wow.

I cannot tell you how many times I have read this poem, "As The Ruin Falls," and never quite understood it. It sounded so good and profound... but I never quite grasped it. Tonight, however, this poem became so real to me. And it is the most beautiful thing I have read since being here. This man is brilliant and continually serves to be an inspiration to me.

(you can click on the title of the poem to take you to a sweet video I found..)

As the Ruin Falls

by C. S. Lewis

All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.

I never had a selfless thought since I was born.

I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:

I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,

I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:

I talk of love --a scholar's parrot may talk Greek--

But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.

Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack.

I see the chasm. And everything you are was making

My heart into a bridge by which I might get back

From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.

For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains

You give me are more precious than all other gains.