Loved "The Four Loves"

Finished The Four Loves by C. S. Lewis a few weeks ago but I have taken the novelty of letting it sink into my mind for a while before I review it here. I still don't think I can write an adequate description. Yeah, it's THAT good. I loved that it made me think, and really analyze my life and relationships with people. Mr. Lewis describes things in such a familiar way that you really can't help but apply the concepts to your own thinking. The introduction and beginning chapters are reflective and engaging, but I didn't love love the book until I got to the chapter on Eros, or romantic love and then the last chapter on Charity, or the love of God.

The chapter on Affection was also among my favorites. Some notes I took on that chapter, and criteria for Affection:
-Affection: warm comfortableness, satisfaction in being together
-you never know it's beginning (when you're aware of it, it's already begun)
-humblest of all the loves
-is and can be taken for granted.... to a point (that's what makes it so comfortable, low maintenance)
-you may pick who you love but affection shows now favorites, it unites the most unlikely of people.
-it's presence does not guarantee happiness
-we both need and give affection
-change is a threat to affection


Notes on Friendship:
- least instinctive of all the loves
-friend means (or should mean) more than an ally, but can be an ally when alliance becomes necessary
-gratitude is not necessary in friendship, we say "don't mention it - and we mean it - now lets get back to what we want to talk about."
- friends "see the same truth"
- Friendship is not necessary for survival, but gives value to survival.
(may I say that this chapter resonantly affected me in how I view my friends. I count them as fewer than I did before, but dearer than ever. They are described in this book as individuals who would be brought together by circumstance, but found virtue in the other by "seeing the same truth" as Lewis would put it, or, working toward the same goal, sharing a mutual understanding. I feel as though I'm butchering the language to try and describe it... best just read the book to understand!)


I didn't take many notes on Eros (romantic love) but I will share my favorite lines (may I also say that Lewis liberally and appropriately quotes Shakespeare in this chapter):
"...Eros, of himself, will never be enough - will indeed survive only in so far as he is continually chastened and corroborated by higher principles."


"We must do the works of Eros when Eros is not present....And all good Christian lovers know that this programme, modest as it sounds, will not be carried out except by humility, charity and divine grace...."

My final and favorite chapter about Charity brought me to tears many times, and has affected me the most of any of the chapters (in this chapter Lewis appropriately refers to Jesus Christ as "Love Himself"):
"Do not let your happiness depend on something you may lose. If love is to be a blessing, not a misery, it must be for the only Beloved [Jesus Christ] who will never pass away."


"We shall draw nearer to God, not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armour. If our hearts need to be broken, and if he chooses this as the way in which they should break, so be it."


"In God there is no hunger that needs to be filled, only plenteousness that desires to give."


There were many more powerful, wonderful points to this book. Many more than I could ever share here. I hoped to give a glimpse or a taste to you, and to save some for me ( I hate it when I know I've READ a book but then I don't remember READING it!). Check my "currently reading" spot for what I'm on to next.