C. S. Lewis Quote

I came across this quote from Mere Christianity and thought it captured some of what I’m trying to do through this blog, i.e., to commit loving acts for you in order to increase my love for you:

Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less. There is, indeed, one exception. If you do him a good turn, not to please God and obey the law of charity, but to show him what a fine forgiving chap you are, and to put him in your debt, and then sit down to wait for his ‘gratitude’, you will probably be disappointed. (People are not fools: they have a very quick eye for anything like showing off, or patronage.) But whenever we do good to another self, just because it is a self, made (like us) by God, and desiring its own happiness as we desire ours, we shall have learned to love it a little more or, at least, to dislike it less.

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Day 99: Sunset at the Beach, Attempt #2

I tried to make up for missing the sunset on day 98 by taking you to the beach at sunset yesterday. I envisioned us having a tender moment watching the sunset while the kids played in the sand. That didn’t happen. Instead, we took one of my best friends along with us and I talked to him the entire time the sun went down while you watched the kids. Lame-o! (It’s my fault, not his. I could’ve enjoyed a moment with you while talking to him.) I can’t really call what I did an act of love, so let’s throw this in the fail bin and move on. Some day I’ll make this sunset-at-the-beach thing work out.

We had a great time with my friend, though, and we’re so glad he came to visit us.