Family Home Evening Thought - Jan 31

Little different kind of thought tonight. When I am in the car alone, I listen to a variety of CDs, mostly talks (I particularly like Sheri Dew, Michael Wilcox, and John Lund). However, another favorite is a set of CDs from Focus on the Family - radio dramas of the Chronicles of Narnia, with introductions by Paul Gresham, C.S. Lewis's stepson. Currently, I am listening to the Chronicles again. Each time I listen, I realize even more that Lewis's lion, Aslan, is a metaphor for Christ.
In November and December, I had the opportunity to help one of our assistant principals with a project she is involved with in her church. She and her husband are in charge of a program feeding the homeless in Seattle once a month. In November and December, she cooks 15 - 20 turkeys each month in the ovens at school, while an additional few turkeys are donated by her church for the power and they are given to students' families where there is need, as there always is. I helped both times this year, early in the morning putting the turkeys in the ovens, and after school, taking the meat off, and preparing it for distribution. The rest of the meal is prepared in their church in Seattle. They serve about 200 people there, then put the rest in take-out boxes and drive around in the church van handing out food. Together, we serve those less fortunate. As I worked this past holiday with her, I thought of the words of Lewis in Mere Christianity. These are words to remember as we work with others, also engaged in good works.

"I hope no reader will suppose that "mere" Christianity is here put forward as an alternative to the creeds of the existing communions — as if a man could adopt it in preference to Congregationalism or Greek Orthodoxy or anything else.

It is more like a hall out of which doors open into several rooms. If I can bring anyone into that hall, I have done what I attempted. But it is in the rooms, not the hall, that there are fires and chairs and meals. The hall is a place to wait in, a place from which to try the various doors, not a place to live in. For that purpose the worst of the rooms (whichever that may be) is, I think preferable. It is true that some people may find they have to wait in the hall for a considerable time, while others feel certain almost at once which door they must knock at. I do not know why there is this difference, but I am sure God keeps no one waiting unless He sees that it is good for him to wait. When you do get into the room you will find that the long wait has done some kind of good which you would not have had otherwise. But you must regard it as waiting, not as camping. You must keep on praying for light: and, of course, even in the hall, you must begin trying to obey the rules which are common to the whole house. And above all you must be asking which door is the true one; not which pleases you best by its paint and paneling.

In plain language, the question should never be: "Do I like that kind of service?" but "Are these doctrines true: Is holiness here? Does my conscience move me towards this? Is my reluctance to knock at this door due to my pride, or my mere taste, or my personal dislike of this particular door-keeper?"

When you have reached your own room, be kind to those who have chosen different doors and to those who are still in the hall. If they are wrong they need your prayers all the more; and if they are your enemies, then you are under orders to pray for them. This is one of the rules common to the whole house. (emphasis mine)

I have found my "room". I invite you to enter and participate there, if you have not yet found your room. There you will find true doctrines, holiness, truth.

Love, Mom