How we engage

"One must look both along and at everything."

"...you can step outside one experience only by stepping inside another."         C.S Lewis

       After reading C.S Lewis' essay "Meditation in a Toolshed", I was reminded of some of the basic fundamentals of how it is that we, human beings, interact and engage with our realities. With such pivotal aspects as ideologies, philosophies, religion, even the way we perceive and respond to people in our inter-personal relationships, I have always been interested in understanding what truly is the best way for people to fully understand and respond righteously within our environments? Of course, I am approaching this question from a Christian perspective and am ultimately asking how God would preferably have His children live in a world that He has created.

      In Lewis' essay, he quickly points out the faults of trying to gain a full understanding of anything through only one perspective or viewpoint. He argues that a singular evaluation given soley from an internal account(experience) or an external account (observation) are not legitimate ways for fully understanding anything.

      Instead of subjecting oneself to understanding through strictly external or internal observations, Lewis argues that we must approach everything without any bias, skepticism, nor presumptions and that instead we should, through internal and external obsersavtions, make up our own minds and just find out.

      These exhortations from C.S Lewis confirmed what I have been convinced is the best way to interact and engage with the world that God has given us. There is a great deal in our lives that we will come to learn and experience and we should not approach these events with ignorance nor narrow-minded bias. Instead, as God has given us free will and minds for ourselves, we should approach each seasons and challenge in our lives, be it new ideas, people, and education with an open mind that evaluates these experiences through internal and external observations.