Chests and doors.

The other day I wrote about how I've been feeling discouraged.  Things aren't working the way I had hoped they would up to this point in my endeavors to serve God and the people of Japan.  My mom asked me a really insightful question the other day, that I kind of put off thinking about until (of course) I read something in Proverbs during a quiet time that brought the question back to my mind.

What she asked me was, "At what point are these things that are going wrong demonic interference, and at what point are they God closing doors?"

Initially, I pushed off the question.  Not that I didn't have an answer.  I did: God has put a passion for the people of Japan in my heart for a reason and every time I pray or read scripture I feel a level of reassurance.  I believe that these are good reasons, but maybe I'm putting too much stock into how I feel about everything.

I've been giving some thought recently to the balance of living somewhere between how I feel and what I know.  While I was thinking about it I remembered reading "Men without Chests" the first chapter from C.S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man.  I packed all of my books up and sent them home when I moved out of my house in Southern California a few weeks ago, but luckily someone posted the whole book online, so I was able to read through what C.S. Lewis had to say.

I hope anyone reading this has had a chance to read that book.  If you haven't, it is short, it took me less than an hour to reread the first chapter and there are only four chapters total to the entire book.  The link provided has all four chapters, please, if you have time, read or reread the book, it is worth it.  Here's a small piece from the end of "Men Without Chests" that struck me more severely:

"The head rules the belly through the chest—the seat, as Alanus tells us, of Magnanimity, of emotions organized by trained habit into stable sentiments. The Chest-Magnanimity-Sentiment—these are the indispensable liaison officers between cerebral man and visceral man. It may even be said that it is by this middle element that man is man: for by his intellect he is mere spirit and by his appetite mere animal."

Throughout the chapter C.S.Lewis refers to two grammarians who wrote a book on preparatory English for children in elementary school.  The problem Lewis has with the Grammarians is that they suggest that man would be better off ignoring sentiment altogether, rather than finding what emotions are just for which responses.

I wonder if I pay more attention to my appetite than I do my intellect.  I wonder if perhaps I let my stomach supersede my head, bypassing my chest.  Whether my head look larger, or my stomach, the result is the same, my chest is atrophied.  Maybe I should think more about what my mother told me.  Maybe these things happening aren't just interference designed to get my discouraged.  Maybe they are doors closing.

In any case it's worth thinking about, which I guess is what I need to do more of so that I don't look like the troll from the first Harry Potter movie, with a tiny head and chest and a great big belly.

So pray for me!