In his biography, "Suprised by Joy", CS Lewis records two such moments from his childhood when he was about 7 or 8 years old.
One day he was casually reading and came to these words:
“I heard a voice that cried, Balder The Beautiful is dead, is dead.”
As I stood beside a flowering currant Bush on a summer day, there suddenly arose in me, without warning, as if from a depth not of years but of centuries, the memory of (an) earlier morning at the Old House where my brother had brought his toy garden into the nursery. It is difficult to find words strong enough for the sensation which came over me. It was a sensation, of course, of desire. The desire for what? Not certainly for a biscuit tin filled with moss. And before I knew what I desired, the desire itself was gone, the whole glimpse withdrawn, the world turned commonplace again. Or only stirred by a longing for the longing that had just ceased. It had taken only a moment of time, and in a certain sense, everything else that had ever happened to me was insignificant in comparison.
One day he was casually reading and came to these words:
“I heard a voice that cried, Balder The Beautiful is dead, is dead.”
He writes:
“I knew nothing about Balder, but instantly I was uplifted into huge regions of northern sky. I desired, with almost sickening intensity, something never to be described … and then, as in other examples, found myself at the very same moment already falling out of that desire and wishing I was back in it.
Lewis had been reading Longfellow's Tegner's Drapa.
I heard a voice, that cried,
"Balder the Beautiful
Is dead, is dead!"
And through the misty air
Passed like the mournful cry
Of sunward sailing cranes.
I saw the pallid corpse
Of the dead sun
Borne through the Northern sky.
Blasts from Niffelheim
Lifted the sheeted mists
Around him as he passed.
And the voice forever cried,
"Balder the Beautiful
Is dead, is dead!"
And died away
Through the dreary night,
In accents of despair.
In his twenties he was a student at Oxford and on train journey:
I and one porter had the long, timbered platform of Leatherhead station to ourselves. …Turning to the bookstall, I picked out an Everyman in a dirty jacket. Phantasies, a faerie Romance, George MacDonald. Then the train came in. I can still remember the voice of the porter calling out the village names, Saxon and sweet as a nut--"Bookham, Effingham, Horsley train". That evening I began to read my new book.Lewis had been reading Longfellow's Tegner's Drapa.
I heard a voice, that cried,
"Balder the Beautiful
Is dead, is dead!"
And through the misty air
Passed like the mournful cry
Of sunward sailing cranes.
I saw the pallid corpse
Of the dead sun
Borne through the Northern sky.
Blasts from Niffelheim
Lifted the sheeted mists
Around him as he passed.
And the voice forever cried,
"Balder the Beautiful
Is dead, is dead!"
And died away
Through the dreary night,
In accents of despair.
In his twenties he was a student at Oxford and on train journey:
It is as if I were carried sleeping across the frontier, or as if I had died in the old country and could never remember how I came alive in the new. …I did not yet know (and I was long in learning) the name of the new quality, the bright shadow, that rested on the travels of Anodos. I do now. It was Holiness. .. .. I had not the faintest notion what I had let myself in for by buying Phantastes.
Lewis's Spiritual Journey is His alone
It is a big mistake to read CS Lewis' spiritual journey and wish to emulate it. I fell into this trap time and time again, reading biographies of Christians who had amazing tales to tell and longing to stand in their shoes. I have at last learned such longings are futile and lead only to disappointment and a sense of failure.
Every person is not only unique physically but also spiritually - if you allow such a term. The stories told about Jesus are nearly all encounters with a single person and his response to that individual, man or woman, rich or poor, Jew or Roman, was unique to them. When Peter, asked him, “But Lord, what about this man?” Jesus replied, “If I will that he remains till I come, what is that to you? You follow Me."
Every person is not only unique physically but also spiritually - if you allow such a term. The stories told about Jesus are nearly all encounters with a single person and his response to that individual, man or woman, rich or poor, Jew or Roman, was unique to them. When Peter, asked him, “But Lord, what about this man?” Jesus replied, “If I will that he remains till I come, what is that to you? You follow Me."
Finally, being spiritual and embarking on a spiritual journey does not require being religious or joining a religious faith. Trying to conform to a set of doctrines may hamper rather than hinder your unique journey.
