Reflections on C.S. Lewis' The Weight of Glory

When C.S. Lewis was presented with the topic of glory, it was a subject that seemed puzzling and even repellent to him. Due to that reality, he knew he needed to follow up on it. “We must never avert our eyes from those elements which seem puzzling or repellent; for it will be precisely the puzzling or the repellent which conceals what we do not yet know and need to know.”

Remember that. Oftentimes, we find ourselves in circumstances that are puzzling; circumstances that we can’t quite make sense of. Go toward those things and prayerfully consider them because those are the places where God wants to teach you “great and hidden things that you have not known.” Jeremiah 33:3.

Lewis discovered that there are two sides of glory. One is likened to fame. Glory is the moment we will experience when we are affirmed by God as one who pleases Him. Like a child or dog who is desperate to please their father, this is an innate longing that we have which is pure and God-given. “Glory is when the redeemed soul, beyond all hope and nearly beyond belief, learns at last that she has pleased Him whom she was created to please.”

She learns that she has pleased Him whom she was created to please.

The second side of glory is luminosity. Lewis describes Nature and the beauty it presents to us. This is the side of glory that I think of readily and get very excited about. I have a connection with Nature; it is where I feel God’s presence more than anywhere else. Lewis began to unpack this for me and I can’t help but work it out through my own written response. The part about Nature that I understand and know to be true is that we don’t merely see beauty. “We want something else which can hardly be put into words - to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it,” Lewis says.

MCBH Beach, Hawaii

Standing on the shores of Kailua Beach, HI was a place where I bathed in God’s beauty. You can feel it through your entire being. The power of the wind, the soft sand on your feet, the pleasant sound of waves washing upon the shore, the warmth of the sun soaking into your skin. Beauty is physically experienced there. I spoke with a friend who moved to Hawaii from New York. Alas, she had fallen in love and married a Native Hawaiian. She experienced several losses before moving to Hawaii and she said that the beauty of the islands healed her grief. Seeing, experiencing, and bathing in God’s beauty every single day.

Although God has gifted some of us with experiences such as those, we are still on the outside of the world, on the “wrong side of the door,” Lewis says.

“We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendors we see. Someday, God willing, we shall get in.” The glory of Nature is actually just the first sketch. “Nature is mortal; we shall outlive her. We are summoned to pass in through Nature, beyond her, into that splendor which she fitfully reflects.”

So, here we have a glimpse into understanding the glory that God is bringing many sons and daughters into. (See Hebrews 2:10) We know what lies ahead for us hereafter. It is a glorious thing to think about and an even better thing to truly accept. It helps carry us through the hard days and sparks hope in our souls of the glory our lost loved ones are experiencing. Although this is all good and well, Lewis turns up the heat at the end of his sermon.

“It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbor.”

Let that sink in for a minute.

When is the last time you thought about your neighbor’s glory? When my neighbor unintentionally embarrassed me in front of new friends about my yard, I surely wasn’t thinking about the glory God has waiting for her. Even later, when she apologized with a bouquet of flowers, I still wasn’t thinking about the glory God has for her. I was too hurt to think past my own emotions. Yes, I did the Christian thing and remained gentle and never responded with hateful words, but did I ever truly care about her? Ashamedly, no. I didn’t. I was just glad to have that awkward situation behind me.

What about the friendly mom at the bus stop wearing a Hijab? My intellectual understanding of other religions takes precedence, which forces me to focus on being kind so that she knows I accept her and do not judge her in the name of Christ. It is my mind, not my heart, that’s involved in the relationship. What if I could throw that approach out the window and instead, picture in the Spirit God speaking to her, loving her, affirming her?

“The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor’s glory should be laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken.”

The weight of my neighbor's glory should be laid on my back.

Lewis is suggesting that we live in a society of possible gods and goddesses. Sons and daughters who are on their way to glory. Every person is heading to one of two destinations: a glorious creature or a horror and corruption. Heaven or Hell. We are, in some degree, helping each other to one or the other of those destinations.

In the light of these possibilities, what would it look like to conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics with the mindset of picturing their glory? There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.

“Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.”

Nature is not the holiest object that God presents before me. Not Kailua Beach. Not the glorious view of morning mist hovering above the lake outside my home. No, my neighbor is God’s holiest creation - created in the likeness of God Himself. God’s breath has been breathed into her lungs. “When you send your Spirit, they are created.” Psalm 104:30.

Christ vere latitat = Christ is hidden within...

How do you respond to my CliffNotes version of The Weight of Glory? How does seeing your neighbor's glory affect your religious differences? Are you more inclined to grasp glory in the realm of Affirmation or Luminosity?

Praying heavenly wisdom over you as you interact with your neighbors,

Laura