As I rounded yet another table, watching the students take a
surprise but hard test, my heart went out for them. I remembered the countless number of times when I took a
test. The teacher or monitor for such
tests always stood and announced our certain doom of filling in circles with a
#2 pencil. I remember those days all
too well and am thankful they are over with.
At least I hope they are over!
On that day a burden was placed on them, the weight that they
are now in America, thousands of miles away from home and attending an American school. My heart went out to them,
especially the new students.
That was Saturday.
Now after several days of interacting with them listening to their requests to go to Wallmart or the mall, their desires to exchange roommates or their enjoyment over simple things, such as the desire to see autumn in all its glory, another burden slowly creeps in. It is a different burden then taking a test…it is the burden of my neighbors, the students who have come from afar to study. It is the weight of glory for my neighbor. C. S. Lewis described it this way:
Now after several days of interacting with them listening to their requests to go to Wallmart or the mall, their desires to exchange roommates or their enjoyment over simple things, such as the desire to see autumn in all its glory, another burden slowly creeps in. It is a different burden then taking a test…it is the burden of my neighbors, the students who have come from afar to study. It is the weight of glory for my neighbor. C. S. Lewis described it this way:
The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor’s glory should be laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that even the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one of these destinations…There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal…But it is with immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.
(C. S. Lewis Weight of Glory)
This…this has been placed upon my heart for these students
and I pray it is placed upon your heart for your neighbors, wherever they are.
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