Book Review: The Weight of Glory

The Weight of Glory. By C.S. Lewis. San Francisco: HarperCollins. First HarperCollins ed., 2001.

The title, The Weight of Glory, is the first lecture that appears in this volume. Other speeches include “Learning in War-Time,” “Why I am Not a Pacifist,” “Transposition,” “Is Theology Poetry?” “The Inner Ring,” “Membership,” “On Forgiveness,” and “A Slip of the Tongue.”

I am not a C.S. Lewis expert by no means. Other than The Chronicles of Narnia and Mere Christianity, this is all of my exposure to Lewis. Therefore, I cannot say with any authority that this volume represents his best contributions. However, I can honestly say after reading this volume, I now know why Lewis is held in such high esteem by those who know him best!

There is no way to do justice to these talks without singling each one out and providing a full overview and critique. There is much here to meditate on for enrichment and absorption. I must, however, make a few remarks on “The Weight of Glory.”

The “Weight” referred to is the unimaginable reality that as children of God, we become part of God’s delight and pleasure as we discover and take joy in our greatest delight—God! Lewis takes his time and weaves an argument of sheer delight in order to reach that conclusion.

The first component of his argument is that in our God-given pursuit of joy, as sinners we easily succumb to far less than the glory we are meant to enjoy. In one of his most clear, effective statements, Lewis writes, “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased” (p.26).

The second component of his argument is that our fundamental desire, that which we were created for and that which only can satisfy us, is that we are made for heaven. He writes, “Glory, as Christianity teaches me to hope for it, turns out to satisfy my original desire which I had not noticed. By ceasing for a moment to consider my own wants I have begun to learn better what I really wanted” (p.39).

The conclusion of his argument is that the filling of our innermost desire will be not only basking upon the glory of God, but united to it forevermore. “We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words—to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it” (p.42).

These are just a few highlights of a remarkable read. This is just one overview of the 9 lectures in this volume. This is one you will want to read, take time to meditate, and enjoy!