:43be confirmed make my first communion
00:22:47all in total disbelief
00:22:51acting a part
00:22:53eating and drinking my own condemnation
00:22:56oh
00:22:57i knew i was acting a lie
00:22:59i simply could not tell my father my real views
00:23:04not that he would have stormed
00:23:06let's talk the whole thing over he would have said
00:23:09but the thread would have been lost at once
00:23:11his arguments
00:23:13i would not have valued a straw
00:23:16the beauty of the authorized version
00:23:19the christian tradition
00:23:21oh it was all sentiment
00:23:24and if i tried to make my exact points clear
00:23:29there would have been thunder from him
00:23:31and a thin peevish rattle from me
00:23:34nor could the subject ever have been dropped
00:23:38all this i
00:23:40ought to have dared
00:23:42rather than the thing i did
00:23:46oh it seems impossible at the time
00:23:50cowardice
00:23:52drove me to hypocrisy
00:23:55and hypocrisy
00:23:56to blasphemy
00:23:59the years passed
00:24:10then the most fortunate thing happened
00:24:11bit more to the right please
00:24:12my father had declared that he would send my brother to a tutor
00:24:16in surrey south of london
00:24:18thank you
00:24:19in a surprisingly short time this tutor
00:24:22had so rebuilt the ruins of warney's education
00:24:26that he passed into sandhurst
00:24:28and received a prized army cadetship
00:24:31for some time my own schooling had been going nowhere
00:24:36it had neither engaged my mind nor my heart
00:24:39but seeing my brother's progress
00:24:42i finally plucked up the courage to ask
00:24:45jack jack are you up there
00:24:53come on boy
00:24:54well get your coat
00:24:56we're ten minutes late already
00:24:57we're ten minutes late already
00:25:04papa
00:25:05you know when you sent warney off to surrey
00:25:08to your old tutor mr kurt patrick
00:25:11yes the great knock we used to call him
00:25:14warney seemed to benefit from him greatly
00:25:16he did he did he's a fine teacher
00:25:19i've been thinking
00:25:24might it not be good
00:25:28to send me to surrey too
00:25:30well there'll be no other boys
00:25:38you won't be able to play your games
00:25:41i tried to look brave
00:25:43no other boys
00:25:45never to play games
00:25:47i was transported
00:25:50ah yes this is the day
00:26:11the rest of my life really began to happen
00:26:21i was still in my teens when i made my way over to england and down to surrey to meet my new tutor
00:26:28i wasn't sure what to expect
00:26:30at first sight
00:26:31at first sight
00:26:32he seemed decent enough
00:26:38hello
00:26:39lovely to meet you
00:26:40i'm william t kirkpatrick
00:26:42the great knock
00:26:46his grip was like iron pinces
00:26:48follow me
00:26:49i remember feeling the need to make conversation in the deplorable manner i felt necessary to use my father
00:27:00i was quite surprised by the scenery of surrey sir
00:27:03it's really much wilder than i expected
00:27:05stop
00:27:06what do you mean by wildness
00:27:08and on what grounds have you based your expectations on the flora and geology of surrey
00:27:15was it maps
00:27:16photographs
00:27:17books
00:27:18sorry sir
00:27:19as answer after answer was torn to shreds
00:27:23kirk concluded that my comment was meaningless
00:27:26and that i had no right to have any opinion whatsoever on the subject
00:27:30never occurred to me that my thoughts needed to be based on anything
00:27:36that conversation lasted three minutes
00:27:40and set the tone for my two years in surrey
00:27:44kirk's ruthless dialectic was the only way he spoke
00:27:51it was an astonishment to kirk
00:27:54that you should not want to be corrected
00:27:57kirk lived with his wife in a comfortable and secluded cottage on the edge of the village
00:28:05it was all rather wonderful
00:28:08welcome
00:28:09welcome
00:28:10now you put your case down there
00:28:13i felt welcomed as soon as i stepped inside
00:28:17the whole place was stuffed with books
00:28:21i had come home
00:28:23and this is my wife
00:28:26louisa
00:28:27pleased to meet you mrs kirkpatrick
00:28:29our pleasures are
00:28:30the name we'll show you up to your room
00:28:31what have you all prepared
00:28:32come down when you're ready
00:28:33come down when you're ready
00:28:34and we'll start knocking that mind of yours into shape
00:28:37here you are
00:28:44hope you like it
00:28:46oh and by the way
00:28:49don't worry about my husband
00:28:51he likes to argue
00:28:54a lot
00:28:56most boys would have cowered at all this
00:28:58i loved the treatment
00:28:59i loved the treatment
00:29:00it was red beef
00:29:01and strong beer
00:29:03after a few knockdowns
00:29:04i began to put on some intellectual muscle
00:29:07and became a bit of a sparring partner to my new tutor
00:29:12if i could please myself i'd always live as i lived here
00:29:22breakfast at eight
00:29:23at my desk by nine
00:29:24to read and write to precisely one
00:29:27then lunch
00:29:29that was absolutely delicious
00:29:31thank you mrs kirkpatrick
00:29:32i'm
00:29:33oh yes
00:29:34i was encouraged to eat as well as to think
00:29:43or for a walk by two
00:29:45not with a friend
00:29:46walking and talking are two great pleasures
00:29:49but it is a mistake to combine them
00:29:51our noise blots out the sounds and silences of the outer world
00:29:58thank you
00:30:01my return and the arrival of tea would coincide at exactly four
00:30:06taken in solitude
00:30:07eating and reading are two pleasures that combine admirable
00:30:11work till seven deep into the classics
00:30:15not sparing the horses
00:30:25good talk all evening all challenging brain rattling stuff
00:30:29in bed by eleven unless you're making a night of it at the pub with your cronies
00:30:34possible
00:30:36you're still a little shaky on accuracy
00:30:38and i fear you've missed my point about the classics entirely
00:30:44he that neither knoweth nor will be taught by the instruction of the wise
00:30:52this man is not
00:30:55Herodotus
00:30:57he knew a thing or two
00:30:59that's not Herodotus
00:31:03it's Hesiod
00:31:05perfect
00:31:06it's from his poem
00:31:08days and work
00:31:10i have it somewhere
00:31:11here
00:31:12good man
00:31:16good man
00:31:21my work was mostly latin and greek
00:31:25Homer first
00:31:26oh still relished the brightness and music of it
00:31:30then the two great bores
00:31:33Cicero and Demosthenes could not be avoided
00:31:37followed by Lucretius
00:31:38followed by Lucretius
00:31:39oh
00:31:40the glory
00:31:41Herodotus
00:31:43Aeschylus
00:31:44Euripides
00:31:45had no taste for Virgil
00:31:47in the evening
00:31:49we mastered French
00:31:50Italian and German
00:31:51plunging into the likes of Voltaire
00:31:53Faust
00:31:54and the inferno
00:31:55Kirk was my great teacher
00:32:00my debt remains to this day
00:32:04as for religion he was a Presbyterian atheist
00:32:08on Sundays he gardened in nicer clothes
00:32:15among the poets i was reading at the time
00:32:19one stood apart
00:32:21William Butler Yeats
00:32:24he believed that there was a world
00:32:27beyond the material curtain
00:32:29and that contact with that world was possible
00:32:33oh i regarded Yeats as a learned responsible writer
00:32:37later when i met him i was awed by his personality
00:32:41and he rejected the whole materialist philosophy out of hand
00:32:46if Yeats had been a Christian
00:32:49i would have discounted him
00:32:50i had Christians placed disposed of
00:32:53for ever
00:32:56Yeats offered something else
00:32:58a perhaps
00:33:00and through this perhaps
00:33:01a drop of disturbing doubt
00:33:03fell into my materialism
00:33:05and introduced me to something i've had trouble with ever since
00:33:08a ravenous desire for the supernatural
00:33:11or to put it bluntly
00:33:13the occult
00:33:14i once tried to describe it in a novel
00:33:28it's a spiritual lust
00:33:31and like the lust of the flesh
00:33:33has the fatal power of making everything else seem
00:33:37uninteresting while it lasts
00:33:39oh i love the vagueness of it
00:33:41circles
00:33:43pentangles
00:33:45Ouija boards
00:33:46seances
00:33:47all seemed able to raise a spirit
00:33:50oh this magic
00:33:52no connection to my atheism
00:33:54swayed me in different moods
00:33:57and that it was scorned by both Christians and rationalists
00:34:01appealed to the rebel in me
00:34:03my descent
00:34:06was from eccentricity
00:34:09to perversity
00:34:11the world and the flesh had made their appearance
00:34:14now came
00:34:16the devil
00:34:18had there been an elder in the neighborhood who dabbled in dirt
00:34:23oh they have a nose for potential disciples
00:34:28i might now be a satanist
00:34:31or a maniac
00:34:35then
00:34:37in the super abundance of mercy
00:34:41came that event which i have attempted to describe in many of my books
00:34:52i was in the habit of walking a few miles to leatherhead station
00:34:56and taking the train back to kirk's
00:35:04while waiting for the train i rummaged in the secondhand bookstore
00:35:09and picked out an unusual title
00:35:12Fantasties
00:35:14by George MacDonald
00:35:17it looked a little unusual
00:35:20i hadn't the faintest notion of what i'd let myself in for
00:35:26this one please
00:35:27er, Tom's please sir
00:35:28thank you very much sir
00:35:32sorry
00:35:34No!
00:35:36As i began to read my new book i was electrified i felt like a miner who had struck gold
00:35:47As I began to read my new book, I was electrified.
00:35:59I felt like a miner who had struck gold.
00:36:02In those pages, I met all that had charmed me and Yates and others.
00:36:08Yet everything was changed.
00:36:09The bright shadow coming out of this book transformed everything,
00:36:14and it would affect my own writing forever.
00:36:17It was as if I'd died in the old country and come alive in the new.
00:36:23All my occult and erotic fancies began to feel sordid, disarmed.
00:36:29What I really wanted was just out of reach,
00:36:34not because of something I could not do,
00:36:36but because of something I could not stop doing.
00:36:40Oh, if I could only let go, unmake myself.
00:36:44I did not know the name of this new quality.
00:36:51Oh, I do now.
00:36:53Holiness.
00:36:55That night, as I read Fantasties, my imagination was baptized.
00:37:01The rest of me took a little longer.
00:37:13I first met it as a memory that would arise suddenly without warning
00:37:17from a depth of not years, but centuries.
00:37:20The memory was from childhood when my brother brought to the lid of a biscuit tin,
00:37:30garnished with twigs and flowers to make a toy garden.
00:37:33It was the first beauty I had ever known.
00:37:38A sensation of desire.
00:37:42But before I knew what I desired, the desire was gone, withdrawn.
00:37:47The world turned common again.
00:37:49Since then, my constant endeavor was to get it again,
00:37:56in reading every book, going on every walk,
00:38:01listening to every piece of music.
00:38:04Occasionally, the sky would turn.
00:38:08Far more often, I frightened it away by my greed to have it.
00:38:14I call this desire joy,
00:38:23which must be distinguished very sharply from happiness or pleasure,
00:38:27except that anyone who has ever experienced joy will want it again.
00:38:33Apart from that, it might be called a particular kind of grief.
00:38:39But then it's the kind we want.
00:38:41It is the scent of a flower we have not found,
00:38:46the echo of a tune we've not heard,
00:38:51news from a country we have not yet visited.
00:38:57Though I doubt that anyone who has ever tasted joy
00:39:01would exchange it for all the pleasures in the world.
00:39:06But joy is never in our power.
00:39:11And pleasure is.
00:39:13At 18, I arrived at Oxford.
00:39:24The fabled cluster of towers and dreaming spires
00:39:27had never looked more beautiful.
00:39:31Less than a term later,
00:39:33like most in my generation,
00:39:35I enlisted in the army,
00:39:37was sent to the front lines in France.
00:39:39On my 19th birthday, to be exact.
00:39:46First bullet I heard brought not fear,
00:39:50but the thought,
00:39:52this is war.
00:39:54This is what Homer wrote about.
00:39:57Five months later,
00:39:59I was wounded and sent home.
00:40:01In between,
00:40:03I had the good luck to fall sick with trench fever.
00:40:10Compared to the trenches,
00:40:12a hospital bed and a book were heaven itself.
00:40:17And how are you tonight, Lieutenant Lewis?
00:40:20Fine.
00:40:20Thank you, nurse.
00:40:22Well, Stanley,
00:40:23time for your inspection, I think.
00:40:26Yes, nurse.
00:40:26Except that the night nurse was conducting
00:40:29a furious affair with my roommate.
00:40:32I was too sick to be embarrassed.
00:40:35But the sound of two lovers whispering in the nighttime
00:40:39is a tedious noise.
00:40:44It was here I first read G.K. Chesterton.
00:40:48Never heard of him,
00:40:49had no idea what he stood for,
00:40:51nor could I understand why he made such a conquest of me.
00:40:53His humour was the kind I liked.
00:40:56Oh, not jokes.
00:40:58Still less a tone of flippancy.
00:41:00Oh, that I cannot endure.
00:41:03Rather, his humour was the bloom of his argument.
00:41:08Strange as it seems,
00:41:10I liked him for his goodness.
00:41:11Oh, not that it had anything to do with being good myself.
00:41:15I did not have the cynic's nose for hypocrisy
00:41:19and smugness so common among my peers.
00:41:23In Chesterton, as in MacDonald,
00:41:32I did not know what I was letting myself in for.
00:41:35A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist
00:41:38cannot be too careful of his reading.
00:41:44After my convalescence,
00:41:46I returned to the front lines.
00:41:48Wait.
00:42:08The moment I was hit
00:42:33and found that I was not breathing,
00:42:36I concluded,
00:42:37this is death.
00:42:40I felt no fear,
00:42:42no courage,
00:42:43just the thought.
00:42:45Here lies a man
00:42:47dying.
00:42:49It wasn't even interesting.
00:42:52The fruit of this experience
00:42:53is there appeared a fully conscious I
00:42:55whose connection with me
00:42:57whose connection with me
00:42:57was coming to an end
00:42:59and I,
00:43:00whoever that may be,
00:43:02cared not too far from us.
00:43:04Oh, it was more than an abstraction.
00:43:06more than an abstraction.
00:43:10I tasted it.
00:43:17As for the rest of the war,
00:43:19the cold,
00:43:20the fear,
00:43:21the frights,
00:43:22the corpses,
00:43:25was a ghastly interruption
00:43:30to rational life.
00:43:33Now it feels like
00:43:35it happened to someone else.
00:43:39Except for the recurring nightmares.
00:43:41When I returned to Oxford,
00:43:54I put on a new look,
00:43:56which meant to act
00:43:58with the greatest good sense
00:43:59and to have no more flirtations
00:44:02with the supernatural.
00:44:07Directly after the war,
00:44:09I spent a fortnight
00:44:10with a man I dearly loved
00:44:12who was going mad.
00:44:14I held him
00:44:15as he wallowed on the floor
00:44:17and screamed,
00:44:18devils are tearing me apart.
00:44:21I'm falling into hell.
00:44:24I knew this man
00:44:25had flirted with all sorts
00:44:27of occult ideas
00:44:28as I had.
00:44:29Oh, perhaps there was no connection,
00:44:32but I took it as a warning
00:44:34to stay on the beaten track.
00:44:36The approved,
00:44:37material,
00:44:39center of the road
00:44:40with the lights on.
00:44:45Early days of my new look
00:44:47were quite happy.
00:44:48Busily engaged in my studies
00:44:50of classics, philosophy.
00:44:52At the time,
00:44:53we were all swept up
00:44:54by Freud and his new psychology.
00:44:57By my mid-twenties,
00:44:59I was elected
00:45:00a fellow at Magdalene College.
00:45:02Hence my career
00:45:03as a scholar and tutor began.
00:45:04After you, dear boy.
00:45:06The answer, of course,
00:45:07is that neither would take this position.
00:45:09Well, I agree.
00:45:09They even provided rooms for me here
00:45:11to read,
00:45:12to write for my tutorials.
00:45:16I had arrived.
00:45:19I felt like I'd found a home
00:45:21with some of the finest scholars
00:45:23I would ever meet.
00:45:24We were young,
00:45:25clear-headed,
00:45:27invincible.
00:45:27Then one day,
00:45:30my very dear friend,
00:45:32Owen Barfield,
00:45:33who satisfied my hunger
00:45:34for debate
00:45:35and rational opposition,
00:45:36announced
00:45:37that he had changed
00:45:39his views.
00:45:41He was no longer a materialist,
00:45:43but had become a theist.
00:45:46I was shocked.
00:45:47I thought Barfield was safe.
00:45:49He came from such a
00:45:50free-thinking family.
00:45:51He'd barely even heard
00:45:52of Christianity.
00:45:54Barfield brought up
00:45:55all the abominations,
00:45:56God,
00:45:57spirit,
00:45:58afterlife.
00:45:59I said,
00:46:00damn it, Owen.
00:46:01It's medieval.
00:46:03Damn it, Owen.
00:46:04It's medieval.
00:46:07You may say that, Jack,
00:46:08but the medieval world
00:46:09has a lot to teach us.
00:46:11You mean that the world is flat?
00:46:14Oh, come on, Jack.
00:46:15Be serious.
00:46:16Open your mind.
00:46:18I have.
00:46:19And as a wise man
00:46:20once said to me,
00:46:22he that neither knoweth...
00:46:23This started our great war.
00:46:25A philosophic disputation
00:46:27that lasted for years.
00:46:30I remember Barfield asking,
00:46:32Jack,
00:46:34do you believe that logic
00:46:35and reason bring forth
00:46:36indisputable truth?
00:46:37I do.
00:46:39And are your moral
00:46:39and aesthetic judgments
00:46:40valid and meaningful?
00:46:42They are.
00:46:43Then materialism
00:46:44must be abandoned.
00:46:45There is a hopeless discord
00:46:47between what our minds
00:46:47claim to be
00:46:48and what they really must be
00:46:50if materialism is true.
00:46:52We claim our minds
00:46:54to be reason,
00:46:56perceiving universal
00:46:57intellectual principles,
00:46:58moral laws,
00:46:58and possessing free will.
00:47:00But if materialism is true,
00:47:02our minds must in reality
00:47:03be merely chance arrangements
00:47:05of atoms in skulls.
00:47:06I, of course, argued back...
00:47:08We are to accept reality
00:47:09as it is revealed to us
00:47:11by our senses.
00:47:13And the findings of science
00:47:14have concluded
00:47:15that human reason
00:47:16is merely cognitive maps
00:47:17resulting from natural selection
00:47:19with random mutations
00:47:20over millions of years
00:47:22to confer on humans
00:47:23a reproductive advantage
00:47:24over other species.
00:47:25I had to say something.
00:47:29I'd been defending
00:47:30materialism for years.
00:47:32Look,
00:47:33if my clearest reasoning
00:47:36tells me
00:47:36that my mind
00:47:37is nothing more
00:47:39than the accidental result
00:47:40of atoms colliding
00:47:41in skulls,
00:47:42there must be
00:47:42some mistake.
00:47:44How should I trust
00:47:45my mind
00:47:45when it tells me
00:47:47that my most profound thoughts
00:47:48are merely mental patterns
00:47:50resulting from
00:47:51heredity in physics?
00:47:52Barthiel's notion
00:47:56that if materialism
00:47:58is true
00:47:59my conscious mind
00:48:00is nothing more
00:48:01than atoms
00:48:02colliding in skulls?
00:48:05This was simply
00:48:07unbelievable to me.
00:48:09I could not force
00:48:10my thought
00:48:11into that shape
00:48:12any more
00:48:12than I could scratch
00:48:13my ear
00:48:14with my big toe.
00:48:15It was as final
00:48:16as a physical impossibility.
00:48:19Mind,
00:48:20reason,
00:48:21imagination,
00:48:22consciousness
00:48:23must be more
00:48:23than mere biochemistry.
00:48:25It must be
00:48:26a real participation,
00:48:29something further up,
00:48:31further in.
00:48:33Rock-bottom reality
00:48:35had to be
00:48:36intelligent.
00:48:41It's astonishing
00:48:42I've not seen this before.
00:48:44Willful blindness,
00:48:45I suppose.
00:48:46Though I was careful
00:48:47not to attach
00:48:48rock-bottom reality
00:48:50to God,
00:48:51my skepticism
00:48:52would not allow me
00:48:53to go that far.
00:48:54Rather,
00:48:55I attached it
00:48:55to the universe itself.
00:49:00Still,
00:49:00it had immense potency.
00:49:02Behind the material curtain
00:49:04lay the hidden glory.
00:49:06Barthiel and I
00:49:07began to talk
00:49:08religiously
00:49:08about an absolute.
00:49:11Of course,
00:49:12this was a religion
00:49:12that cost nothing.
00:49:14It wasn't personal.
00:49:15It wouldn't do anything.
00:49:17It wouldn't lead
00:49:18to dark places
00:49:18where men scream
00:49:20they're being dragged
00:49:20into hell.
00:49:22It was there.
00:49:24It never come here
00:49:25to make a nuisance
00:49:27of itself.
00:49:31Within the faculty,
00:49:33I befriended
00:49:34Hugo Dyson
00:49:35and J.R.R. Tolkien.
00:49:38Both Christians.
00:49:41Though these queer people
00:49:42were popping up
00:49:43on every side,
00:49:44there was a wider disturbance.
00:49:47All my books
00:49:47were turning against me.
00:49:49Oh, I must have been
00:49:49as blind as a bat
00:49:50not to have seen this before.
00:49:52George MacDonald
00:49:53had done more to me
00:49:54than any other writer.
00:49:55Of course,
00:49:56he had that
00:49:56V in his bonnet
00:49:57about Christianity.
00:49:59He was good
00:50:00in spite of it.
00:50:01Spencer,
00:50:02Dante,
00:50:02Milton had it too.
00:50:04I thought Chesterton
00:50:05the most sensible man alive
00:50:07apart from his Christianity.
00:50:09I was beginning to think
00:50:10that Christianity
00:50:11was quite sensible
00:50:12apart from its Christianity.
00:50:15On the other hand,
00:50:16those writers
00:50:17who did not suffer religion
00:50:18and with whom
00:50:19my sympathies
00:50:20ought to have been complete,
00:50:21Shaw,
00:50:22Wells,
00:50:23Gibbon,
00:50:24Voltaire,
00:50:25seemed thin,
00:50:26tinny.
00:50:26Oh, they were all entertaining,
00:50:28especially Gibbon,
00:50:29but hardly more.
00:50:30The roughness
00:50:31and density of life
00:50:32did not appear
00:50:33in their books.
00:50:35I concluded
00:50:36that those
00:50:37with untrained
00:50:38philosophic minds
00:50:39could come near
00:50:39the notion
00:50:40of an absolute being
00:50:41by believing in a god.
00:50:43And I distinguished
00:50:44my belief
00:50:44very sharply
00:50:45from the god
00:50:46of popular religion.
00:50:47Oh, there was no possibility
00:50:49of being in a personal
00:50:50relation with him.
00:50:51I could no more
00:50:52meet him
00:50:52than Hamlet
00:50:53could meet Shakespeare.
00:50:55And I did not
00:50:56call him god either.
00:50:57I called him spirit.
00:50:59One must fight
00:51:00for one's remaining
00:51:01comforts.
00:51:04About this time,
00:51:05one of my fellow tutors,
00:51:07the hardest-boiled atheist
00:51:08I'd ever known,
00:51:09sat in my rooms
00:51:10other side of the fireplace
00:51:11and remarked,
00:51:12the evidence for
00:51:13the historicity
00:51:14of the Gospels,
00:51:16surprisingly good,
00:51:18wrong thing,
00:51:18all that mythology
00:51:19about the dying god,
00:51:21wrong thing,
00:51:22looks as if it
00:51:23really happened once.
00:51:25I was shattered.
00:51:27If he,
00:51:28the cynic of cynics,
00:51:29who's never since
00:51:30shown any interest
00:51:30in Christianity,
00:51:31were not,
00:51:32as I still would have put it,
00:51:33safe,
00:51:35where could I turn?
00:51:36Before God
00:51:42closed in on me,
00:51:43I was in fact
00:51:44offered a moment
00:51:45of free choice.
00:51:46I was sitting on a bus
00:51:48going up
00:51:48Heddington Hills
00:51:49thinking I was
00:51:50wearing a suit of armour
00:51:51trying to keep
00:51:52something out.
00:51:53I could unbuckle
00:51:54the armour
00:51:55or keep it on.
00:51:57Choice felt momentous.
00:52:00I chose to unbuckle.
00:52:03Did not seem possible
00:52:04to do the opposite.
00:52:05The initiative
00:52:06did not lie with me.
00:52:11If Hamlet and Shakespeare
00:52:12could ever meet,
00:52:13it would have to be
00:52:14Shakespeare's doing.
00:52:15He could write himself
00:52:16into the play.
00:52:21What I called spirit
00:52:23began to show
00:52:25an alarming tendency
00:52:26to become personal.
00:52:28Into my mind
00:52:29crept a horrible novelty.
00:52:30I'd really believe something.
00:52:33And when I blundered
00:52:34into that,
00:52:34I knew I could play
00:52:36at philosophy
00:52:36no longer.
00:52:37It was time
00:52:38something should be done.
00:52:40The absolute
00:52:40had arrived.
00:52:42Making a nuisance
00:52:43of itself,
00:52:44issuing a command,
00:52:45all my acts
00:52:46and desires
00:52:47were to be brought
00:52:48in line
00:52:48with this absolute spirit
00:52:50that I now believed.
00:52:51For the first time,
00:52:57I examined myself
00:52:58with a serious
00:52:59practical purpose.
00:53:01What I found
00:53:03appalled me.
00:53:06Depth after depth
00:53:07of pride,
00:53:08self-admiration,
00:53:10a zoo of lust,
00:53:11a bedlam of ambitions,
00:53:13a nursery of fears,
00:53:15a harem of fondled hatreds.
00:53:17Oh, my name is Legion.
00:53:21Amiable agnostics
00:53:22talk cheerfully
00:53:23of man's search for God.
00:53:25May as well talk
00:53:25of the mouse's search
00:53:26for the cat.
00:53:28All I ever wanted
00:53:28was not to be interfered with,
00:53:30to call my soul my own.
00:53:32Keep out private.
00:53:34This is my business.
00:53:36Let no one talk blibly
00:53:37of the comforts of religion.
00:53:39Is it a small thing
00:53:40to give yourself
00:53:41blindly to a guide
00:53:43when his own showing
00:53:44may very well be leading
00:53:45into poverty,
00:53:46ridicule,
00:53:47death?
00:53:48Oh, I knew I would not
00:53:49allow myself to do anything
00:53:50intolerably painful.
00:53:52I would be reasonable.
00:53:54Would it be reasonable?
00:53:57No assurance was offered.
00:54:00It was all or nothing.
00:54:04As the dry bones shook
00:54:05in Ezekiel's dreadful valley,
00:54:08the absolute spirit
00:54:10began to stir and heave
00:54:12and throw off
00:54:13its grave clothes.
00:54:15He said,
00:54:15I am the Lord.
00:54:21I am that I am.
00:54:25I am.
00:54:26You must picture me alone
00:54:36in my room
00:54:37at Magdalen.
00:54:40Night after night,
00:54:41feeling whenever
00:54:42my mind lifted
00:54:43even for a second
00:54:44from my work,
00:54:45the steady,
00:54:47unrelenting approach
00:54:49of him
00:54:49whom I so earnestly
00:54:51desired not to meet.
00:54:53that which I greatly feared
00:54:58had at last
00:55:00compung me.
00:55:04In the Trinity term,
00:55:061929,
00:55:07I gave in
00:55:09and admitted that God
00:55:14is God,
00:55:15knelt and prayed,
00:55:17perhaps that night,
00:55:18the most dejected,
00:55:20reluctant convert
00:55:21in all England.
00:55:22I did not then see
00:55:33the divine love
00:55:34that would accept
00:55:35a prodigal
00:55:35on such terms.
00:55:38Kicking,
00:55:38struggling,
00:55:39resentful,
00:55:40darting his eyes
00:55:41in every direction,
00:55:42looking for a chance
00:55:43to escape.
00:55:45The hardness of God
00:55:46is kinder
00:55:47than the softness
00:55:48of man.
00:55:50His compulsion
00:55:52is my liberation.
00:56:11You must understand
00:56:13that the conversion
00:56:14I just described
00:56:15was only to theism,
00:56:16pure and simple,
00:56:17not Christianity.
00:56:18I knew nothing
00:56:19of the incarnation.
00:56:20The God to whom
00:56:21I surrendered
00:56:21was not human.
00:56:23I had no belief
00:56:24in an afterlife.
00:56:25That to me
00:56:26felt like a bribe.
00:56:28My argument
00:56:29against God
00:56:30was that the universe
00:56:31was so cruel
00:56:31and unjust.
00:56:32But where had I got
00:56:33this notion
00:56:34of cruel and unjust?
00:56:36I call a line crooked
00:56:37because I have some idea
00:56:38of a straight line.
00:56:39What was I comparing
00:56:40the universe with
00:56:41when I called it
00:56:42cruel and unjust?
00:56:43If the whole universe
00:56:45has no meaning,
00:56:46I should never
00:56:47have known
00:56:48it has no meaning.
00:56:49All of my
00:56:50reasonable mind
00:56:51was convinced
00:56:51that the universe
00:56:52cannot explain itself,
00:56:54that God is behind
00:56:55the universe,
00:56:55that he has purposes
00:56:56and is to be obeyed
00:56:58simply because
00:56:58he is God.
00:57:00I suppose my religion
00:57:01was like that
00:57:01of the Jews.
00:57:07As soon as I
00:57:08became a theist,
00:57:09I started attending
00:57:10my parish church
00:57:11on Sunday,
00:57:12college chapel
00:57:13during the week,
00:57:13not because I believed
00:57:15in Christianity
00:57:16but because I thought
00:57:17one should fly
00:57:18one's flag.
00:57:27Church was an
00:57:28unattractive affair.
00:57:32I like clergy
00:57:33as I like bears,
00:57:34but I have no more
00:57:35wish to be in church
00:57:36as to be in a zoo.
00:57:37Church to me
00:57:42meant ugly architecture,
00:57:45ugly music,
00:57:46bad poetry.
00:57:49Hymns are extremely
00:57:51disagreeable to me.
00:57:54And the botheration
00:57:55of it all,
00:57:56the crowds,
00:57:57the notices,
00:57:59the perpetual
00:58:00organizing.
00:58:01Before our final prayer,
00:58:05a quick announcement.
00:58:06If you would like
00:58:07to join Edith
00:58:08on the flower rota,
00:58:10she's desperate
00:58:11for volunteers,
00:58:12do please speak to her
00:58:13at the back
00:58:13by the font afterwards.
00:58:15Let us pray.
00:58:18Lighten our darkness,
00:58:19we beseech thee,
00:58:20O Lord,
00:58:21and by thy great mercy
00:58:22defend us
00:58:24from all perils
00:58:25and dangers
00:58:26of this night
00:58:26for the love
00:58:28of thy only Son,
00:58:29our Saviour,
00:58:30Jesus Christ.
00:58:33Amen.
00:58:44My new conviction
00:58:46in a higher being
00:58:47did not exactly
00:58:49make me a paid-up member
00:58:50in the Church of England.
00:58:53But,
00:58:54now that I believed
00:58:55in God,
00:58:56I wanted to know
00:58:57more of him,
00:58:59from any source,
00:59:00pagan or Christian.
00:59:02The question was
00:59:03no longer to find
00:59:04the one true religion
00:59:05among many,
00:59:07but where had
00:59:08the thing grown up?
00:59:10Paganism was
00:59:11the childhood
00:59:12of religion.
00:59:14Where had it
00:59:15reached maturity?
00:59:17As for the materialists,
00:59:19their view
00:59:20was out of court.
00:59:21If reason is only
00:59:23the accidental result
00:59:25of atoms
00:59:25colliding
00:59:26in skulls,
00:59:27I could see
00:59:28no reason
00:59:29to believe
00:59:30that one accident
00:59:31should give
00:59:31the correct account
00:59:32for all other accidents.
00:59:34my allegiance was now
00:59:39with the mass of humanity
00:59:40who had danced,
00:59:41sang,
00:59:42prayed,
00:59:43worshipped.
00:59:46There's a really
00:59:47an infinite variety
00:59:49of religions,
00:59:49you know.
00:59:50To me,
00:59:51the only ones
00:59:52worth considering
00:59:53are Christianity
00:59:54and Hinduism.
00:59:55Islam is only
00:59:56the greatest
00:59:57of the Christian
00:59:58heresies.
00:59:59Buddhism is only
00:59:59the greatest
01:00:00of the Hindu
01:00:00heresies.
01:00:01all that is best
01:00:03in Judaism
01:00:03and Plato
01:00:04survives in Christianity
01:00:06and Hinduism
01:00:07bears no historical claim.
01:00:10That had been put
01:00:10into my head
01:00:11by that hard-boiled
01:00:12atheist who said,
01:00:13all that mythology
01:00:14about a dying god
01:00:16looks as if
01:00:18it really happened
01:00:19once.
01:00:19One day,
01:00:22Tolkien and I
01:00:23took a stroll
01:00:24on Addison's walk.
01:00:26As we talked,
01:00:27I said,
01:00:28Tollers,
01:00:29I have,
01:00:30with considerable resistance,
01:00:33come to believe
01:00:34in God,
01:00:35but not Christianity.
01:00:37No, Jack.
01:00:38I cannot believe
01:00:39something I do not
01:00:40understand.
01:00:41How can the life
01:00:42and death
01:00:42of someone else,
01:00:43whoever he was,
01:00:442,000 years ago,
01:00:45help us in the here
01:00:46and now?
01:00:46When you meet a god
01:00:47sacrificing himself
01:00:49in a pagan story
01:00:50like Dionysus,
01:00:51Balder,
01:00:52Osiris,
01:00:52or even in a fairy tale,
01:00:54you like it very much
01:00:55and are mysteriously
01:00:56moved by it,
01:00:57provided you meet it
01:00:58anywhere except
01:00:58in the Gospels.
01:01:00For the story of Christ
01:01:01is a myth
01:01:02working on us
01:01:02in the same way
01:01:03as other myths
01:01:04with one tremendous
01:01:05difference
01:01:05in that it really happened.
01:01:06Suddenly,
01:01:12a rush of wind
01:01:13interrupted us,
01:01:14startling me.
01:01:15So many leaves
01:01:16fell to the ground,
01:01:18I thought it was raining.
01:01:19I held my breath.
01:01:22Come on, Jack,
01:01:22you're too slow
01:01:23to catch a cold.
01:01:24You know Dyson ain't
01:01:25sitting on those steps
01:01:26waiting to be let in.
01:01:34I don't know
01:01:35if Tollers
01:01:35remembered that moment.
01:01:37I did.
01:01:39His words hit home.
01:01:40No matter how unwilling,
01:01:42I was beginning to move.
01:01:58Tollers and I
01:01:59talked deep into the night.
01:02:02Hugo Dyson joined us.
01:02:04Beef?
01:02:05Lamb.
01:02:06Beef.
01:02:06You're the sensational part.
01:02:08Make a mess of that.
01:02:10Now this stuff,
01:02:11wood hairs on your chest.
01:02:13Here it is.
01:02:15Here we go.
01:02:17There we go.
01:02:19Fantastic.
01:02:21Look, I may be prepared
01:02:21to accept Jesus
01:02:22as a great moral teacher,
01:02:25but I simply cannot accept
01:02:26his claim to be God.
01:02:27Oh, come on, Jack.
01:02:28How could a mere man
01:02:29be called a great moral teacher
01:02:31and say the sort of things
01:02:32Jesus said?
01:02:33Such as?
01:02:33Such as?
01:02:33That he always existed.
01:02:36That you're coming again
01:02:37to judge the world?
01:02:37Such men are judged frauds.
01:02:39Lunatics.
01:02:40In spite of my resistance,
01:02:44they convince me that nothing else
01:02:46in all literature is just like the Gospels.
01:02:49Myths are like it in one way,
01:02:52with its stories of the miraculous.
01:02:53History is like it in another,
01:02:55with its attention to minute details.
01:02:58But nothing is simply like it.
01:03:01And no person is like the person depicted.
01:03:06I'm sure there are many people
01:03:07who believe themselves to be God.
01:03:10Our hospitals are full of them.
01:03:12Oh, come on, Jack.
01:03:12Be serious.
01:03:14No great moral teacher
01:03:15has ever made that claim
01:03:16except Jesus,
01:03:17and you know it.
01:03:18And he went on and on and on.
01:03:20What do you mean?
01:03:22Well, claiming to forgive sins
01:03:24and that he himself
01:03:25is the injured party
01:03:26in every transgression.
01:03:27Look, in anyone else,
01:03:29this would be thought silly.
01:03:31Suppose you told me
01:03:31that two of your colleagues
01:03:33had lost you a top professorship
01:03:34by telling lies about your character.
01:03:36And I replied,
01:03:38freely forgive them both.
01:03:41Would you not think this sheer lunacy?
01:03:43It would be sheer lunacy.
01:03:44Yet, even those who opposed Jesus
01:03:46admitted that he expressed
01:03:47moral truth of depth and purity,
01:03:50full of wisdom and shrewdness.
01:03:53Wisdom and shrewdness.
01:03:55You make him sound like
01:03:56Solomon the Great.
01:03:57On the contrary,
01:03:58history repeatedly calls him
01:03:59humble and meek.
01:04:00Not that you want to notice that,
01:04:01of course, Jack.
01:04:03Humility and meekness,
01:04:04the last things one would ascribe
01:04:05to someone who makes claims
01:04:06worthy of being a megalomaniac.
01:04:07The Great Knock taught me to shame
01:04:15inconsistency.
01:04:16If Jesus' statements are false,
01:04:18Christianity is of no importance.
01:04:20If true, it is of infinite importance.
01:04:24The one thing it cannot be
01:04:25is moderately important.
01:04:27So, what are you saying?
01:04:33Simply that either this man was
01:04:36and is the son of God,
01:04:38or else he is a liar,
01:04:40a lunatic, or a fraud.
01:04:43But all this patronizing nonsense
01:04:44about him being some great moral teacher,
01:04:46it's not an option to us.
01:04:48Nor was it intended to be.
01:04:50I felt a resistance to this
01:04:54almost as strong as my resistance
01:04:56to theism.
01:04:58Every step from the absolute
01:04:59to spirit to God
01:05:01was a step toward the more concrete.
01:05:04And now, to accept the incarnation
01:05:07that God became man
01:05:09was a further step in the same direction.
01:05:12Oh, this too was something
01:05:13I had not wanted.
01:05:14I remember very well when,
01:05:21but hardly how,
01:05:22the final step was taken.
01:05:25I was being driven by my brother Warney
01:05:26to Whipsnage Zoo
01:05:28in the sidecarver motorcycle
01:05:29one sunny morning
01:05:31in the autumn of 1931.
01:05:33But we set out,
01:05:35I did not believe that Jesus Christ
01:05:37is the Son of God.
01:05:39When we reached the zoo,
01:05:40I did.
01:05:42I had not spent the journey
01:05:44in thought
01:05:44or great emotion.
01:05:48It was more like a man
01:05:48who after long sleep
01:05:50has become aware
01:05:51he is now awake.
01:06:01My conversion shed new light
01:06:04on my search for joy.
01:06:07The overwhelming longings
01:06:09that emerged from Fantasties
01:06:11in my brother's toy garden.
01:06:13were merely signposts
01:06:15to what I truly desired.
01:06:17They were not the thing itself.
01:06:20I concluded that if I find in myself
01:06:22a desire that no experience
01:06:25in this world could satisfy,
01:06:28the most probable explanation,
01:06:30I was made for another world.
01:06:34At present,
01:06:36we're on the outside of that world.
01:06:37the wrong side of the door.
01:06:40We cannot mingle
01:06:43with the splendors we see.
01:06:46But all the leaves
01:06:48of the New Testament
01:06:49are rustling with the rumor
01:06:50that it will
01:06:51not always be so.
01:06:54One day,
01:06:55God willing,
01:06:56we shall get in.
01:06:58the cross comes before the crown
01:07:06and tomorrow
01:07:08is another morning.
01:07:11A cleft is opened
01:07:12in the pitiless walls
01:07:14of this world
01:07:15and we have been invited
01:07:17to follow our great captain
01:07:20inside.
01:07:21following him
01:07:24is, of course,
01:07:26the essential point.
01:07:29In the blink
01:07:31made winter
01:07:33frosty wind
01:07:36made morn
01:07:39That Christmas,
01:07:41I took the short walk
01:07:42to my Paris church.
01:07:44their walk
01:07:46marked the end
01:07:47of one journey
01:07:48and the beginning
01:07:50of another.
01:08:03As I looked around,
01:08:05I thought
01:08:05not only of my own
01:08:07potential glory hereafter,
01:08:09but also that
01:08:10of my neighbor's glory.
01:08:14It is a serious thing
01:08:15to live in a society
01:08:17of possible gods
01:08:18and goddesses
01:08:19to remember
01:08:19that the dullest,
01:08:20most uninteresting person
01:08:23you meet
01:08:23may one day
01:08:24be a creature
01:08:25that if you saw it now,
01:08:27you would be strongly tempted
01:08:29to fall down
01:08:30and worship
01:08:30or else a horror
01:08:32or a corruption
01:08:34such as you now meet,
01:08:35if at all,
01:08:37only in a nightmare.
01:08:40All day long,
01:08:42we are helping each other
01:08:43to one or the other
01:08:44of these two destinations.
01:08:48It is in the light
01:08:49of these overwhelming
01:08:50possibilities
01:08:51that I should now
01:08:53conduct all my dealings.
01:08:58There are no ordinary people.
01:09:02I've never met
01:09:03a mere mortal.
01:09:05Nations,
01:09:06cultures,
01:09:08civilizations,
01:09:08these are mortal
01:09:10and their life
01:09:11is to ours
01:09:12as that of a gnat.
01:09:15It is immortals
01:09:16whom we joke with,
01:09:18work with,
01:09:19marry,
01:09:20snub,
01:09:22exploit.
01:09:23The weight
01:09:25or burden
01:09:26of my neighbor's glory
01:09:28should be laid
01:09:29daily on my back,
01:09:31a load
01:09:32so heavy.
01:09:35Only humility
01:09:36can carry it
01:09:37and the backs
01:09:39of the proud
01:09:40will be broken.
01:09:42what can I give
01:09:51him
01:09:52for
01:09:53as I am?
01:09:56If I were
01:09:59a shepherd,
01:10:02I would bring
01:10:04a lamb.
01:10:06if I were
01:10:09a wise man,
01:10:12I would do
01:10:13my part,
01:10:16yet what
01:10:17I can't
01:10:18I give
01:10:20him
01:10:21in
01:10:22my heart.
01:10:26Christ our Passover
01:10:37is sacrificed
01:10:38for us,
01:10:40therefore
01:10:40let us keep
01:10:42the feast.
01:10:42the body
01:10:57of our Lord
01:10:58Jesus Christ.
01:11:02Unlike my
01:11:03first communion
01:11:04seventeen years
01:11:05earlier,
01:11:06I now
01:11:08bleed.
01:11:08I now
01:11:09bleed.
01:11:12OK,
01:11:24thank you very
01:11:25much.
01:11:26That's a cut
01:11:27there.
01:11:27Thank you, Max.
01:11:28All right.
01:12:00ORGAN PLAYS
01:12:30ORGAN PLAYS
01:13:00ORGAN PLAYS
01:13:30ORGAN PLAYS
Recommended
1:32:48
|
Up next
2:35:41
0:24
55:54
1:09:33
1:33:07
3:26:48
1:20:33
1:50:37
1:46:03
1:54:07
1:29:47
1:34:33
1:46:28
2:37:50
59:42
1:04:21
1:10:49
1:19:40
1:03:11
1:52:12
Be the first to comment