Tuesday, August 17, 2010

substituted love

Charles Williams on The Practice of Substituted Love:

The denial of the self has become metaphysical. He (Christ) came to turn the world upside-down, and no one's self-respect will stand for that. It is habitual to us therefore to prefer to be miserable rather than to give, and to believe that we can give, our miseries up.
(from his book, He Came Down From Heaven)





3 comments:

mmmmm said...

I like this very much. Very, very much! A Severe Mercy talks a little bit about Lewis' idea of taking on each other's suffering. I know the ideas in the same strand. Amy

mmmmm said...

ARE in the same strand...

Esther said...

In everything of Charles Williams that I've read (especially Descent Into Hell), he is very much about the idea of "bearing one another's burdens" in a very real and literal sense. The idea of taking someone's burden on yourself so that they no longer have to worry or think about it. You would now be the one that does all of that for them.

You got me excited again about C. Williams! More to come...