"Meditation in a Toolshed"

One quote from "Meditation in a Toolshed" that captured my attention was "One must look both along and at everything. In particular cases we shall find reason for regarding the one or the other vision as inferior." I think this quote sums up Lewis' central argument most succinctly. He argues that instead of spending so much time arguing about which way is the more valuable, or right, way of looking at things, we should be taking both into account. It was interesting to me how Lewis' powerful and yet simple language could so easily convince me that both are equally important, and I think this stems from the way I was brought up.

I grew up in a Christian home and a Christian school system. It may sound like a sunday school answer, but the way Lewis argued in this essay brought the intersection of my faith and my life into light for what just might be the first time. The dichotomy between our spiritual and our societal lives can, in many senses, be boiled down to a problem of perspective. As we discussed in class, often religion values looking along because looking at does not make much sense. Growing up in church, we were told to evangelize using our story; our personal experience with God. When, as children, we asked how prayer works, we were told that it comes down to our trust in God's hand in our lives. We were not given scientific proof in this case, because most of our encounters with God do not fit with in the confines of science. Then there was school, where we were told to prove our points. One of my English teachers had a favorite phrase, "ample evidence" to describe the type of essays she was looking for- papers littered with facts and statistics, as well as studies. In these cases, personal stories and experiences could be effective, as long as they were accompanied by other proof. They could never stand alone to make a point.

This is one way that I learned how to compartmentalize my faith and my schoolwork, my religious and my cultural life. Early on, I learned that Jesus valued more stories, and society wants concrete scientific fact and logic. Then, in high school, I perfected the art of which perspective was necessary at what time, or in relation to which subjects. My bio teacher wouldn't accept a poem about My grandparents' cottage in springtime when she asked me to explain photosynthesis; just like my English teacher wouldn't accept a paragraph about organic compounds when she told us to write about childhood memories.

I don't think Lewis is arguing that both ways are equally important in all situations, I think he is merely pointing out that we don't always have to choose between one or the other. He says later on, "In fact, we must take each case on its merits." That is why I think our religious studies can value looking at something, (for example, when we studied the flood in Religion 121 and saw much of the evidence and historical records might mean that it was a story meant to teach theological truth and not necessarily historical fact). Or that society should value looking along more often as well, because stories and experiences can be very important to cultural life as well (such as in sociology, where we talked about race and poverty in terms of statistics and facts, but also watched videos where people shared their own personal struggles and stories).

I guess what I am saying, in short, is that the division, or friction, between our lives as Christians and our lives in the world relates to our perspective on things. Looking at is not just for the world and looking along is not just for Christians. Both perspectives can and should be used in both contexts.