The Blog

This blog was written by Casey Craigie his first year in Masters Commission as an assignment for ACTION, a class they were taking at the time.

So, last week in action there were a number of different topics that we discussed. However the one that stands out most in my mind is best described by a poem by the great Christian apologist and literary critic C.S. Lewis.

"all this flashy retoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am a mercenary and self-seeking through and through,
I want, God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

Peace, reassurance, pleausre are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin;
I talk of love- a scholar's parrot my talk greek -
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin."

There are two parts of this poem that stand out in my mind above all the others. The first is that he calls himself a mercenary.

Now I don't know about you but I don't have the highest regard for the idea of a mercenary. Yes, they do make very interesting charachters for movies and books, but in the end they represent a very negative ideal. A mercenary, to me, is a person who is willing to do anything, no matter how wrong or unappealing, to further their own ends.

The second part that stood out to me was the part about the parrot. We as humans may feel that there is some higher standard to live up to, that we have a certain responsibility to others, that unselfish sacrifice is somthing that should exist in the world. but in the end we always look out for our own interests.

We are all royal screw-ups, constantly looking out for "number one". No matter how much we talk about love, and sacrifce and loving others as ourselves, we always seem to come back to what can I do for me. Thankfully our God is not a god who is concerned only with himself! Jesus Christ came and gave himself as a sacrifice for us! He paid the price for our failure in the ultimate act of selflesness.

- Casey Craigie