The Weight of Glory

I think that this essay contains some very interesting points. One point that Lewis made that I like is his distinction between mercenary and proper rewards. I think that most of the work that Americans do is mercenary, in which they receive money as a reward for a variety of different tasks. Mercenary rewards are not as fulfilling as proper rewards, which is why I think that many people are dissatisfied with their jobs.

I also think that Lewis brings up a good point in how we have this great desire, but that we don't know what it is. As creatures of the world, we like to think that these desires are of worldly things, because that is really all we are familiar with. Lewis' analogy of a child who prefers playing with mud over going to the beach, simply because he had never experienced the beach before, fits very well here. We place our desire on worldly things, which can't satisfy us forever. We do not know what heaven will be like, therefore we don't feel the intense desire to go there. In fact, we are often afraid to go to heaven, because we are familiar with the world than we are with heaven. Later in the essay, Lewis tries to identify what our desire truly is. He says that it is the desire to be known by God, like a child desires praise from his parents. I think that there is more to it than that, but as we have never experienced anything like it before, we can't understand what it is while we are still here.

I also like how Lewis comes to the conclusion that we want not only to see God's great glory, but to become united with it. His explanation of this being the reason that humans have made gods made a lot of sense to me. I also have seen passages in the Bible that support this idea of us being one with him. Overall, I think that Lewis makes a lot of insightful comments about glory from a human perspective.