Advice from Beyond “Been There Done That…”
July 22, 2010 10:57 pmAutobiographical grandfatherly voices from the past are ever growing in my fondness and gratitude. I only knew my grandfathers in passing as a youngster, so I feel I may have lost out on a few moments of wisdom delivery that should be common in familial heritage.
Malcom Muggeridge is the latest addition. He writes this while reminiscing about his work with MI6, ya that’s right… imagine a real deal Tom Cruise, not crazy, with a sweet English accent, and ninety years of age at story time.
Before finally taking off, I had a few days’ leave, which of course I spend at Whatlington with Kitty and the children. It was the only place I ever wanted to be, and the place I was constantly leaving; my heart was there, but my body was restless and nomadic. Kitty and the children were with me always, yet easily forgotten in the foolish, and often vainglorious, if not squalid, preoccupations of the moment. The saddest thing to me, in looking back on my life, has been to recall, not so much the wickedness I have been involved in, the cruel and selfish and egotistic things I have done, the hurt I have inflicted on those I loved–although all that’s painful enough.
What hurts most is the preferences I have so often show for what is inferior, tenth-rate, when the first-rate was there for the having. Like a man who goes shopping, and comes back with cardboard shoes when he might have had leather, with dried fruit when he might have had fresh, with processed cheese when he might have had cheddar, with paper flowers when the primroses were out. Nothing is so beautiful and wonderful, nothing is so continually fresh and surprising, so full of sweet and perpetual ecstasy as the good, Simone Weil writes. ‘No desert is so dreary, monotonous and boring as evil.’ True; but as she goes on to point out, with fantasy it is the other way round–Fictional good is boring and flat, while fictional evil is varied and intriguing, attractive, profound, and full of charm. Alas so much of my life has been spent pursuing this fictional good, and forgetful of the other, the real good, that is ever inspiring, ever renewed, making us, again to quote Simone Weil, ‘grow wings to overcome gravity’…
…Looking back I feel this more than ever; the loss was inestimable, the gain, to me or to the war effort, negligible. All that I can be grateful for is that, despite my shallow departure, thanks to Kitty our little bark remained afloat, and remains so still.
~Malcolm Muggeridge, Chronicles of Wasted Time
Chronicles of Wasted Time
Author: Malcolm Muggeridge
Sure, it reads like a Christmas special with a trite punch line about putting your family first. But you have to remember this guy is world traveler extraordinaire recruited into her majesties secret service… and still it is found wanting.
Just a little advice from an old man who has been there and done that.
It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
~C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
The Weight of Glory
Author: C. S. Lewis
I like this twist on desire and it does seem accurate, desire is not something that should be squashed but rather directed appropriately and then encouraged to grow even greater.
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