We've gone from a culture that undervalued women to a culture that both undervalues and devalues women. Though the feminist movement claimed more women's rights as their goal, the result was just the opposite. Easy divorce, career focus, free love, abortion, pornography- these all ultimately work to the benefit of men at the expense of women- women, who were already disadvantaged, not just physically disadvantaged, but also because bearing and raising children forces them to be dependent on men.
Then, following 60yrs of devaluing women, comes the astroturf (mostly men-funded) trans "movement" which seeks to eliminate women altogether.
And, all this devaluation of women done with the cooperation of women, perhaps, due to the siren song of "women's rights," who have given away their greatest power over men- their virtue.
It is said that men do not understand women, but it seems neither do women understand men. Men, especially young men, are driven mostly by urges below their belts. And men will do or say anything that leads to satisfaction of those urges. Guys always knew the girls who "would," and the girls who "won't." And, it is an unfair double standard, but a promiscous guy is considered a "stud," while a promiscuous girl is considered a "slut." And, while guys might prefer to party with the girls who "do," they prefer to marry the girls who "don't." Cold, hard facts.
All that said, and to get to a more mature level of thought, women possess strengths and inclinations that men cannot or do not have. Woman, wife and mother are terms deserving of reverence. Proverbs states that the price of a virtuous woman is far above rubies. It then goes on to describe the many invaluable strengths and inclinations of such a woman. Ephesians agrees that women deserve reverence, stating that men ought love their wives as they love their own bodies.
Are these biblical expectations of men's and women's attitudes toward women in line with today's culture, or are they the exact opposite? And, if the exact opposite, what influence in our culture has been forgotten or abandoned to allow that to occur?
I don't think the result was to the benefit of the men but rather the aim.....and current result.....was and is to be detrimental and destroy both men and women - society in general and families specifically. All fully intended and begun to be implemented decades ago.
That's a good point, and I fully agree the family (and thus society) was the ultimate target, with devaluation of women selected as a tactic toward that goal. And, as you said, harming the family harms both men and women.
David, I completely agree that the devaluation of women and the disruption of the family have had a devastating impact on society. It’s sad to see how undermining one part of the family unit ends up hurting everyone—both men and women alike. Building up the family and truly valuing each person’s unique role is key to a healthy society. Thanks for your insight and thoughtful reply!
David, I see where you’re coming from when you mention the feminist movement’s impact on women’s status and their perceived value in society. But I wonder if the initial premise—the claim that women were fundamentally undervalued—might be flawed or at least more nuanced. Throughout history, women have often held significant influence, albeit in less obvious ways. In many traditional societies, men have risked and sacrificed to protect and provide for their families, treating women as valued partners rather than burdens. Even the legal and cultural protections, though different from modern conceptions of equality, show that women were seen as inherently worthy of care and respect. Your point about how modern changes, ironically, leave women more vulnerable in some ways is compelling—perhaps it’s because we’ve tried to fix what wasn’t fully broken in the first place?
I fully agree. And, my argument with those pushing the feminist movement was that they failed to acknowledge, promote, or apparently appreciate the great influence and significance that women play in any society.
In any relationship, women offer a man moral support, emotional support, physical support, and intellectual support, without which the man will struggle to succeed. And, obviously, the woman carries the kids, gives birth to the kids, nurses the kids, and raises the kids.
Traditionally, women do, perhaps, 75% of the work, and they do all that while negotiating a world in which they are smaller and weaker and more vulnerable to danger than men. And women do all that with such selflessness that men are able to claim great things without necessarily acknowledging the critical role performed by the women in their lives. But, the wise man understands and acknowledges the great value of the woman in his life.
So, when we try to make women "equal" to men, it seems as if we are actually underestimating their true value which was arguably already greater than men. Of course, women can work a career, women being the intellectual equals of men. And that option should be available to them as they choose. And if that were the feminist movement goal, there might not be much argument.
But, that goal seems to have been a feint, with the true goal the destruction of femininity and traditional womanhood, and of the family as the pillar of society. One of the major tactics is to replace romance with lust, to replace love centered in the heart and head with "love" centered below the waist. Frankly, the modern depiction of sex in movies lacks even the romantic elements that hard core porn used to include.
Sorry if this reply was erratic- just throwing out thoughts rather than creating an edited whole. But thanks for your comment.
David, I see where you’re coming from and agree that women’s roles have been invaluable throughout history. They’ve always offered critical support, strength, and wisdom that’s often overlooked or underestimated. The true value of femininity is immense, and honoring it doesn’t mean making women identical to men but celebrating their unique contributions. When movements overlook this, they risk losing sight of what really makes relationships and society thrive—balance, respect, and mutual recognition. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
We have no right to happiness. That seems true to me but it doesn't go very far. My immediate thought goes to the oft repeated words of Thich Nhat Hanh– "There is no way to peace. Peace is the way." Can we say, "There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way"? There is no way to happiness through demanding it from anyone or anything outside of oneself. Happiness is an inside job. The most extreme example of this that I am aware of is Viktor Frankl's account of those in the Nazi death camps who would give all they had to others. Rather than grasping for the last piece of bread, they would give it away to those more in need. They chose inwardly to be the presence of love to those around them. Did that make them happy all of the time? Probably they had deep moments of despair otherwise they could not have felt compassion for the despair of those around them.
I feel like he is getting at something so important. I notice in recent decades and years that the devil media loves to promote couples who fell "madly in love" after leaving their spouses. And nobody is the last bit bummed out by the carnage, even with children. Women who steal other women's husbands not at all scorned. On the other hand, not getting "vaccinated" hugely scorned. The public turned against Ingrid Bergman (50s?) when she left her Swedish husband for Rossellini, so vehemently that she could barely leave the hospital safely when she birthed her twins by him. If memory serves from reading part of her memoir.
I used to think I "deserved" happiness and needed a divorce. When I think back on myself from those years I want to punch myself in the face. I was a typical modern monster.
My "conservative" father spoke about his three wives as if it were the most normal thing in the world, like having three anything.
It all derailed in my parents' generation.
If I had it to do over I would at least grasp that divorce is a catastrophe. Not just thing thing that's there for you when you need it.
I feel I deserve all the utter chaos, poverty, and self-hatred I invited after my divorce.
I just wish I could get to more stable ground after serving my penance. Self-loathing is not considered a good thing but a little self loathing for having failed to hold a marriage together is maybe a good thing.
He said to me once when I was wailing about how not at all "happy" we were: "You have never been happy, and you never will be happy, because your parents destroyed you."
That was kind of upsetting.
It was a shotgun wedding; We were as different as two people could be.
In any case, he found his true soulmate and is happily married now. I'm not sure what I really believe or what my point is. It says in the Bible it's better not to be married at all. But if you ARE, you're never supposed to get divorced. I think at the end of the day C.S. Lewis is talking about the miseries of too much so called freedom.
I think people who share faith can stay married, because they aren't trying to "be happy" they are trying to please God.
My mother never recovered from her divorce. She was fairly forced to it given my father's flagrant affair in a very small town. She was deeply religious and far more wounded than I realized--when she was dying, she found herself right back in the year of her divorce and that's when I fully realized that the trauma had never left her. She never remarried but my father married the mistress and continued to have affairs, even when he was 80. My brothers and I met his last mistress--at his funeral--which we had back in his hometown.
II have been reading a lot of Lewis lately, and other Inklings as well. I agree with you about what he says. I think he is looking at the imbalances and the over emphases that lead to the neglect of the soul. Look after your soul--Marcus Aurelius says. Know your soul and look after it. I hear echoes of this in Lewis and wonder why we never ever hear this advice.
Gee, I've never seen that film. I've always been a film snob and all I remember about that movie was that it was widely panned. Now that I look at the reviews it sounds as if the opposite was true--but I remember a lot of disdain when it came out.
A.M., your story about your mother’s trauma resonated with me so deeply. It seems to reveal something C.S. Lewis was getting at in his essay—the way that unacknowledged pain from events like divorce can linger and shape entire lifetimes. The wound never truly closes, does it? The image of your mother, on her deathbed, back in the year of her divorce is so heartbreaking because it shows just how time can freeze around these deep emotional breaks.
Lewis talks about happiness as something fleeting, almost like an illusion when it’s pursued for its own sake. And your experience speaks to that disconnect. The trauma your mother endured wasn't just about losing a relationship; it was about losing a world of stability and meaning that she had invested in deeply, only to have it crumble. That kind of loss doesn’t get healed simply because “time moves on.”
What’s most powerful, though, is your shift towards healing through an understanding of the soul’s needs. This idea of “looking after the soul”—it’s a step towards reclaiming something solid amidst the chaos, the pursuit of a peace that is lasting rather than a happiness that’s fleeting. I think that’s what makes your reflection so moving: you show that these wounds aren’t just about pain; they’re also opportunities to find a more profound, soul-centered perspective.
The way you tie in the wisdom of Marcus Aurelius, and reflect on how Lewis offers an anchor back to Christian moral sanity, is really beautiful. It’s like you’re building a bridge across time—one where your mother’s story can be understood in light of these eternal principles. Thank you for sharing something so personal and for pointing towards a way through.
I completely understand and completely disagree with this sentiment: “I feel I deserve all the utter chaos, poverty, and self-hatred I invited after my divorce.” And somewhat agree that your parents (and societal ‘norms’ around divorce) seriously damaged your outlook. But no, not destroyed. You are reflecting deeply now and that matters.
I’m on a parallel path and so guess you are worried about your child, as I am mine. The good news is that we, with our children, are smart enough to keep digging until we find a way to end the inter-generational traumas.
Talking to myself as much as you now: start with love and forgiveness for YOU.
Much appreciated. It helped me to express it. I will move on to self healing hopefully. But it is the central failure of my life. I don't even want to feel ok about it.
whatever can you mean? central failure. that's like going up against the mafia in Las Vegas and gambling away your savings. you were never going to win. I'm astounded you blame yourself for an act of liberation — necessary no doubt at that moment to your survival.
although, when I think of my own central failure, I also ran out on something, broke a commitment rather than cope with the madness. but marriage per se? an instrument of real estate and inheritance, a social signifier, a power base. a certificate of hypocrisy. and those who are single suffer in its shadow.
A question, if you don't mind. The divorce happened before or after the 2006 Harper's article?
You were under attack before that article too. The psychological warfare bears some responsibility in all that. PsyWar is intended to make the enemy commit strategic mistakes.
Thank you for trying to spare me a bit. We were separated a few years after the Harper's attack but the rifts were there. I was into my holy battle as an escape from everything—I was a VERY hard person to be around I only remember being crazed to get the story perfect like a possession. I REGRET it. That article was nail in coffin for my marriage and then it was nuclear bomb to my "career" income and finally health and psyche. And for what?
A myth. (The myth of investigative journalism.) (It's just death, that is all it is. Poverty. Divorce. Trauma.)
They had driven me to the point of [deleted word] depression by 2009 and by then my ex husband had turned a corner and moved to Brooklyn. He did let me stay on his sofa when I had nowhere to live. Strange I have no shame in saying these things, now.
Not a bad person your ex-husband at all. And a good example for other people in his situation. You were very blessed by God who put the right people in your way when you hit that low. Other people make the mistake of rejecting help from Heaven.
I sometimes mention "hope" to get on people's nerves on other substacks. Some people are so demoralized. Fear is definitely not a virtue. Faith is a virtue, and it keeps people alive.
Fear is like gunk we accumulate as we live in the world, and we have to clean that out ourselves. When people have their melt down as I mention hope and faith, sometimes they suddenly become receptive to the idea of combating fear. It's way easier to repeat the old tripe against Christian ideas than to actually combat fear.
I think you are doing good, Celia. Caring for the kittens was a good idea. And Lewis will be fine from that thing. Don't worry, he is tough like C.S.Lewis.
"If I had it to do over I would at least grasp that divorce is a catastrophe. Not just thing thing that's there for you when you need it." The fallout so often falls on the children, though that can be complex. Nuanced. Like so many things. Sigh. I'll spare you my own life experiences vis-a-vis divorce. What a mess all these broken marriages have led to. Heart-breaking.
"I notice in recent decades and years that the devil media loves to promote couples who fell "madly in love" after leaving their spouses."
A well-documented affectation, an artifact of evolutionary biology that is increasingly referred to among mental health professionals as "serial monogamy."
Lionizing it in the media is a "two-fer." One for sales, because pandering sells and hope springs eternal. Two for the projection of the writer's own dashed hopes and dreams because misery loves company.
Eventually, most people learn to be content with what loving kindness they have. The fading of the fourteenth intensely passionate but short-lived new love, is elided for the sake of feeling oneself not such a fool as to have wasted so much of our very limited time on this earth.
All very understandable and forgivable, for who among us arrives at wisdom except by way of enduring agonies of our own devising?
Celia, your words resonate deeply because they confront one of the most painful and transformative truths: that the pursuit of happiness, as it’s often defined, can lead us far from the stability and meaning we crave. Your honesty about viewing yourself as a "modern monster" speaks to the dissonance so many feel between following personal desires and the wreckage they sometimes leave behind.
It’s striking how you describe the aftermath of divorce as inviting "utter chaos, poverty, and self-hatred." There’s an element here that mirrors C.S. Lewis’s caution about happiness becoming untethered from deeper values. When we take happiness as an end in itself, it’s like chasing a mirage that keeps shifting further away, leaving us to face the desert of consequence. Yet, that doesn’t mean the desire was misplaced or that you shouldn’t seek a better life for yourself—it’s just that the map society gives us might be leading us in circles rather than onward to true peace.
Your reflection about faith being a stabilizing force in marriage is a beautiful reminder of what C.S. Lewis might describe as the “eternal law”—the deeper currents that keep us grounded when surface waves try to toss us around. It’s that foundation that allows some people to stay married not for happiness’ sake, but because they’re building something that can endure the tempests.
And about self-loathing, maybe it's like fire—dangerous if unchecked, but purifying when channeled wisely. You clearly aren’t afraid to walk through those flames, and your willingness to share this path is a gift to those of us who look to you for guidance and empathy. Thank you for daring to say what so many only feel in silence.
Celia, this is an extraordinary outburst, confession, baring of the soul. not for nothing are you the child of Strindberg, both Bergmans — and what kind of actress would Ingrid have become if she hadn't fled her marriage to a nice dentist? — and some trickledown Ibsen and Tennessee Williams. and even Hamlet, who was merely Danish.
utter chaos, poverty, and self-hatred seem to have been the lot of most of my cultural heroes. these are signs or symptoms of a kind of intelligence that doesn't play safe.
CS Lewis isn't one of them. he's a pillar, is he not, of the Establishment, the state religion? I couldn't read him, he bored me.
Happiness is not a right. It's a state of being and the result of an awake mind. A right suggests that some higher power, other than God, grants us that right and just as easily they can take it away. In other words, powers like government have NO right to exist.
Lewis was correct in his assertion, and I will go one step further in saying that even the pursuit of happiness is a fools errand, an instance of "dog chases car." Once caught, there's naught to be done but gnaw on the tires.
Contentment can be gained through studious effort, aided by a bit of luck. Happiness is a spontaneous outpouring of intense emotion, emotion to be savored and appreciated, to be sure, but not something that one can cling to without paying a terrible price.
People abide in category error, and it has always been thus, that we conflate amusement, congeniality and myriad other contented states for happiness. We then apply more effort to "turn up the amperage," attempting to sustain the spontaneous and ephemeral, through repetition of whatever activity preceded or enabled that contentment.
The result is not happiness, nor is it contentment. It is an eternally wistful striving, a state of chronic discontent. The answer isn't to abjure authentic happiness, but to delight in it when it momentarily appears and savor it without clinging to it as an alcoholic does to the numb delirium of drunkenness.
Life is, among other things, truly "solitary, nasty, brutish and short." As for those other things, they range from the mundane to the noble and domains elevated beyond our ken.
Pursue contentment, and allow happiness to shine forth when and where it will. We each have our allotment, and greedy pursuit of more than our due, is indeed a fools errand.
True enough, Teresa, but in 1651, the "firmament" was not rich in examples of representative forms of government with universal suffrage.
As far as that goes, the jury is still out on this noblest of experiments, an experiment well worth conducting, we would probably agree. As with all experiments, there are confounding factors to be considered. Those factors do not negate the experiment, but they must be confronted head-on, lest we find ourselves living entirely by illusion.
As Teresa L. points out, it was Hobbes in "Leviathan," Celia. The full usage was "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short."
I don't disagree with him, as far as that goes, but for the sake of my own sanity (admittedly a matter of pure self-interest,) I always remember that quote in juxtaposition with this phrase from Emerson's essay "On Self-Reliance:"
"A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his."
Hobbes is acknowledged to have been operating within that firmament. I reckon my point to be that we encounter acts of kindness and generosity even under the worst of conditions. I offer some of what occurred in Auschwitz in support of that assertion.
I omitted "poor" from the quote for selfish reasons. My own experience has been one of solitary flowers blooming in otherwise barren landscapes, metaphorically speaking. The contrast is stark, indeed, but without darkness, there can be no discernment of light.
Apropos of nothing, my family vows to have "on the other hand" engraved on my headstone.
Thanks for the compliment. Coming from you, it means a lot to me.
Superb essay by Lewis, per usual, and written with such plainspokenness and lucidity.
The Catholic Church remains steadfastly against divorce - the only religious group that remains thus today. The devastation upon the children remains unacknowledged. Look at all the societies in the West with legalized divorce - social fabric torn apart at the seams and more. Families no longer providing the safe haven they should be doing. The US' culture's insistence on individual rights as paramount above all else (when did that become a central tenet in public thought, by the way? I have no idea.) has bred excess individualism and narcissism to the utter destruction of families as well as the individual. When I read the histories of homeless patients, most if not all of them have no families to care for or even think about them. The non-Caucasian ethnic cultural pressures and norms, I think, prevent the phenomenon of wandering homeless individuals among their kind (Asian, South Asian, Middle Eastern, etc.). The tragic story of this woman who was dead for 4 days with no one noticing is instructive: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/officials-probe-death-wells-fargo-employee-found-dead-cubicle-4-days-l-rcna168756
The Philippines remains the sole country in the world without legalized divorce (and abortion- Ireland fell a few years ago when globalists manipulated the vote to legalize abortion in the Land of Saints and Scholars). So the well-paid minions of globalists in the Legislature have been pushing hard for their legalization. Thank goodness they've been kept at bay thus far. But the pernicious influence of Hollywood is the more dangerous trend overwhelming the culture there since the '60s.
More later. So many vital issues raised by this concise essay. Even in my lost years wandering in the spiritual wilderness dabbling in New Agey woo woo stuff, Lewis offered a solid anchor to Christian moral sanity via his "Screwtape Letters".
Have you read his "A Grief Observed"? Very moving. Made into movie, "Shadowlands".
Culture social engineers got women out of the house, away from the family, in the name of "feminism". Also, taxing two working people instead of just one in a household was better for govt. Sexual "liberation" remains the untouchable issue today, doesn't it?
And yet, this most powerful natural urge of humans was let loose from social and legal restraints by the demons because a people who are addled by their worst vices and proclivities are a people so easily controlled. Like a drug addict - but the drug here is "free" and available anywhere. Also why porn became legalized across the world (except perhaps in Muslim countries?)
"Libido dominandi" - the lust for power and dominance and control - with sexual liberation as a means of political control, written up by E Michael Jones: https://www.fidelitypress.org/libido-dominandi
It was a great trick to change the meaning of the words positive and negative to mean "good" and "bad." And, at the same time, the almost complete proscription of "good" and "bad" because they are judgmental words. The creators of the New Age thing never say "good" and "bad" or "evil." They judge and condemn real words as bad, which is so funny.
So, when I go over my head and criticize positive law no one can follow. People think "But positive is good! what's this idiot saying! I cannot follow this, I'm repelled by this negativity."
The language of Natural Law is better. But it's also confusing. Nothing is natural everything is man made and therefore evil. That's how many people are programmed to dismiss Natural Law ideas.
Celia, it's not just you. There is a moral fog everywhere. Everyone think it's normal but it's not.
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If Kennedy gets to do something good against the mafia, all his critics would receive a well deserved lesson in humility.
I predict that **some** critics of Kennedy would applaud Kennedy and take merit from him, if and when he revamps the regulatory agencies, and then they would say he is doing what they wanted so their criticism was useful because it stimulated him in the right direction. Because narcissist are just like that.
Roger, this really made me think. There does seem to be no-narcissism everywhere. People want to brandish their criticisms/cynicisms, and banish any admiration, or conceal it. Zeitgeist of disapproval.
People who told me to tone down my tendency to black-or-white thinking, have no nuance at all about Kennedy now. I think he is the only one who could, at least in theory, do even a little bit of good for the victims of the hospital genocides and the mRNA military. And it may not happen, but I don't share so much contempt. I'm angry but I remember Ron Paul: politics is about being in the right place at the right time.
Politics is not about justice or freedom. Politics is the art of the possible, and most of us cannot do politics at all.
By us I mean the people against vaccine genocide and Gaza genocide and the death cult of public health and eugenics and all the fascism that grows on it like a lichen. We are no good even in the politics of very small groups. We are too shocked and traumatized still. Newborns into the horrors of the Novo Ordo Seculorum and the Titanic crimes of the Rockefellers.
So, I reason, at least we should not eat our own, at least we should accept whatever little compensation we can get.
Nope. Not acceptable for most. I don't understand this attitude other the response of wounds bleeding again.
Thanks for posting this essay by C.S. Lewis. Some years back I bought a used copy of Lewis’s Essay Collection and Other Short Pieces, which is out of print and therefore able to fetch $200 and up. I had the Blackstone Audio version (wonderfully read by Ralph Cosham, the narrator for this video), and wanted a hard copy. I treasure it—and Ralph Cosham’s recordings.
Many years ago, I was driving down a road in our town, and I saw a boy standing on a cinderblock, staring intently down the road, apparently waiting for someone to pick him up. It struck me that the cinderblock added only 8 inches or so to his height, and he could see only a little bit farther down the road than he could standing flat on the ground. It was a picture of anticipation.
It was also the harbinger of a song. I tried to imagine what the boy was thinking and feeling that day. In the years since then I have encountered some heartbreaking situations that could have been the story behind a scene like that, and I tried to weave them into song lyrics. But after writing a couple of verses, I got stuck and set it aside, unfinished.
Every so often, I would play the riffs, sing the verses, and move a little closer to the story I hoped to tell—a story of brokenness, and yet of hope. Last summer I finally finished the song, and I realized that until that time, I simply had not yet encountered the scenes and stories to weave into the remaining lyrics.
When those vignettes appeared in the course of time, the rest of the song fell into place. Sometimes we need to see only a little bit farther down the road. :)
The right to pursue happiness is a natural right, ie, is provided by nature's God - not by government buraucrats .
The constitution secures it by safeguarding our rights to Life, Liberty and Property.
The Right to Life is protected by the right to bear arms , to defend the same and the Ninth Amendment.
The Right To Happiness is not defined In America, we decide for ourselves what produces happiness. We have never delegated to the government — ever — the power to make personal choices for us.
We've gone from a culture that undervalued women to a culture that both undervalues and devalues women. Though the feminist movement claimed more women's rights as their goal, the result was just the opposite. Easy divorce, career focus, free love, abortion, pornography- these all ultimately work to the benefit of men at the expense of women- women, who were already disadvantaged, not just physically disadvantaged, but also because bearing and raising children forces them to be dependent on men.
Then, following 60yrs of devaluing women, comes the astroturf (mostly men-funded) trans "movement" which seeks to eliminate women altogether.
And, all this devaluation of women done with the cooperation of women, perhaps, due to the siren song of "women's rights," who have given away their greatest power over men- their virtue.
It is said that men do not understand women, but it seems neither do women understand men. Men, especially young men, are driven mostly by urges below their belts. And men will do or say anything that leads to satisfaction of those urges. Guys always knew the girls who "would," and the girls who "won't." And, it is an unfair double standard, but a promiscous guy is considered a "stud," while a promiscuous girl is considered a "slut." And, while guys might prefer to party with the girls who "do," they prefer to marry the girls who "don't." Cold, hard facts.
All that said, and to get to a more mature level of thought, women possess strengths and inclinations that men cannot or do not have. Woman, wife and mother are terms deserving of reverence. Proverbs states that the price of a virtuous woman is far above rubies. It then goes on to describe the many invaluable strengths and inclinations of such a woman. Ephesians agrees that women deserve reverence, stating that men ought love their wives as they love their own bodies.
Are these biblical expectations of men's and women's attitudes toward women in line with today's culture, or are they the exact opposite? And, if the exact opposite, what influence in our culture has been forgotten or abandoned to allow that to occur?
so true. I need to read this again..
I don't think the result was to the benefit of the men but rather the aim.....and current result.....was and is to be detrimental and destroy both men and women - society in general and families specifically. All fully intended and begun to be implemented decades ago.
That's a good point, and I fully agree the family (and thus society) was the ultimate target, with devaluation of women selected as a tactic toward that goal. And, as you said, harming the family harms both men and women.
David, I completely agree that the devaluation of women and the disruption of the family have had a devastating impact on society. It’s sad to see how undermining one part of the family unit ends up hurting everyone—both men and women alike. Building up the family and truly valuing each person’s unique role is key to a healthy society. Thanks for your insight and thoughtful reply!
I couldn’t signal my liking of your comment so I am posting this.
The bible does indeed work both sides of the street doesn't it?
David, I see where you’re coming from when you mention the feminist movement’s impact on women’s status and their perceived value in society. But I wonder if the initial premise—the claim that women were fundamentally undervalued—might be flawed or at least more nuanced. Throughout history, women have often held significant influence, albeit in less obvious ways. In many traditional societies, men have risked and sacrificed to protect and provide for their families, treating women as valued partners rather than burdens. Even the legal and cultural protections, though different from modern conceptions of equality, show that women were seen as inherently worthy of care and respect. Your point about how modern changes, ironically, leave women more vulnerable in some ways is compelling—perhaps it’s because we’ve tried to fix what wasn’t fully broken in the first place?
I fully agree. And, my argument with those pushing the feminist movement was that they failed to acknowledge, promote, or apparently appreciate the great influence and significance that women play in any society.
In any relationship, women offer a man moral support, emotional support, physical support, and intellectual support, without which the man will struggle to succeed. And, obviously, the woman carries the kids, gives birth to the kids, nurses the kids, and raises the kids.
Traditionally, women do, perhaps, 75% of the work, and they do all that while negotiating a world in which they are smaller and weaker and more vulnerable to danger than men. And women do all that with such selflessness that men are able to claim great things without necessarily acknowledging the critical role performed by the women in their lives. But, the wise man understands and acknowledges the great value of the woman in his life.
So, when we try to make women "equal" to men, it seems as if we are actually underestimating their true value which was arguably already greater than men. Of course, women can work a career, women being the intellectual equals of men. And that option should be available to them as they choose. And if that were the feminist movement goal, there might not be much argument.
But, that goal seems to have been a feint, with the true goal the destruction of femininity and traditional womanhood, and of the family as the pillar of society. One of the major tactics is to replace romance with lust, to replace love centered in the heart and head with "love" centered below the waist. Frankly, the modern depiction of sex in movies lacks even the romantic elements that hard core porn used to include.
Sorry if this reply was erratic- just throwing out thoughts rather than creating an edited whole. But thanks for your comment.
David, I see where you’re coming from and agree that women’s roles have been invaluable throughout history. They’ve always offered critical support, strength, and wisdom that’s often overlooked or underestimated. The true value of femininity is immense, and honoring it doesn’t mean making women identical to men but celebrating their unique contributions. When movements overlook this, they risk losing sight of what really makes relationships and society thrive—balance, respect, and mutual recognition. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
We have no right to happiness. That seems true to me but it doesn't go very far. My immediate thought goes to the oft repeated words of Thich Nhat Hanh– "There is no way to peace. Peace is the way." Can we say, "There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way"? There is no way to happiness through demanding it from anyone or anything outside of oneself. Happiness is an inside job. The most extreme example of this that I am aware of is Viktor Frankl's account of those in the Nazi death camps who would give all they had to others. Rather than grasping for the last piece of bread, they would give it away to those more in need. They chose inwardly to be the presence of love to those around them. Did that make them happy all of the time? Probably they had deep moments of despair otherwise they could not have felt compassion for the despair of those around them.
I feel like he is getting at something so important. I notice in recent decades and years that the devil media loves to promote couples who fell "madly in love" after leaving their spouses. And nobody is the last bit bummed out by the carnage, even with children. Women who steal other women's husbands not at all scorned. On the other hand, not getting "vaccinated" hugely scorned. The public turned against Ingrid Bergman (50s?) when she left her Swedish husband for Rossellini, so vehemently that she could barely leave the hospital safely when she birthed her twins by him. If memory serves from reading part of her memoir.
I used to think I "deserved" happiness and needed a divorce. When I think back on myself from those years I want to punch myself in the face. I was a typical modern monster.
My "conservative" father spoke about his three wives as if it were the most normal thing in the world, like having three anything.
It all derailed in my parents' generation.
If I had it to do over I would at least grasp that divorce is a catastrophe. Not just thing thing that's there for you when you need it.
I feel I deserve all the utter chaos, poverty, and self-hatred I invited after my divorce.
I just wish I could get to more stable ground after serving my penance. Self-loathing is not considered a good thing but a little self loathing for having failed to hold a marriage together is maybe a good thing.
He said to me once when I was wailing about how not at all "happy" we were: "You have never been happy, and you never will be happy, because your parents destroyed you."
That was kind of upsetting.
It was a shotgun wedding; We were as different as two people could be.
In any case, he found his true soulmate and is happily married now. I'm not sure what I really believe or what my point is. It says in the Bible it's better not to be married at all. But if you ARE, you're never supposed to get divorced. I think at the end of the day C.S. Lewis is talking about the miseries of too much so called freedom.
I think people who share faith can stay married, because they aren't trying to "be happy" they are trying to please God.
My mother never recovered from her divorce. She was fairly forced to it given my father's flagrant affair in a very small town. She was deeply religious and far more wounded than I realized--when she was dying, she found herself right back in the year of her divorce and that's when I fully realized that the trauma had never left her. She never remarried but my father married the mistress and continued to have affairs, even when he was 80. My brothers and I met his last mistress--at his funeral--which we had back in his hometown.
II have been reading a lot of Lewis lately, and other Inklings as well. I agree with you about what he says. I think he is looking at the imbalances and the over emphases that lead to the neglect of the soul. Look after your soul--Marcus Aurelius says. Know your soul and look after it. I hear echoes of this in Lewis and wonder why we never ever hear this advice.
Sounds a bit like The Bridges of Madison County, A.M.
That film was pushed so hard on people. There was advertisement of it everywhere. They even gave away VHS tapes of it in press kiosks.
1996? 1997?
It was warfare!
Precisely.
Gee, I've never seen that film. I've always been a film snob and all I remember about that movie was that it was widely panned. Now that I look at the reviews it sounds as if the opposite was true--but I remember a lot of disdain when it came out.
It was and remains warfare.
..House Loves Cuddy..
THERE are Sortés stories
Not normally reported
But unfortunately stories
Are always post-mortems
And I thought I might have something to say
About International Womens' Day
And that fly on Maddison Counties arm
But Meryl swiftly brushed that away:
************
MAY we live long and then die out
And take with us instincts' behavior
If we're in pleasant situations
Then communication is a sign of Failure:
A.M., your story about your mother’s trauma resonated with me so deeply. It seems to reveal something C.S. Lewis was getting at in his essay—the way that unacknowledged pain from events like divorce can linger and shape entire lifetimes. The wound never truly closes, does it? The image of your mother, on her deathbed, back in the year of her divorce is so heartbreaking because it shows just how time can freeze around these deep emotional breaks.
Lewis talks about happiness as something fleeting, almost like an illusion when it’s pursued for its own sake. And your experience speaks to that disconnect. The trauma your mother endured wasn't just about losing a relationship; it was about losing a world of stability and meaning that she had invested in deeply, only to have it crumble. That kind of loss doesn’t get healed simply because “time moves on.”
What’s most powerful, though, is your shift towards healing through an understanding of the soul’s needs. This idea of “looking after the soul”—it’s a step towards reclaiming something solid amidst the chaos, the pursuit of a peace that is lasting rather than a happiness that’s fleeting. I think that’s what makes your reflection so moving: you show that these wounds aren’t just about pain; they’re also opportunities to find a more profound, soul-centered perspective.
The way you tie in the wisdom of Marcus Aurelius, and reflect on how Lewis offers an anchor back to Christian moral sanity, is really beautiful. It’s like you’re building a bridge across time—one where your mother’s story can be understood in light of these eternal principles. Thank you for sharing something so personal and for pointing towards a way through.
I completely understand and completely disagree with this sentiment: “I feel I deserve all the utter chaos, poverty, and self-hatred I invited after my divorce.” And somewhat agree that your parents (and societal ‘norms’ around divorce) seriously damaged your outlook. But no, not destroyed. You are reflecting deeply now and that matters.
I’m on a parallel path and so guess you are worried about your child, as I am mine. The good news is that we, with our children, are smart enough to keep digging until we find a way to end the inter-generational traumas.
Talking to myself as much as you now: start with love and forgiveness for YOU.
Much appreciated. It helped me to express it. I will move on to self healing hopefully. But it is the central failure of my life. I don't even want to feel ok about it.
whatever can you mean? central failure. that's like going up against the mafia in Las Vegas and gambling away your savings. you were never going to win. I'm astounded you blame yourself for an act of liberation — necessary no doubt at that moment to your survival.
although, when I think of my own central failure, I also ran out on something, broke a commitment rather than cope with the madness. but marriage per se? an instrument of real estate and inheritance, a social signifier, a power base. a certificate of hypocrisy. and those who are single suffer in its shadow.
You fell, in good faith, for an exponent driven, institutionalized trap.
And now you are out of the trap.
CHEER UP! ... :-)
well put.
A question, if you don't mind. The divorce happened before or after the 2006 Harper's article?
You were under attack before that article too. The psychological warfare bears some responsibility in all that. PsyWar is intended to make the enemy commit strategic mistakes.
Don't be too harsh on yourself, Celia.
Thank you for trying to spare me a bit. We were separated a few years after the Harper's attack but the rifts were there. I was into my holy battle as an escape from everything—I was a VERY hard person to be around I only remember being crazed to get the story perfect like a possession. I REGRET it. That article was nail in coffin for my marriage and then it was nuclear bomb to my "career" income and finally health and psyche. And for what?
A myth. (The myth of investigative journalism.) (It's just death, that is all it is. Poverty. Divorce. Trauma.)
They had driven me to the point of [deleted word] depression by 2009 and by then my ex husband had turned a corner and moved to Brooklyn. He did let me stay on his sofa when I had nowhere to live. Strange I have no shame in saying these things, now.
TRIUMPH!
TRIUMPH!
Time does heal some wounds.
Not a bad person your ex-husband at all. And a good example for other people in his situation. You were very blessed by God who put the right people in your way when you hit that low. Other people make the mistake of rejecting help from Heaven.
I sometimes mention "hope" to get on people's nerves on other substacks. Some people are so demoralized. Fear is definitely not a virtue. Faith is a virtue, and it keeps people alive.
Fear is like gunk we accumulate as we live in the world, and we have to clean that out ourselves. When people have their melt down as I mention hope and faith, sometimes they suddenly become receptive to the idea of combating fear. It's way easier to repeat the old tripe against Christian ideas than to actually combat fear.
I think you are doing good, Celia. Caring for the kittens was a good idea. And Lewis will be fine from that thing. Don't worry, he is tough like C.S.Lewis.
your work stands.
"If I had it to do over I would at least grasp that divorce is a catastrophe. Not just thing thing that's there for you when you need it." The fallout so often falls on the children, though that can be complex. Nuanced. Like so many things. Sigh. I'll spare you my own life experiences vis-a-vis divorce. What a mess all these broken marriages have led to. Heart-breaking.
I think of Ellie Holcomb’s song, “Wonderfully Made.”
The pre-chorus:
What if I saw me the way that You see me?
What if I believed it was true?
What if I traded this shame and self-hatred
For a chance at believing You?
https://open.spotify.com/track/5wkXQG7N7di8Vn1hTsTQLl?si=daee0ff268f149ae
Take away the romantic, hyptnotic words and the instinct (chemically) is to breed and propogate the species.
The words of love are the artform that makes the word-confused more comfortable in that process.
If they stay word-confused they can stay together, in tolerant degrees of misery.
If "the word" starts to catch up with the wordless instinct and becomes clearer, the worded remove themselves from the punishment of instinct.
Count your blessings, not your happiness.
C S Lewis is a bit of a fool.
He looks happy enough sucking on that pipe.
"I notice in recent decades and years that the devil media loves to promote couples who fell "madly in love" after leaving their spouses."
A well-documented affectation, an artifact of evolutionary biology that is increasingly referred to among mental health professionals as "serial monogamy."
Lionizing it in the media is a "two-fer." One for sales, because pandering sells and hope springs eternal. Two for the projection of the writer's own dashed hopes and dreams because misery loves company.
Eventually, most people learn to be content with what loving kindness they have. The fading of the fourteenth intensely passionate but short-lived new love, is elided for the sake of feeling oneself not such a fool as to have wasted so much of our very limited time on this earth.
All very understandable and forgivable, for who among us arrives at wisdom except by way of enduring agonies of our own devising?
Celia, your words resonate deeply because they confront one of the most painful and transformative truths: that the pursuit of happiness, as it’s often defined, can lead us far from the stability and meaning we crave. Your honesty about viewing yourself as a "modern monster" speaks to the dissonance so many feel between following personal desires and the wreckage they sometimes leave behind.
It’s striking how you describe the aftermath of divorce as inviting "utter chaos, poverty, and self-hatred." There’s an element here that mirrors C.S. Lewis’s caution about happiness becoming untethered from deeper values. When we take happiness as an end in itself, it’s like chasing a mirage that keeps shifting further away, leaving us to face the desert of consequence. Yet, that doesn’t mean the desire was misplaced or that you shouldn’t seek a better life for yourself—it’s just that the map society gives us might be leading us in circles rather than onward to true peace.
Your reflection about faith being a stabilizing force in marriage is a beautiful reminder of what C.S. Lewis might describe as the “eternal law”—the deeper currents that keep us grounded when surface waves try to toss us around. It’s that foundation that allows some people to stay married not for happiness’ sake, but because they’re building something that can endure the tempests.
And about self-loathing, maybe it's like fire—dangerous if unchecked, but purifying when channeled wisely. You clearly aren’t afraid to walk through those flames, and your willingness to share this path is a gift to those of us who look to you for guidance and empathy. Thank you for daring to say what so many only feel in silence.
Celia, this is an extraordinary outburst, confession, baring of the soul. not for nothing are you the child of Strindberg, both Bergmans — and what kind of actress would Ingrid have become if she hadn't fled her marriage to a nice dentist? — and some trickledown Ibsen and Tennessee Williams. and even Hamlet, who was merely Danish.
utter chaos, poverty, and self-hatred seem to have been the lot of most of my cultural heroes. these are signs or symptoms of a kind of intelligence that doesn't play safe.
CS Lewis isn't one of them. he's a pillar, is he not, of the Establishment, the state religion? I couldn't read him, he bored me.
Happiness is not a right. It's a state of being and the result of an awake mind. A right suggests that some higher power, other than God, grants us that right and just as easily they can take it away. In other words, powers like government have NO right to exist.
Is there, by definition, a power higher than God? If so, what is its name?
Privileges may be rescinded. Rights, to be negated, must be denied.
Whether it is a power "higher" is debateable ..but the idea that created god (mortal man) certainly has got the limits of his gods to answer for.
Your god may be limited. Mine is not. He can do anything, including the blessing of inalienable rights.
I haven't invented a god or had one invented for me to have to judge its limits .
I try and take responsibility for my thoughts and actions myself and not delegate them to a fantastic convenience.
Lewis was correct in his assertion, and I will go one step further in saying that even the pursuit of happiness is a fools errand, an instance of "dog chases car." Once caught, there's naught to be done but gnaw on the tires.
Contentment can be gained through studious effort, aided by a bit of luck. Happiness is a spontaneous outpouring of intense emotion, emotion to be savored and appreciated, to be sure, but not something that one can cling to without paying a terrible price.
People abide in category error, and it has always been thus, that we conflate amusement, congeniality and myriad other contented states for happiness. We then apply more effort to "turn up the amperage," attempting to sustain the spontaneous and ephemeral, through repetition of whatever activity preceded or enabled that contentment.
The result is not happiness, nor is it contentment. It is an eternally wistful striving, a state of chronic discontent. The answer isn't to abjure authentic happiness, but to delight in it when it momentarily appears and savor it without clinging to it as an alcoholic does to the numb delirium of drunkenness.
Life is, among other things, truly "solitary, nasty, brutish and short." As for those other things, they range from the mundane to the noble and domains elevated beyond our ken.
Pursue contentment, and allow happiness to shine forth when and where it will. We each have our allotment, and greedy pursuit of more than our due, is indeed a fools errand.
wonderfully put Ted. Who said that? That life is solitary, nasty, brutish and short?
Thomas Hobbes: https://1000wordphilosophy.com/2021/07/14/hobbes-on-the-state-of-nature/
Ironically, he was for absolutist government, as discussed in that article.
"Ironically, he was for absolutist government"
True enough, Teresa, but in 1651, the "firmament" was not rich in examples of representative forms of government with universal suffrage.
As far as that goes, the jury is still out on this noblest of experiments, an experiment well worth conducting, we would probably agree. As with all experiments, there are confounding factors to be considered. Those factors do not negate the experiment, but they must be confronted head-on, lest we find ourselves living entirely by illusion.
As Teresa L. points out, it was Hobbes in "Leviathan," Celia. The full usage was "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short."
I don't disagree with him, as far as that goes, but for the sake of my own sanity (admittedly a matter of pure self-interest,) I always remember that quote in juxtaposition with this phrase from Emerson's essay "On Self-Reliance:"
"A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his."
Hobbes is acknowledged to have been operating within that firmament. I reckon my point to be that we encounter acts of kindness and generosity even under the worst of conditions. I offer some of what occurred in Auschwitz in support of that assertion.
I omitted "poor" from the quote for selfish reasons. My own experience has been one of solitary flowers blooming in otherwise barren landscapes, metaphorically speaking. The contrast is stark, indeed, but without darkness, there can be no discernment of light.
Apropos of nothing, my family vows to have "on the other hand" engraved on my headstone.
Thanks for the compliment. Coming from you, it means a lot to me.
"Our hearts are restless until they rest in thee."
St Augustine
Superb essay by Lewis, per usual, and written with such plainspokenness and lucidity.
The Catholic Church remains steadfastly against divorce - the only religious group that remains thus today. The devastation upon the children remains unacknowledged. Look at all the societies in the West with legalized divorce - social fabric torn apart at the seams and more. Families no longer providing the safe haven they should be doing. The US' culture's insistence on individual rights as paramount above all else (when did that become a central tenet in public thought, by the way? I have no idea.) has bred excess individualism and narcissism to the utter destruction of families as well as the individual. When I read the histories of homeless patients, most if not all of them have no families to care for or even think about them. The non-Caucasian ethnic cultural pressures and norms, I think, prevent the phenomenon of wandering homeless individuals among their kind (Asian, South Asian, Middle Eastern, etc.). The tragic story of this woman who was dead for 4 days with no one noticing is instructive: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/officials-probe-death-wells-fargo-employee-found-dead-cubicle-4-days-l-rcna168756
The Philippines remains the sole country in the world without legalized divorce (and abortion- Ireland fell a few years ago when globalists manipulated the vote to legalize abortion in the Land of Saints and Scholars). So the well-paid minions of globalists in the Legislature have been pushing hard for their legalization. Thank goodness they've been kept at bay thus far. But the pernicious influence of Hollywood is the more dangerous trend overwhelming the culture there since the '60s.
More later. So many vital issues raised by this concise essay. Even in my lost years wandering in the spiritual wilderness dabbling in New Agey woo woo stuff, Lewis offered a solid anchor to Christian moral sanity via his "Screwtape Letters".
Have you read his "A Grief Observed"? Very moving. Made into movie, "Shadowlands".
No but I absolutely shall. Beautiful comment,
For one to pursue happiness, it cannot be paid by another
It has to be pursued with Faith and understanding
Culture social engineers got women out of the house, away from the family, in the name of "feminism". Also, taxing two working people instead of just one in a household was better for govt. Sexual "liberation" remains the untouchable issue today, doesn't it?
And yet, this most powerful natural urge of humans was let loose from social and legal restraints by the demons because a people who are addled by their worst vices and proclivities are a people so easily controlled. Like a drug addict - but the drug here is "free" and available anywhere. Also why porn became legalized across the world (except perhaps in Muslim countries?)
"Libido dominandi" - the lust for power and dominance and control - with sexual liberation as a means of political control, written up by E Michael Jones: https://www.fidelitypress.org/libido-dominandi
Read for free here: https://archive.org/details/libido-dominandi-sexual-liberation-political-control-e.-michael-jones
Listen for free here (LONG one): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq6l6nlPNEU
A little discussion here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uJj2FS_7qc
Think about this.
More later.
No, but we were given the right to pursue it
Persue ...but no right guranteed.
Could never be guaranteed, but ability to try is everything freedom stands for
right
It was a great trick to change the meaning of the words positive and negative to mean "good" and "bad." And, at the same time, the almost complete proscription of "good" and "bad" because they are judgmental words. The creators of the New Age thing never say "good" and "bad" or "evil." They judge and condemn real words as bad, which is so funny.
So, when I go over my head and criticize positive law no one can follow. People think "But positive is good! what's this idiot saying! I cannot follow this, I'm repelled by this negativity."
The language of Natural Law is better. But it's also confusing. Nothing is natural everything is man made and therefore evil. That's how many people are programmed to dismiss Natural Law ideas.
Celia, it's not just you. There is a moral fog everywhere. Everyone think it's normal but it's not.
---
If Kennedy gets to do something good against the mafia, all his critics would receive a well deserved lesson in humility.
I predict that **some** critics of Kennedy would applaud Kennedy and take merit from him, if and when he revamps the regulatory agencies, and then they would say he is doing what they wanted so their criticism was useful because it stimulated him in the right direction. Because narcissist are just like that.
An unexamined life is not worth living, guys!
Roger, this really made me think. There does seem to be no-narcissism everywhere. People want to brandish their criticisms/cynicisms, and banish any admiration, or conceal it. Zeitgeist of disapproval.
The word fatwa comes to mind.
People who told me to tone down my tendency to black-or-white thinking, have no nuance at all about Kennedy now. I think he is the only one who could, at least in theory, do even a little bit of good for the victims of the hospital genocides and the mRNA military. And it may not happen, but I don't share so much contempt. I'm angry but I remember Ron Paul: politics is about being in the right place at the right time.
Politics is not about justice or freedom. Politics is the art of the possible, and most of us cannot do politics at all.
By us I mean the people against vaccine genocide and Gaza genocide and the death cult of public health and eugenics and all the fascism that grows on it like a lichen. We are no good even in the politics of very small groups. We are too shocked and traumatized still. Newborns into the horrors of the Novo Ordo Seculorum and the Titanic crimes of the Rockefellers.
So, I reason, at least we should not eat our own, at least we should accept whatever little compensation we can get.
Nope. Not acceptable for most. I don't understand this attitude other the response of wounds bleeding again.
WEF says, "You will own nothing and be happy." Oh, no, they are telling us when we will be happy...when we own nothing because it gets taken away or is too expensive to buy.... https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2023/sep/28/instagram-posts/world-economic-forum-elites-are-pushing-the-great/
Happiness is a serious problem.
A great book (Dennis Prager’s) by the way. :)
I read it long ago!!!
Thanks for using it in a sentence. ;-p
"Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be." ~ Abraham Lincoln
Thanks for using it in a sentence. ;-p
Slavery is far too lucrative an institution to abandon to the "bleeding heart" do-gooders. Let them eat dirt while we eat cake and caviar.
Thanks for posting this essay by C.S. Lewis. Some years back I bought a used copy of Lewis’s Essay Collection and Other Short Pieces, which is out of print and therefore able to fetch $200 and up. I had the Blackstone Audio version (wonderfully read by Ralph Cosham, the narrator for this video), and wanted a hard copy. I treasure it—and Ralph Cosham’s recordings.
Many years ago, I was driving down a road in our town, and I saw a boy standing on a cinderblock, staring intently down the road, apparently waiting for someone to pick him up. It struck me that the cinderblock added only 8 inches or so to his height, and he could see only a little bit farther down the road than he could standing flat on the ground. It was a picture of anticipation.
It was also the harbinger of a song. I tried to imagine what the boy was thinking and feeling that day. In the years since then I have encountered some heartbreaking situations that could have been the story behind a scene like that, and I tried to weave them into song lyrics. But after writing a couple of verses, I got stuck and set it aside, unfinished.
Every so often, I would play the riffs, sing the verses, and move a little closer to the story I hoped to tell—a story of brokenness, and yet of hope. Last summer I finally finished the song, and I realized that until that time, I simply had not yet encountered the scenes and stories to weave into the remaining lyrics.
When those vignettes appeared in the course of time, the rest of the song fell into place. Sometimes we need to see only a little bit farther down the road. :)
For those who may be interested, it is on Spotify and other streaming services: https://open.spotify.com/track/39p3eBHhvu7S9UlXThRYeJ?si=9de5e5bf1f9f42f5
The right to pursue happiness is a natural right, ie, is provided by nature's God - not by government buraucrats .
The constitution secures it by safeguarding our rights to Life, Liberty and Property.
The Right to Life is protected by the right to bear arms , to defend the same and the Ninth Amendment.
The Right To Happiness is not defined In America, we decide for ourselves what produces happiness. We have never delegated to the government — ever — the power to make personal choices for us.
You know, along with rereading Tolkien, I'm gonna read all of CS lewis, starting with Mere Christianity