Currently Reading Life as a Vapor: Thirty-One Meditations for Your Faith By John Piper see related

Some people sleep in on Sunday mornings. Some rush around trying to get ready for church or other activities. This Sunday morning I woke up to that moment of the dawn when the cold light flickers and changes into the first warm glow of the sun stealing above the tree line. The sunrise parted the fog like a curtain stirring in the breeze. Dew on the daffodils caught the rays of the sun and turned them into golden, liquid light.  In the moments before the world awoke, stillness hovered all around, only broken by birdsongs.

C. S. Lewis would call this flash of clarity, this morning of enjoyment an "appreciative pleasure." It is different from what he calls a "need-pleasure." A need-pleasure is eating lunch when one is hungry, whereas an appreciative pleasure is being hungry and finding that lunch consists of all your favourite foods. It's like icing on the cake. Launching from this idea, Mr. Lewis deepens the idea into need love and appreciative love. He carries these functions of love into the four types of love: Affection, Friendship, Eros, and Charity.

I gathered much from each chapter about the character of man, myself in particular. It wasn't always pretty, but it was extremely helpful. I won't share something from every chapter (of which there are only six); I would not spoil the book for you. However, I will share a few thoughts from the chapter discussing friendship, as Lewis brought out a nobility in true friendship that is rarely mentioned, or even seen, anymore.

"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. [For example, which story is more well known: Romeo and Juliet, or that of David and Jonathan?] … Few value [friendship] because few experience it. And the possibility of going through life without the experience is rooted in that fact which separates Friendship so sharply from…the other loves. Friendship is – in a sense not at all derogatory to it – the least natural of loves; the least instinctive, organic, biological, gregarious and necessary."   Lewis concludes that friendship is a choice.

Something that made me pause and ponder was further along in the section on friendship. Lewis talks about spending time with friends in a group, or club of sorts. Friends bring out certain facets in one another. Thus, when a group of friends gathers you are likely to learn much about them that you would have never learned in your one-on-one times together.

On that note I will leave you to ponder "The Four Loves" and hope that you will take the time to delve into this meaty little book.  It is worth the time, the effort, and the wisdom gained. It is also worth a re-read.

><> Jody