On C.S. Lewis and the Zoo

Our trip to the zoo reminds me of these John Piper quotes about C.S. Lewis:

"Lewis gave me an intense sense of the "realness" of things. The preciousness of this is hard to communicate. To wake up in the morning and be aware of the firmness of the mattress, the warmth of the sun's rays, the sound of the clock ticking, the sheer being of things... He helped me become alive to life. He helped me see what is there in the world -- things that if we didn't have, we would pay a million dollars to have, but having them ignore. He made me more alive to beauty. He put my soul on notice that there are daily wonders that will waken worship if I open my eyes. He shook my dozing soul and threw the cold water of reality in my face, so that life and God and heaven and hell broke into my world with glory and horror."

Spending time with my friend Debby reminds me of this paragraph: "He demonstrated for me and convinced me that rigorous, precise, penetrating logic is not opposed to deep, soul-stirring feeling and vivid, lively -- even playful -- imagination. He was a "romantic rationalist." He combined things that almost everybody today assumes are mutually exclusive: rationalism and poetry, cool logic and warm feeling, disciplined prose and free imagination. ... "


It was a glorious day.