Sunday Sonnet.

We are told not to worry, not to fear. Not to sit within the comfort of our homes, in the quietness of our anxiety. We did not choose this time, but we were put on this earth at this time.

Lewis lived through two world wars. He lost friends: family: his wife (too eary). And he knew the temptation of acedia.

II.
There’s a repose, a safety (even a taste
Of something like revenge?) in fixed despair
Which we’re forbidden. We have to rise with haste
And start to climb what seems a crazy stair.
Our Consolation (for we are consoled,
So much of us, I mean, as may be left
After the dreadful process has unrolled)
For one bereavement makes us more bereft.
It asks for all we have, to the last shred;
Read Dante, who had known its best and worst –
He was bereaved and he was comforted
— No one denies it, comforted – but first
Down to the frozen center, up the vast
Mountain of pain, from world to world, he passed.
--C.S. Lewis

The comfort is not for the time of crisis or the time of grief. The comfort comes later, much later. Is this not a time of crisis? Take courage, do your duty, and it will make more of a difference than you think one solitary life can.

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