Thank you, CS Lewis

If I could write a thank you note to any writer of the past, I think it would be CS Lewis. I told my daughter the other day he's my "literary crush" when it comes to writings of faith and spiritual guidance. My favorite collections of his writings are "CS Lewis: Words to Live By" and "Yours, Jack" (a compilation of his personal letters). Lewis is a word crafter and I revel in the fact that he doesn't spoon feed cliches...he's straightforward, and yet, his words must be digested and considered, processed and translated by the reader.

Seldom do I read Lewis and find myself done. Like yeast, his words and imagery leaven and grow through personal reflection. I'll leave you with this for an example:

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.” 
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity