Meditation in a Toolshed

In this writing Lewis deals with the issue of how we look at lived experiences.  He uses the example of a beam of light in a dark toolshed to represent our experiences.  He starts by looking at the beam and uses this to illustrate how we often "look at" experiences.  From this perspective we are standing outside our experiences.  He then moves into a position where he can look along the beam of light.  He now can see trees, leaves, and the sun.  He uses this new position to illustrate how we oftentimes "look along" certain lived experiences.  When we look along experiences we are looking from the perspective of being inside that experience.

He gives numerous examples to show the difference between looking at and looking along.  A man involved who meets a girl and is instantly enamored by her and is overcome by feelings for her is looking along.  A scientist who is observing the situation and sees it merely as the man's genes and a recognized biological stimulus is looking at.  Once we can make this distinction between looking at and looking along, Lewis says we must decide which one of these is the true and valid perspective of the thing in question.  He adds that during the fifty years prior to this writing the answer had been taken for granted.  Most everyone assumes that to get the most accurate picture of something you must step outside of it.

He has two main objections to the idea of discounting all looked along experiences.  He claims that without looked along experiences we cannot think at all because we have nothing to think about.  Would there be any reason for any man to study pain form the outside, a neurological approach perhaps, if humans had not actually experienced pain from the inside?  Of course not.  His second objection is that we can only step outside of one experience by stepping into another.  All inside experiences cannot be misleading because then we would all be mislead.  He concludes by saying that know in advance which perspective is absolutely more true or reliable and that we have to find this out on a case by case basis.

This writing is so interesting because the scope of application is limitless.  How we see our experiences applies to every single area of life.  It is clear that over the last few centuries the "looking at" perspective has been automatically taken as the absolutely more correct perspective.  There is defiantly instances where looking at is very appropriate and has much explanatory power.  However, its is also very clear that the scientist is missing something when he describes the lover.  What he is seeing is true, but from his perspective it is impossible to get the full picture.  This is why the analogy of the beam is such a good one.  It is true that there is a beam of light in the tool shed, but it is not until one looks along it that they can see it's source and so much more such as the trees and leaves.  This is why Lewis concludes by saying we much determine who is right.  They could both be right or both be wrong, what is important is to not take one perceptive at an objectively higher value than the other.

Lewis makes the observation that in the fifty years leading up to his writing, the looking at perspective had been considered objectively better.  He uses the example of where people go to find out about religion.  They do not go to religious people but rather to anthropologists.  To many of these anthropologists Christianity seems like nothing more than a myth and morality nothing more than taboos.  Paul addresses this issue in his writings to the Corinthians when he says this in 1st Corinthians 1:18: "For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."  Paul is saying the exact same thing as Lewis.  Things, in this case the gospel, look totally different depending on whether they are seen from an inside or outside perspective.

Lewis says "one must look both along and at everything."  This raises all sorts of interesting and complex questions for Christians.  Sin must be included when Lewis uses the word everything, but he is certainly not saying that we are to engage in sin in order to see it from an inside perspective or to look along it.  He does in fact say that each case must be taken by its own merits.  All Christians are keenly aware of what sin feels because we are sinners by nature and choice.  We know how it feels to live in a way that separates us from God and does not live up to the law he has revealed in scripture.  I believe Christians have the ability to see the inside perspective on all sinful experience without actually committing those sins. I do not have to go out and kill someone in order to look along that experience because I know exactly what that experience will be.  It is sin like all sin and all Christians know the pain and negative effects that all sin brings even though the earthly consequences for specific sins vary in severity.