On October 22, 1939, less than two months after the German invasion of Poland, C.S. Lewis (the author of The Chronicles of Narnia) gave a talk on how to face the challenge of daily responsibilities during times of conflict. The sermon, titled “Learning in War-Time”, offers insight into Lewis’s analysis of how the global situation at the onset of World War II impacted those whose lives had not yet been dramatically changed by the specter of war.
The horrors of the Second World War and the Holocaust were, in some ways, unique and I pray that they will never be repeated. That being said, as I have spoken with friends and family over the weeks since the U.S. presidential inauguration, I have heard echoes of the same concerns that C.S. Lewis addressed in “Learning in War-Time.” As a person who takes great strength from the heroes of history, I have quoted this sermon on several occasions and I strongly recommend that you read it in its entirety. Whether or not you choose to read the sermon, I want to highlight some specific aspects of Lewis’s wisdom so that they can benefit all of us during these uncertain times.
Lately, I have heard people confess that they are struggling to focus on daily tasks as they try to make sense of what is going on in our world. I have experienced times like this myself when I wonder if there is any purpose to the things that I am doing and if I should find a more powerful way to preserve our democracy for my own children. Feelings like this can be paralyzing and I suspect that this paralysis is a biological response to the stress that we are feeling. Many of us know that when an animal encounters a threat, they experience “fight or flight.” What is less commonly known is that there is a third response to threats that many encounter: freeze. Freezing has always been my own reaction to perceived threats, a fact which my family of origin found to be excessively amusing when we encountered snakes on our weekend hikes through the woods. For people who do not usually find themselves freezing in response to stress, this reaction of paralysis feels new and confusing.
Fortunately, Lewis offers helpful insight into our tendency to freeze up. He suggests that our “freeze” response is not so much due to a change in circumstances (as he points out, even the most threatening crises do nothing to increase human mortality which remains at 100%), but to the tendency of crises to draw our attention towards our own mortality. Consequently, when faced with a major threat, we begin to question the value of what we choose to do with our finite time. Lewis says that everyone must ask themselves “how is it right, or even psychologically possible, for creatures who are every moment advancing either to heaven or to hell, to spend any fraction of the little time allowed them in this world on such comparative trivialities as literature or art, mathematics or biology.” I would add to this list my own daily trivialities of cooking, cleaning, laundry, reading to the children, running errands, shuttling to activities, attending doctor’s appointments, and even the act of writing. For Lewis, the question of how we use our time becomes particularly salient during periods of crisis. Still, Christians ought to be used to judging their activities in the light of eternity: we know that we will one day give account for each of the moments that God has gifted to us and, therefore, we should ensure that we spend our time well.
Lewis proposes that our focus should not be on what we are doing, but on who we are doing our tasks for. He suggests that in doing our small tasks out of great love and devotion to God they become sacred and meaningful. This likely sounds familiar to Catholic readers because it echoes St. Therese of Lisieux’s Little Way and the voice of her namesake, Mother Teresa: “We can only do small things with great love.” Like Sts. Therese and Teresa, Lewis goes on to say that even the greatest work, when done without love for God, is meaningless. Pope Francis put it this way, “Each of us in our own small way, in our particular state of life, can, with the help of the Spirit, be a sower of seeds of hope and peace.”
For Christians, this means that whatever we are called to do today, whether big or small, is our responsibility in the present moment. Lewis points out that we all have different assignments and that God may choose to use our efforts for great purposes or He may not. Regardless, our job is to faithfully do whatever He asks of us. While this obviously applies to our overarching purpose in life, it also applies to our daily tasks – the grittiness that makes up our existence – and these remain our responsibility irrespective of external circumstances. The idea that the whole of life is a vocation permeates much of Pope Francis’s work. In Gaudete et Exsultate, he made this idea explicit: “You need to see the entirety of your life as a mission.” In fact, in Evangelii Gaudium, he wrote, that we must all think of ourselves as this mission: “I am a mission on this earth; that is the reason why I am here in this world.”
So then, the question becomes not should we do the tasks we have been given even in times of crisis, but how are we to know what those tasks are?
Lewis answers this question with almost audible dry British humor: “A man’s upbringing, his talents, his circumstances, are usually a tolerable index of his vocation.” In other words, if God has put you in a position to exert great power and influence on society through politics or religion, then that is your vocation. However, if He has put you in charge of building culture, art, and literature, then that is what you must do to bring Him glory. If you are a scientist, pursue good science; a mathematician, faithfully seek to understand the mathematical laws that govern us all; a historian, learn from the past and detect the mistakes of today; a reporter, share the truth; a physician, heal; a carpenter, construct places where life can thrive; a housekeeper, maintain the health and comfort of those around you; an electrician, safely give light so others can navigate darkness; a barber, help people to be presentable and acceptable so that they can fulfill their own vocations; a parent, raise God-fearing and beauty-loving children.
Our vocations, which we were each called to based on our own circumstances and talents, remain the same even when our situations are not ideal. It is possible that, like Queen Esther, God has placed you in a unique position to influence the present time and has given you your current role “for such a time as this,” but it is also possible that He needs you to play a small part in keeping the rest of the world going, knowledge expanding, and beauty flourishing so that those who have been placed “for such a time as this” have something to come back to when the time of crisis has passed. Someone once said that making art during times of war is valuable because it preserves culture and, were that culture to die, there would be nothing left to fight for. So, whether you are called to fight, create, or maintain, your work is valuable.
God recognizes the value in each of us and has called us accordingly. As Pope Francis has said, God “sees a certain potential, at times unbeknownst to ourselves, and throughout our lives he works tirelessly so that we can place this potential at the service of the common good. Vocation arises in this way.” All of us, even the least powerful and educated, have a critical role to play in the advancement of God’s purposes. Indeed, according to Pope Francis, “All the baptized, whatever their positions in the Church or their level of instruction in the faith, are agents of evangelization,” and “all of us are called to share in Christ’s mission to reunite a fragmented humanity and to reconcile it to God.”
This does not mean that the details of our vocation cannot change. It is of course possible that God’s plans for you today are different from the ones He had for you yesterday. Still, while the details may change, your task remains the same: do whatever good thing it is that God has put before you to do so that you can work together with Him to bring about His will on the earth.
How, then, do we overcome the paralysis that we feel in the face of all that is happening in our world so that we can do the work God has for us? Lewis answers this question by identifying “three enemies which war raises up against the scholar.” While most of us are not at war and few of us are scholars, these same enemies seem to enjoy revolting against the fulfillment of all vocations during any time of uncertainty.
According to Lewis, the first enemy that attempts to prevent us from fulfilling God’s purposes in times of crisis is excitement. How easy it is to be shaken and disoriented by the sensational news headlines that sometimes break hourly. With the constant access we have to information, it is possible to fill entire days simply researching the problems in our world, but doing so often means that we fail to complete the tasks that God has set out for us to do on those days.
The power of excitement relies on one weapon: distraction. The enemy succeeds when our thoughts about the world’s troubles draw us away from what we are meant to be doing. As Lewis points out, this enemy does not restrict its activity to times of crisis. One could argue that someone has not truly lived if they have never found themselves distracted by new love, a long-awaited vacation, the laughter of friends, wafting smells of food, or the incessant interruptions of a fussy child. So, while we cannot eliminate excitement from our lives (nor would we want to), according to Lewis the key is to “do the best we can.” Otherwise, we will “always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come.” We can still accomplish a good deal despite distractions if we steadfastly fulfill our daily tasks with great love.
The second enemy of obedience in vocations is frustration. This may result from the realization or fear that we do not have the time to do the things that we once hoped to do given the current state of our world. In the U.S. today, people who have long fought for environmental justice and human rights feel such frustration acutely as they watch so much of their work being undone. It is possible that they may become incapacitated by this frustration if they do not keep their eyes fixed on the Author of History whose timeline is not ours and who will never run out of time to change things. It is also possible for frustration to be caused by the sheer volume of things to be done. One of the tactics that the Trump administration has used repeatedly is throwing as much as it can at people all at once. This flood of information makes it nearly impossible to figure out how to allocate limited time and resources to prevent injustices. If we are honest, Trump is not the only powerful influence in our world who utilizes this tactic. Many agitators within the Church have adopted similar approaches in recent years.
As Christ-followers, we do not need to surrender to the enemy of frustration, even in the most overwhelming times. Pope Francis, in is 2024 address on the World Day of Prayer for Vocations said, “To be pilgrims of hope and builders of peace, then, means to base our lives on the rock of Christ’s resurrection, knowing that every effort made in the vocation that we have embraced and seek to live out, will never be in vain.” Lewis shared a similar sentiment, albeit with a more fatalistic flavor: “Christian attitude, which can be attained at any age, is that of leaving futurity in God’s hands. We may as well, for God will certainly retain it whether we leave it to Him or not.” Our job is to do what we can do right now and to rest in the knowledge that God holds whatever we cannot do in His hands.
It has been said that Pope John XXIII ended each day by praying, “It’s your world God. I’m going to bed.” Similarly, Pope Francis keeps a statue of sleeping St. Joseph on his desk as a reminder that the man tasked with raising the very Son of God could sleep peacefully with the knowledge that God was in control. St. Joseph knew that he was inadequate for the task that was assigned to him, but he also knew that God was beyond capable. If men like these, who carried such great responsibilities, can rest knowing that God will not be thwarted by human limitations, so should we.
The final enemy Lewis identifies is fear. He does not suggest that we must approach difficulties without trepidation. In fact, he says that if Christians look to Gethsemane, they will see that Christianity does not require indifference to suffering. However, we must “guard against the illusions of the imagination.” So often we see the threat in our current circumstances and find ourselves imagining everything that could go wrong. We must remember that our fundamental circumstances remain unchanged: we will die and when we do, we will either be at peace with God or at odds with Him. The rest of our stories are mere details – the proverbial icing on the cake. Rather than allowing ourselves to focus on what may be, we must keep our gaze fixed on what God wants for us at this moment so that whenever that inevitable time comes and our lives end, we will be able to say with confidence that we did all we could to follow Him and did not allow our fears to prevent us from being good stewards of our time.
Lewis concludes his sermon with a paragraph that is worth quoting in its entirety:
All the animal life in us, all schemes of happiness that centered in this world, were always doomed to a final frustration. In ordinary times only a wise man can realize it. Now the stupidest of us know. We see unmistakable the sort of universe in which we have all along been living, and must come to terms with it. If we had foolish un-Christian hopes about human culture, they are now shattered. If we thought we were building up a heaven on earth, if we looked for something that would turn the present world from a place of pilgrimage into a permanent city satisfying the soul of man, we are disillusioned, and not a moment to soon. But if we thought that for some souls, and at some times, the life of learning, humbly offered to God, was, in its own small way, one of the appointed approaches to the Divine beauty which we hope to enjoy hereafter, we can think so still.
For many of us, the most paralyzing and disorienting aspect of our present time is the realization that the world we thought we were living in was a fantasy. We thought that we were living in a time where freedom, knowledge and peace were valued. We were wrong. We thought we were living in a nation that was unrecognizable from the one that was filled with hatred and racism just a few short decades ago. We were wrong. We thought we had stable and dependable allies on the global stage who shared our desire for a good world. We were wrong. We thought that most of our neighbors agreed with us on the definitions of good and evil. We were wrong.
All the hopes that we pinned on this world and on humanity are being challenged and shaken by a new reality that is rising around us. This is frightening, discouraging and at times unbelievable. Yet it need not lead us to despair. As Lewis pointed out, our hopes depended on things that were never meant to give us the security that we desire. The only reliable foundation for our hope is Christ. We were not made for this world but for another and, for many of us, current events are forcing us to face this reality. Afterall, Jesus Himself promised us that in this world we would face hardship but reassured us that He has overcome the world.
Considering this, what are we to do when we are immobilized by life right now? Lewis would say that we are meant to do the same thing that we have always been meant to do: whatever is the next right thing. And then the next, and the next, until we are finally called home. For some of us, this next right thing will be dramatically standing up to abusive power or making radical sacrifices for our beliefs. For most of us, however, it will be going to work and coming home to love our families. But when done with love and for God, even the smallest of these next right things will carry eternal significance, regardless of the events happening around us. And as Pope Francis has said, “The seeds of goodness we sow are quietly growing and nothing can separate us from the final goal.”
Image: “Lewis” (CC BY 2.0) by byzantiumbooks
Ariane Sroubek is a writer, school psychologist and mother to two children here on earth. Prior to converting to Catholicism, she completed undergraduate studies in Bible and Theology at Gordon College in Wenham, MA. She then went on to obtain her doctorate in School and Child Clinical Psychology. Ariane’s writing is inspired by her faith, daily life experiences and education. More of her work can be found at medium.com/@sroubek.ariane and at https://mysustaininggrace.com.
Popular Posts