This is true of friendships, too. So often I find myself going out with a big group of friends, most who are not really close friends, doing things I don't really care to do and spending money that I don't necessarily have. Then I say I don't have the money to go get coffee and catch up with a true friend that I haven't seen in ages, or I don't have the time to sit and reply to a letter from my accountability partner, who truly loves and cares about me! Lewis says, "And if in your spare time you consort simply with the people you like, you will again find that you have come unawares to a real inside: that you are indeed snug and safe at the centre of something which, seen from without, would look exactly like an Inner Ring....This is friendship." All this reminds me of the excerpt we read from Screwtape Letters, where the Screwtape says, "You can make him waste his time not only in conversations he enjoys with people whom he likes, but in conversations with those he cares nothing about on subjects that bore him." This is what we constantly do to get into Inner Rings. It is important to recognize what a waste of time that this truly is.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
The Inner Ring
While reading this essay on the Inner Ring, I appreciated the way that Lewis pointed out that the pursuit of constant acceptance into rings is often tiresome. I compare it to running on a treadmill, where no matter how long or fast you run, you still don't really get anywhere. You feel like you are getting somewhere for awhile because it takes so much effort and energy. But really we are just peeling back layers, or running over the same strip of rubber the whole time. Lewis puts it this way, "It is tiring and unhealthy to lose your Saturday afternoons: but to have them free because you don't matter, that is much worse." We constantly talk of "being involved", of doing different things, making friends, etc. We spend so much time doing so many different things, no wonder we are stressed out and overwhelmed! And for what? To say that we are balanced, well-rounded individuals? This may be true in a sense, but when we grind our teeth or find ourselves bedridden from what started as a basic cold virus, it becomes vital to re-evaluate our priorities.
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I thoroughly enjoyed your last paragraph because you talk about doing things with people that are fair weather friends only to find you have neither time nor resources to spend time with those who are your true friends and it immediately buzzed into my head about Screwtape and then you made the connection as well. Important observations and a lot of things learned by too much experience and not enough looking at.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your post, Jessica. I liked your comparison of trying to get into an inner ring and running on a treadmill. You spend a lot of energy on both, but after all that, you are still in the same place you started from. It's just like Lewis said, "As long as you are governed by that desire (to be an insider) you will never get what you want. Untill you conquer the fear of being an outsider, an outsider you will remain."
ReplyDeleteSocial life, getting to inner rings, and all that is certainly tiring. And if they are not things worthy of having, yet one is still pursuing, then pointless effort woould have been used. C.S Lewis compares these inner rings as onions. And indeed, peeling "back layers" all the time doesnt really give you anything as a result, does it?
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