Finding Joy in Snarkville

I’m about to admit something that is highly embarrassing.  I’ve not only seen “You Got Mail,” I’ve quoted it.  Yes, I know — it was not a celluloid masterpiece…ok, it was just rather bad.  But there was a line that I was recently thinking about.  Meg Ryan was looking for advice and Tom Hanks quoted “The Godfather.”  The quote doesn’t matter, but what does is that Hanks says, “I think the answers to most questions can be found in ‘The Godfather’.”  He rattles off a few quotes and hilarity ensues.

Well, recently, I’ve been reading a bit more of C.S. Lewis.  (I know this will shock you, but I’d never read the Narnia Series and I’m trying to read it with Duke.)  In my reading I’ve been glancing a few other of his books.  Every so often I make it farther into Mere Christianity.  I’m finding I’m loving various quotes of C.S. Lewis and needless to say I was utterly shocked that even he had something to say about my current problem with turning 35, I mean 34 and 3/2.

“Thirty was so strange for me. I’ve really had to come to terms with the fact that I am now a walking and talking adult.“

Wow, how true is that.  Maybe my biggest problem is that I’m forced with coming to terms that I’m an adult.  How truly funny.  We spend our first 18 years trying so hard to be an adult — to cease to be under the control and direction of our parents; to stand on our own two feet; to prove the metal we are made of.  Then we spend the next years ‘playing’ at adulthood.  Then we wake up one morning and realize, we aren’t able to play any more and then spend many, many years begging for someone to take all this horrible responsibility away from us.

I guess it is hitting me that I no longer can claim, “oh, I’m just young.” or worse, “If this fails I can always start over.”  Instead, I get to say, “that’s a young man’s game.”  I’m getting older and it has weight to it. And what a pain in the butt.

So, while I contemplate my naval and try to pull myself out of the funk that is the approaching 35.  I thought You’d enjoy some other answers to life’s problems, compliments of Mr. Lewis.

On Love: “This is one of the miracles of love: It gives a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted.“

On Starting Over: “We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.“

On Death: “Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.”

On Life Enrichment: “Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.“

On Friendship: “Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities.“  (think about this one, folks — take this one to heart and you will have more love with your friends and more friendship in your love.  But this is a HUGE risk — but I think I’ve only recently realized that real friendship is more dangerous than love.)

On Writing/Speaking: “Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say “infinitely” when you mean “very”; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.“

On Life being fair: “The real problem is not why some pious, humble, believing people suffer, but why some do not.“

Finally, on faith: “A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, ‘darkness’ on the walls of his cell.” “I gave in, and admitted that God was God.“

This entry was posted on Friday, September 12th, 2008 at 7:00 am and is filed under The Queen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.