so i've been reading Clive Staples Lewis' "Mere Christianity" slowly through the summer and more rapidly recently. i started it on the plane to Japan didn't read it much while there or much right when i returned to the states but i've been free to read quite a bit while i'm at work care taking... or on call to care take. (i've got free time, hence the plethora of updates.) Anyway, i acquired the book from the then soon to be Mrs. Choate because she wasn't for the style in which the book was written. i didn't really think that i'd get the chance to read it as soon as i did, but i've been wanting to read it for quite some time. it was a part of a long list of other books that i have yet to read and constantly forget that i want to buy or check out so that i can read them...

anyway, although i am not quite finished, i definitely have enjoyed reading this book. it is interesting to find things that plenty of people around me have probably picked out from this text to apply in their own lives or to preach at others. there are plenty of things in here that i have taken from others to apply to my own life and to preach to others. the first thing like this that i can remember is early on in the book when Lewis is comparing a world where people's morals led them to admire those that ran away in battle or someone that sells out his closest friends to a world where 2+2=5. for those that are into radiohead (or maybe even not into them) you would recognize that from their 2005(?) release, Hail to the Thief. and being that Lewis is well renown in the world outside of Christianity, i believe that Thom Yorke may be referencing this passage and may have possibly read this book sometime in his past. who knows? but i began thinking a lot more about it and immediately hooked my attention more closely to what was being said.

C.S. Lewis just seems to have a way to explain things so simply as if it were common knowledge, but often very obviously states that it is not... even in the Christian world. something that i read today struck me when i paired it with what i was reading yesterday. Lewis spends time making effort to explain his view on the existence of God being outside of time; that God sees everything (all time) as the present. today i was reading more about the the role of Jesus and how He had always been just as God has always been. i began thinking of the people that get stuck on the "problem" of any God followers that died before Christ came into the world as a man and died for everyone to free them from salvation. also, in the same vein, if God knew already that humanity was going to fall and that we were going to need salvation from the death of His Son why didn't he remedy the situation from the start? well, if you think about the idea that God sees everything as the present, He did in fact solve the problem from the start. just another thing that we (generally) don't give God enough credit for. He knows all, but we manage to limit Him with our own limitations. yeah, let's make God restricted by his creation... right. until then---