Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold by C.S. Lewis
My review
rating: 5 of 5 stars
Beautiful, poignant, relevant, and deeply insightful.
An amazing and masterful retelling of the Psyche/Cupid myth. It is a story about truth, the different kinds of love – the selfish and selfless – and our own too-frequent inability to distinguish one from the other, or worse, our too-frequent ability to rationalize the use of the former over the latter.
We often are able to rationalize and justify all of our actions so as to make us the vilified parties who were in the right. We to be the selfless actors that give up and sacrifice while all those around use take advantage of our graces. I believe that the theme isn’t so much a “Christian” one, but a universal truth that it is not until we can be entirely honest and open with ourselves, until we have faces, that the gods – that truth – will be able to face us in return.
Being capable of articulating and understanding our own motivations is crucial, it is necessary in order to speak to the gods, but it is not sufficient. No, we must also be able to honestly define and understand the motivations and beliefs of those around us. All too often we think of those in our lives as those of mere ancillary players in the Story of Us, but how can we understand and distinguish between selfless and selfish love if we cannot understand and articulate either our own stories in addition to the stories of those who love us and we claim to love in return?
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Till We Have Faces
