Eating the Shewbread

On this day in 1954, C.S. Lewis dined with Joy Davidman Gresham (his future wife) [ http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0001188.cfm ] and Ruth Pitter (winner of the Queen’s Medal for Poetry).

“I’m not a man for marriage, but if I were, I would ask Ruth Pitter.” C. S. Lewis to Hugo Dyson. [ http://www.crlamppost.org/dyson.htm ]

At fifty-eight years of age, C. S. Lewis married divorcee Joy Davidman. Their unusual marriage is well-chronicled and mostly acknowledged as a “match made in Heaven,” but at the time it was widely regarded as a sin.
God’s regulations for sexual matters are given in 1 Corinthians 7 and elsewhere in the Bible and are an ideal toward which we should strive. Missing the mark is sinful, but God is our judge.

Matthew 12: 3-8
He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven’t you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent? I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.”

1 Corinthians 7: 1, 2 - Concerning Married Life
Now for the matters you wrote about: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband . . .
1 Corinthians 7: 8-11
Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.

The Feline of Heaven?

“Francis Thompson symbolized God as the ‘Hound of Heaven,' pursuing on relentless feet. With me, God was more like a cat.” Joy Davidman Lewis, The Longest Way Round, in These Found the Way.

I much prefer cats to dogs, but for perverse reasons. I never feel obligated to a cat. If I ignore a cat, it does not whine or languish; it simply goes about its business. A cat’s demands for attention are frequent but not emotional; you can respond or not, they do not care.
Dogs on the other hand are invested. They need to feel affection and can go into a funk if they are ignored.
I would not attribute either of these attitudes to God, in toto.

Like a cat, God does not need anything from us, but He delights in our attention and will persist in giving it to us and seeking it from us. Like a blood hound, He is invested in our salvation, and has shown that He is willing to die to bring us home.

(The Devil, on the other hand, is definitely a feline: "a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." I Peter 5:8)
http://www.houndsofheaven.com/thepoem.htm

Holy Days

“How do you make a day holy? By seeing that it is holy already, and behaving accordingly." Joy Davidman Lewis, Smoke on the Mountain.

The same is true of the Christian life. How do we make ourselves holy? We cannot. But we can “work out our own salvation.” (Philippians 2:12). In other words, we can recognize that God has made us holy and behave accordingly.
I John 1:7 - But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

Joy Davidman Lewis was the author/poet wife of C. S. Lewis. Their life together and the triumph they experienced through her illness and death are chronicled in the film and subsequent book, Shadowlands. http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0001188.cfm