Miscellaneous

Bodily training is of some value…

I’ve been doing my level best to particiapte in this great event at Glasgow’s Pollok Park on a Saturday morning.  I’ve missed a few due to injury and other responsibilities but it’s a great way to start the weekend.  Why not get along there and join us? 

1 Timothy 4:8 “For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.”

 

 

C.S. Lewis – “The Fatal Flaw”

This classic writer died when I was only four years old but he still speaks today.  Here is some of Lewis’ fundamental wisdom that is quoted from Biblical Eldership by Alexander Strauch, p.40.  Strauch is emphasising the value of collective leadership models but this quotation addresses the importance of mutual accountability and humility in our personal lives as Christians no matter who we are or where we serve.

We all have what C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) called “a fatal flaw.”  We can see these fatal flaws so clearly in others, but not in ourselves.  Hence, Lewis says, real wisdom is to realise that you, too, have a fatal flaw that has hurt and frustrated others:

And you see, looking back, how all the plans you have ever made always have shipwrecked on that fatal flaw – on “X’s” incurable jealousy, or laziness, or touchiness, or muddle-headedness, or bossiness, or ill-temper, or changeableness….

This is the next great step in wisdom – to realize that you also are just that sort of person. You also have a fatal flaw in your character. All the hopes and plans of others have again and again shipwrecked on your character just as your hopes and plans have shipwrecked on theirs.

It is no good passing this over with some vague, general admission such as “Of course, I know I have my faults.” It is important to realize that  there is some really fatal flaw in you: something which gives the others just that same feeling of despair which their flaws give you.  And it is almost certainly something you don’t know about – like what advertisements call “halitosis” which everyone notices except the person who has it.

But why, you ask, don’t the others tell me? Believe me, they have tried to tell you over and over again, and you just couldn’t “take it.”  Perhaps a good deal of what you call their “nagging” or “bad temper” or “queerness” are just attempts to make you see the truth. And even the faults you do know you don’t know fully.

These fatal flaws or blind spots distort our judgement.  They deceive us.  They can even destroy us.  This is particulraly true of multitalented, charismatic leaders.  Blind to their own flaws and extreme views, some talented leaders have destroyed themselves because they had no peers to confront and balance them and, in fact, wanted none.