Friday, June 3, 2011

"Building a Palace" by C.S. Lewis

Imagine yourself a a living house.
God comes in to remodel that house.
At first, you can understand what he is doing;
he's fixing drains and making minor repairs,
but presently he starts knocking you about
in a manner that hurts abominably...
He's knocking out walls there and adding on rooms here.
It hurts awful...what on earth could he be up to?
Adding on extra wings here, putting up towers there...
The answer is quite simple.
you thought you were going to be a quaint little house,
But God has another purpose in mind.
He's building a palace.


--C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters


Technically, I think this is a quote rather than a poem. But it is a long one, and I quite like it. I love C. S. Lewis. I read Shadowlands a few years ago and cried for about three days. About this quote in particular, it seems to uphold the part about us growing whether we want to or not.

2 comments:

  1. I actually believe this quote is from a book by C.S. Lewis called "Mere Christianity". This book was written in the early 50's and compiled from many of his BBC radio messages he gave to the British troops during WWII. I like this one alot too. Of course he has many others.

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  2. I actually believe this quote is from a book by C.S. Lewis called "Mere Christianity". This book was written in the early 50's and compiled from many of his BBC radio messages he gave to the British troops during WWII. I like this one alot too. Of course he has many others.

    ReplyDelete